her. Our present powers, it is true,
shrivel into nothingness when brought to bear on such a problem, but
it is because of its complexity and our limits that this is the case.
The quality of the problem and of our powers are, we believe, so
related, that a mere expansion of the latter would enable them to cope
with the former. Why, then, in scientific speculation should we turn
our eyes exclusively to the past? May it not be that a time is
coming--ages no doubt distant, but still advancing--when the dwellers
upon this fair earth, starting from the gross human brain of to-day as
a rudiment, may be able to apply to these mighty questions faculties
of commensurate extent? Given the requisite expansibility to the
present senses and intelligence of man--given also the time necessary
for their expansion--and this high goal may be attained. Development
is all that is required, and not a change of quality. There need be
no absolute breach of continuity between us and our loftier brothers
yet to come.

We have guarded ourselves against saying that the inferring of thought
from material combinations and arrangements would be an inference _a
priori_. The inference meant would be the same in kind as that which
the observation of the effects of food and drink upon the mind would
enable us to make, differing only from the latter in the degree of
analytical insight which we suppose attained. Given the masses and
distances of the planets, we can infer the perturbations consequent on
their mutual attractions. Given the nature of a disturbance in water,
air, or aether--knowing the physical qualities of the medium we can
infer how its particles will be affected. In all this we deal with
physical laws. The mind runs with certainty along the line of thought
which connects the phenomena, and from beginning to end there is no
break in the chain. But when we endeavour to pass by a similar
process from the phenomena of physics to those of thought, we meet a
problem which transcends any conceivable expansion of the powers which
we now possess. We may think over the subject again and again, but it
eludes all intellectual presentation. We stand at length face to face
with the Incomprehensible. The territory of physics is wide, but it
has its limits from which we look with vacant gaze into the region
beyond. Let us follow matter to its utmost bounds, let us claim it in
all its forms--even in the muscles, blood, and brain of man
him