Introduction to science / by Alex Hill.

  • Alexander Hill
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introduction to science / by Alex Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the universe, these three realities stand forth: matter, force, consciousness. And as we know that matter is in¬ destructible, it seems to us impossible to escape the con¬ clusion that consciousness is indestructible also. We can no more conceive of it as coming out of nothing or fading into nothingness than we can conceive of matter or of force coming into existence or ceasing to be. And as the portion of matter which constitutes our bodies is but a part of a universe of matter, and as the force with which we are endowed is but a part of a universe of force, so, too, our consciousness seems to be but a part of universal consciousness. How are we to know anything about the universal con¬ sciousness unless by revelation ? Science has stopped short at the confines of the knowable. This is its boundary. It cannot proceed farther than the five senses. They give it no support in a region where there are no phenomena to be observed. The external relations of consciousness are known only to religion. Religion which must from the necessities of the case be expressed in human language, is represented by phenomena of the physical universe. To some minds the representation carries a more real, to others a more allegorical meaning, but the form in which it carries most meaning is, to the individual, most true. Science can throw no light upon religion in its inner sense. It cannot criticise religion. It can only recognise the existence of the other world and retire to its own domain ; and as our subject is science, it is our duty also, having brought our argument to its proper limit, to cease from any attempt to follow it farther. But what of the alleged incursions of the spirit-world into the physical universe ; ghosts making themselves sensible to eye and ear, spirit-rappings, table-turning without the applica¬ tion of adequate muscular force, materializations, and all the other hocus-pocus of theosophy ? Has science no right to resent the trespass ? Of course it has. As soon as the phenomenon becomes a physical phenomenon it is the duty
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