ly spiritual question. If we are to argue on _a priori_ grounds,
we are on the contrary justified in saying that the human mind, which
has discovered and is capable of co-ordinating the myriad facts
concerning the world of matter that make up modern science, is itself
something far more wonderful than any of its discoveries, or the sum of
them. If we are asked, "Is it conceivable that suns and stars shall
pass away--as they undoubtedly will--and that man shall persist?" we
can but answer, "Yes; it is very conceivable; for man is far more
highly organised than suns and stars, moves on an immeasurably higher
level, can reason, look before and after, form ideals of conduct, reach
out in love, and think the thoughts of God after Him." As soon as we
leave the lower reaches of being, bulk is seen to matter very little.
The immense proportions of those flying reptiles and other monsters
which peopled the earth in pre-historic {227} times did not protect
them against dying out, and their places being taken by much slighter
creatures which had some more valuable attributes than size; the
_diplodocus Carnegii_ in the British Museum measures some seventy-five
feet, but that fact did not prevent the species from becoming extinct
uncounted ages since--simply because it was lacking in the higher
qualities which would have enabled it to survive. And even the
_diplodocus_, with its lumbering body and diminutive brain, was whole
worlds superior to inorganic nature. That the marvellous thing called
human personality should outlast the decay of what is so much inferior
to itself, is therefore not only not inconceivable, but in itself not
even improbable. It is a strange sort of modesty--to say the least of
it--which would make us think ourselves of less account in the scale of
existence or the sight of God than unconscious matter in its cruder and
lower stages. One might as sensibly urge that the delicate hairspring
of a watch, being of featherweight and almost invisible, must be worth
less than a lump of crude iron-ore.

(2) We turn to the supposed argument from evolution, _viz._, from man's
lowly origin, as furnishing a strong presumption against his
immortality. This plea, familiar enough in sceptical discussions of
the subject, has been put forward with great poetic force by Mr.
William Watson; after graphically describing {228} "the gibbering form
obscene that was and was not man," as lower in many respects than the
beasts an