the logical acumen and love of exact distinctions is there: there too the natural piety and spiritual appreciation of the nature of Christian prayer—a piety and appreciation which later intellectual habits of thought could never eradicate. The essay, as judged by the standard of prize compositions, is of remarkable ability, and strictly proceeds within the limits of the thesis. On the one side, for the purpose of the argument, the existence of a Personal God is assumed[1], and also the reality of the Christian Revelation which assures us that we have reason to expect real answers, even though conditionally and within restricted limits, to prayers for physical goods[2]. On the other side, there is taken for granted the belief that general laws pervade the observable domain of physical nature. Then the question is considered—how is the physical efficacy of prayer which the Christian accepts on the authority of revelation compatible with the scientifically known fact that God governs the world by general laws? The answer is mainly found in emphasizing the limited sphere within which scientific inquiry can be conducted and scientific knowledge can obtain. Special divine acts of response to prayer, even in the physical sphere, may occur—force may be even originated in response to prayer—and still not produce any phenomenon such as science must take cognizance of and regard as miraculous or contrary to the known order.

On one occasion the Notes refer back to this essay[3], and more frequently, as we shall have occasion to notice, they reproduce thoughts which had already been expressed in the earlier work but had been obscured or repudiated in the interval. I have no grounds for knowing whether in the main Romanes remained satisfied with the reasoning and conclusion of his earliest essay, granted the theistic hypothesis on which it rests[4]. But this hypothesis itself, very shortly after publishing this essay, he was led to repudiate. In other words, his mind moved rapidly and sharply into a position of reasoned scepticism about the existence of God at all. The Burney Essay was published in 1874. Already in 1876 at least he had written an anonymous work with a wholly sceptical conclusion, entitled 'A Candid Examination of Theism' by Physicus[5]. As the Notes were written with direct reference to this work, some detailed account of its argument seems necessary; and this is to be found in the last chapter of the work itself, where the author summarizes his arguments and draws his conclusions. I venture therefore to reproduce this chapter at length[6].

'§ 1. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very few words will here suffice to convey an epitomized recollection of the numerous facts and conclusions which we have found it necessary to contemplate. We first disposed of the conspicuously absurd supposition that the origin of things, or the mystery of existence [i.e. the fact that anything exists at all], admits of being explained by the theory of Theism in any further degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it was shown that the argument "Our heart requires a God" is invalid, seeing that such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient to prove—or even to render probable—an objective existence. And with regard to the further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations points to God as to their explanatory cause, it became necessary to observe that the argument could only be admissible after the possibility of the operation of natural causes [in the production of our theistic aspirations] had been excluded. Similarly the argument from the supposed intuitive necessity of individual thought [i.e. the alleged fact that men find it impossible to rid themselves of the persuasion that God exists] was found to be untenable, first, because, even if the supposed necessity were a real one, it would only possess an individual applicability; and second, that, as a matter of fact, it is extremely improbable that the supposed necessity is a real necessity even for the individual who asserts it, while it is absolutely certain that it is not such to the vast majority of the race. The argument from the general consent of mankind, being so obviously fallacious both as to facts and principles, was passed over without comment; while the argument from a first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument that, as human volition is a cause in nature, therefore all causation is probably volitional in character, was shown to consist in a stretch of inference so outrageous that the argument had to be pronounced worthless.

'§ 2. Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in favour of Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known minds are caused by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind; therefore our mind is caused by an unknown mind,—is a syllogism that is inadmissible for two reasons. In the first place, it does not account for mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a prior mind for its origin; and therefore, although the hypothesis, if admitted, would be an explanation of known mind, it is useless as an argument for the existence of the unknown mind, the assumption of which forms the basis of that explanation. Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind is so far an entity sui generis that it must be either self-existing or caused by another mind, there is no assignable warrant for the assertion. And this is the second objection to the above syllogism; for anything within the whole range of the possible may, for aught that we can tell, be competent to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector to the above syllogism need not hold any theory of things at all; but even as opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. We know that what we call matter and force are to all appearance eternal, while we have no corresponding evidence of a mind that is even apparently eternal. Further, within experience mind is invariably associated with highly differentiated collocations of matter and distributions of force, and many facts go to prove, and none to negative, the conclusion that the grade of intelligence invariably depends upon, or at least is associated with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development. There is thus both a qualitative and a quantitative relation between intelligence and cerebral organisation. And if it is said that matter and motion cannot produce consciousness because it is inconceivable that they should, we have seen at some length that this is no conclusive consideration as applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental nature, and that in the present case it is particularly inconclusive, because, as it is speculatively certain that the substance of mind must be unknowable, it seems à priori probable that, whatever is the cause of the unknowable reality, this