Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/333

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NOUMENA.
311

nitely between the evolutionary merits of the two.

Incidentally it is somewhat amusing to notice how thoroughly irreligious this supposed religious view is. For what warrant has man to prescribe laws to an omnipotent creator and arrogantly to regard one mode of creative action as unworthy to be used in his construction? The dualistic assumption thus carries with it, both scientifically and sentimentally, its own disproof.

The truth is that the only logical explanation of matter and mind is that the two are one; and that the life-principle of the whole is some mode of motion. When we have, as we say, an idea, what happens inside us is probably something like this: the neural current of molecular change passes up the nerves, and through the ganglia reaches at last the cortical cells and excites a change there. Now the nerve-cells have been so often thrown into this particular form of wave-motion that they vibrate with great ease. The nerves, in short, are good conductors, and the current passes swiftly along them, but when it reaches the cortical cells, it finds a set of molecules which are not so