296 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

which the truth of all our highest, ultimate and most certain

intellectual principles consists ?

After pondering over the fact that the cause of the

universe is the cause of all truth and of all the knowledge

to which it is possible for us to attain, it seems impossible to

regard it as other than an eternal and ever-present reason latent

in all the phenomena of which we can take cognizance. If,

then, we turn back our mental gaze over the devious path we

have traversed, and survey it in the light thus gained, an

important consequence appears necessarily to follow.

We have considered, in successive chapters, a variety of

intervals, breaches of continuity, and fresh departures which

have now and again occurred in nature. We have taken

note of the gap between the non-living and the living, the

insentient and the sentient, the irrational and the rational.

But these breaches of continuity present a difficulty and seem

repugnant to the mind of the modern student of nature. It

needs the distinct recognition of a profound and pervading

reason, as underlying and governing nature> to satisfactorily

do away with such difficulty and repugnance, and enable us

to apprehend how such difficulty and repugnance may be

merely due to the impotence of our imagination to picture

to itself how such new departures could ever have taken

place. We must frankly concede the utter impossibility of

any imagination thereof, while at the same time recognizing

once more the important truth that our inability to imagine

anything is no necessary bar to our conception of it or to

our perception that what is unimaginable is none the less

necessarily true and certain.

Other marvels which have similarly tried our imaginative

powers have been the varied instincts wherewith so many

animals are endowed, and the first occurrence of the external

expression of abstract ideas by human gestures and vocal

utterances. But a cause replete with intelligence as well

which the truth of all our highest, ultimate and most certain

intellectual principles consists ?

After pondering over the fact that the cause of the

universe is the cause of all truth and of all the knowledge

to which it is possible for us to attain, it seems impossible to

regard it as other than an eternal and ever-present reason latent

in all the phenomena of which we can take cognizance. If,

then, we turn back our mental gaze over the devious path we

have traversed, and survey it in the light thus gained, an

important consequence appears necessarily to follow.

We have considered, in successive chapters, a variety of

intervals, breaches of continuity, and fresh departures which

have now and again occurred in nature. We have taken

note of the gap between the non-living and the living, the

insentient and the sentient, the irrational and the rational.

But these breaches of continuity present a difficulty and seem

repugnant to the mind of the modern student of nature. It

needs the distinct recognition of a profound and pervading

reason, as underlying and governing nature> to satisfactorily

do away with such difficulty and repugnance, and enable us

to apprehend how such difficulty and repugnance may be

merely due to the impotence of our imagination to picture

to itself how such new departures could ever have taken

place. We must frankly concede the utter impossibility of

any imagination thereof, while at the same time recognizing

once more the important truth that our inability to imagine

anything is no necessary bar to our conception of it or to

our perception that what is unimaginable is none the less

necessarily true and certain.

Other marvels which have similarly tried our imaginative

powers have been the varied instincts wherewith so many

animals are endowed, and the first occurrence of the external

expression of abstract ideas by human gestures and vocal

utterances. But a cause replete with intelligence as well