are conscious—the poverty, the disappointments, the anxieties, the physical anguish, the bloodshed, the ingratitude, the raging lusts and passions of humanity-all spring from a belief -a purely empirical belief in the existence of the Universe, of each other, and of ourselves. Once show that such belief is entirely without foundation, and the horrid vision vanishes,

never to return.

It will be necessary, for the due elaboration of our argument, to begin by writing as though the Universe existed. This is the method adopted by Euclid, when he hypothesizes a palpable absurdity in order to prove the impossibility of something else being anything but what it is. Assuming, therefore, for convenience' sake, the truth of a proposition that we hope very shortly to demolish, we may make the further concession that the Universe is one. That is no more than fair. And it is all the more necessary to lay stress upon the objective unity of this hypothetical Universe, in view of the innumerable standpoints from which it is regarded. Things appear so differently to

different people, that if they really are what they seem they must be all sorts of different things themselves; and then the Universe would be nothing but a self-contradictory chaos, in which two and two might make either four or five, and its critics be left without any trustworthy basis of cognition, or argument, or perception. No candid person, however prejudiced, would, in his better moments, bring so serious a charge against the general scheme of things, and the fullest weight should be allowed to the consideration. But there is an art of seeing things as well as an art of putting things, and there are no rules for either; it is a matter of education, of association, of mental temperament; and in our views of life an a priori hypothesis is usually at the root of the picture we think we see. Each man, in fact, lives in a world of his own. The scheme of things in general, for instance, is a very different affair to the Dalai Lama from what it is to Colonel Robert Ingersoll. Each of these well-meaning persons views it with a different eye, with different prepossessions; in short, from a different stand

point. No two objects of contemplation could be more widely divergent from each other, more utterly foreign and opposed, have less in common, than the world as seen by the Buddhist Pope, and the world as seen by the American iconoclast; yet it is the same world, with the same laws governing it, the same people in it, the same history, the same inevitable destiny. Or to take another illustration: There are, among us, two very estimable classes of persons, with whom we come frequently in contact-the Freemasons and the Spiritualists. Both, no

doubt, read their Bibles; but what a different book that Bible is to each! To the enthusiastic Freemason, the Old Testament-if not the New is in a great measure a record of the Mystic Craft. When the children of Israel gathered together at the door of the Tabernacle, that was a Lodge; the ceremony that took place on the river-bank after the passage of the Jordan was a Lodge, too; Abraham, Moses, and other notables of old, were Grand-masters of the Order. Lodges were held every day, of course, while Solomon's Temple was being built,

and when the chiefs of the people returned to Jerusalem during the Babylonish Captivity, they began holding Royal Arch Chapters. But with what different eyes does the Spiritualist read the Bible! To him it is a manual of Mediumship. The Witch of Endor was a psychic of the highest order, who succeeded in materializing the prophet Samuel; Elijah and his successor were healing mediums, and the former ended his career by an act of levitation which Mr. Home and Mrs. Guppy could but feebly imitate. The schools of the Sons of the Prophets were associations for the development of mediumistic powers; the assembly of the disciples on the Day of Pentecost was nothing more or less than a séance, at which some most remarkable manifestations were obtained. But

I need not multiply instances. It is only necessary to impress upon the reader the inherently Protean nature of all objects whatever of which we can take cognizance, whether it be the material Universe (so called), or social institutions, or the living world of men and women, or anything else in the great scheme

of things in general. The thing is one, but the points of view from which it may be regarded, are indefinitely numerous; so that while there can be but one objective Universe, the number of subjective universes present to the consciousness of sentient and thinking beings is practically infinite.

What standpoint, then, shall we select for the consideration of our theme? Clearly, the matter seems of no small importance; and equally clear is it that our standpoint should be the very widest possible. But it is difficult to be eclectic without becoming self-contradictory, and therefore unintelligible. If we inquire, at the outset, of what the Universe is made, we are at once bewildered by the conflicting answers we receive. We are told of the Impact theory and of the Nebular theory; we may take our choice between cosmic vapour and cosmic dust, while the Editor of Nature-whom we must not confound with the Author of Nature-postulates a primordium full of stones. It is really impossible for a plain man to decide between so many attractive suggestions. Whatever the