in resolving all properties of objects into manifestations of force, he is not thereby enabled to conceive what force is; but finds, on the contrary, that the more he thinks about it, the more he is baffled. Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him down to sensations as the original materials out of which all thought is woven, he is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the least comprehend sensation. Inward and outward things he thus discovers to be alike inscrutable in their ultimate genesis and nature. He sees that the Materialist and Spiritualist controversy is a mere war of words; the disputants being equally absurd--each believing he understands that which it is impossible for any man to understand. In all directions his investigations eventually bring him face to face with the unknowable; and he ever more clearly perceives it to be the unknowable. He learns at once the greatness and the littleness of human intellect--its power in dealing with all that comes within the range of experience; its impotence in dealing with all that transcends experience. He feels more vividly than any others can feel, the utter incomprehensibleness of the simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone truly _sees_ that absolute knowledge is impossible. He alone _knows_ that under all things there lies an impenetrable mystery. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: Since this was written (in 1857) the advance of paleontological discovery, especially in America, has shown conclusively, in respect of certain groups of vertebrates, that higher types have arisen by modifications of lower; so that, in common with others, Prof. Huxley, to whom the above allusion is made, now admits, or rather asserts, biological progression, and, by implication, that there have arisen more heterogeneous organic forms and a more heterogeneous assemblage of organic forms.] [Footnote 3: For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on "Manners and Fashion."]