Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Church of England; Skepticism; Skepticism -- Controversial literature
Thirdly, Watch the full moon rising--how large and round she looks,
resting as it were upon that eastern hill, and seen amidst the tops
of its forest trees! How much larger and broader than when she hangs
aloft in upper sky! Has every one here learned the true reason why?
If not, look at her through a slit in a card, and her diameter will be
the same. Fourthly, A schoolboy is crossing his bedroom in the deep
dark night, anxiously hoping that his head may not come into collision
with the bed-post. Though carefully and successfully avoiding it, he
imagines of a sudden that the blow is imminent. Quick as thought he
stops to save his head, and, behold, the room is as quickly filled
with sparks or flames of fire. Another moment, and all becomes dark
once more. I have heard many a schoolboy exclaim over this phenomenon,
but never knew one who could explain it. Finally, did you ever, on
opening your eyes in a morning, close them quickly again, and keep them
shut, directing them as if to look straight forwards? Most persons of
active nervous power, after a few trials--say a dozen, or a score--are
surprised to see colours appear and flit before the sight. Some years
ago, Germany's greatest poet tried, at the suggestion of her greatest
physiologist, a series of experiments on these coloured images. He
found that by an effort of will he could cause them to come and go,
govern their movement, march, and succession. And this took place
under no conditions of impaired sensation, nor any hallucination of a
diseased mind. A thoroughly healthy will succeeded in impressing itself
upon physical instruments, controlling their law, and creating at its
own pleasure an unfailingly bright phantasmagoria.
Some here may, others may not, have apprehended the distinctions
between our five cases. The first two are due to the sensory apparatus,
its optical laws of continued impression and complementary colour.
In the latter three, mind intervenes. The enlarged size of the moon
occurs through rapid comparison, the fiery lights in a dark room
through instinctive apprehension, both influences of mind on the
sensory system. The fifth and most interesting of all is no bad
example of interference between moral and material law. The will truly
causative (you may remark) overrules the natural process of physical
impression, alters it, and creates a designed effect. I wish I could
induce my young friends to devise a number of experiments on similar
mixed cases, and, having tried them, to dissect out their real laws.
These sharpenings of the critical faculty are exceedingly useful--they
cultivate clearness; and most people know that two-thirds among our
mistakes in life are caused by confusion of thought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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