as the hand or the foot. There is the
inner man--the soul--behind, using all these
mechanisms; and this is as evidently the truth
with regard to all the existences we know of as
with regard to man himself. We cannot find
any point in the scale of being at which soul-causation
ceases or can cease. The dull oyster
must have that in him which makes him choose
the inactive life he leads; none else can choose
it for him but the soul behind, which makes
him be. How else can he be where he is, or be
at all? Only by the intervention of an impossible
creator called by some name or other.

It is because man is so idle, so indisposed
to assume or accept responsibility, that he falls
back upon this temporary makeshift of a
creator. It is temporary indeed, for it can only
last during the activity of the particular brain
power which finds its place among us. When
the man drops this mental life behind him,
he of necessity leaves with it its magic lantern
and the pleasant illusions he has conjured up
by its aid. That must be a very uncomfortable
moment, and must produce a sense of nakedness
not to be approached by any other sensation.
It would seem as well to save one's
self this disagreeable experience by refusing to
accept unreal phantasms as things of flesh
and blood and power. Upon the shoulders of