  In the May number of our Journal, there appeared a review of, and some extracts from, “Scientific Theism,” by Phare Pleigh. [10] Now, Phare Pleigh evidently means more than “hands off.” A live lexicographer, given to the Anglo-Saxon tongue, might add to the above definition the “laying on of hands,” as well. Whatever his nom de plume means, an acquaintance with the author justifies one [15] in the conclusion that he is a power in criticism, a big protest against injustice; but, the best may be mistaken. One of these extracts is the story of the Cheshire Cat, which “vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end [20] of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.” Was this a witty or a happy hit at idealism, to illustrate the author's fol- lowing point?— “When philosophy becomes fairy-land, in which neither [25] laws of nature nor the laws of reason hold good, the attempt of phenomenism to conceive the universe as a phenomenon without a noumenon may succeed, but not before; for it is an attempt to conceive a grin without a cat.” [30] True idealism is a divine Science, which combines in [1] logical sequence, nature, reason, and revelation. An effect without a cause is inconceivable; neither philoso- phy nor reason attempts to find one; but all should con- ceive and understand that Spirit cannot become less than [5] Spirit; hence that the universe of God is spiritual,—even the ideal world whose cause is the self-created Principle, with which its ideal or phenomenon must correspond in quality and quantity. The fallacy of an unscientific statement is this: that [10] matter and Spirit are one and eternal; or, that the phe- nomenon of Spirit is the antipode of Spirit, namely, mat- ter. Nature declares, throughout the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, that the specific nature of all things is unchanged, and that nature is constituted of and by [15] Spirit. Sensuous and material realistic views presuppose that nature is matter, and that Deity is a finite person con- taining infinite Mind; and that these opposites, in sup- positional unity and personality, produce matter,—a [20] third quality unlike God. Again, that matter is both cause and effect, but that the effect is antagonistic to its cause; that death is at war with Life, evil with good,— and man a rebel against his Maker. This is neither Science nor theism. According to Holy Writ, it is a [25] kingdom divided against itself, that shall be brought to desolation. The nature of God must change in order to become matter, or to become both finite and infinite; and matter must disappear, for Spirit to appear. To the material [30] sense, everything is matter; but spiritualize human thought, and our convictions change: for spiritual sense takes in new views, in which nature becomes Spirit; and [1] Spirit is God, and God is good. Science unfolds the fact that Deity was forever Mind, Spirit; that matter never produced Mind, and vice versa. The visible universe declares the invisible only by re- [5] version, as error declares Truth. The testimony of mate- rial sense in relation to existence is false; for matter can neither see, hear, nor feel, and mortal mind must change all its conceptions of life, substance, and intelligence, before it can reach the immortality of Mind and its ideas. [10] It is erroneous to accept the evidence of the material<
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