It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every religion and philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along, and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them.
Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.
It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the Spirits of the Dead.
If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fall to leave their impress behind them.
The chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine as well as in nature Spirits is their materialism.
As no outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three functions named, so with the external or manifested Universe.