[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
Sra,—It seems to me that the theory, identified with Kant's name, of the subjectivity, or unreality, of time and space is rendered almost infinitely improbable by the doctrine of Evolution. The minds of men and of animals are evolved oat of the universe that surrounds them ; and space and time are "forms of thought" because they first were facts of the universe.
Their relation to the mind of the Creator is a different question. The admirable lines from Lord Tennyson's " Princess," quoted in Mrs. Caillard's letter in the Spectator of September 12th, remind me of the following already published lines of my own, which, though not comparable to Lord Tennyson's in beauty, are perhaps equally near the truth, where only an approximation to it is possible :—
"Eternity is not, as men believe,
Before and after us, an endless line. No, 'tis a circle, infinitely great, All the circumference with creations thronged :
God at the centre dwells, beholding all,
And, as we move in this eternal round, The finite portion which alone we see Behind us, is the Past ; what lies before, We call the Future. But to Him who dwells Far at the centre, equally remote From every point of the circumference, Both are alike—the Future and the Past."
—I am, Sir, &c.,
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