AS APPLIED TO MAN. 361) 



than those which consist in reducing the whole universe, 

 not merely to matter, but to matter conceived and 

 defined so as to be philosophically inconceivable. It 

 is surely a great step in advance, to get rid of the 

 notion that matter is a thing of itself, which can exist 

 per se, and must have been eternal, since it is supposed 

 to be indestructible and uncreated, that force, or the 

 forces of nature, are another thing, given or added to 

 matter, or else its necessary properties, and that 

 mind is yet another thing, either a product of this 

 matter and its supposed inherent forces, or distinct 

 from and co-existent with it ; and to be able to sub- 

 stitute for this complicated theory, which leads to 

 endless dilemmas and contradictions, the far simpler 

 and more consistent belief, that matter, as an entity 

 distinct from force, does not exist ; and that FORCE 

 is a product of MIND. Philosophy had long demon- 

 strated our incapacity to prove the existence of matter, 

 as usually conceived ; while it admitted the demon- 

 stration to each of us of our own self-conscious, ideal 

 existence. Science has now worked its way up to 

 the same result, and this agreement between them 



' O 



should give us some confidence in their combined 

 teaching. 



The view we have now arrived at seems to me 

 more grand and sublime, as well as far simpler, than 

 any other. It exhibits the universe, as a universe 

 of intelligence and will-power ; and by enabling us to 

 rid ourselves of the impossibility of thinking of mind, 

 but as connected with our old notions of matter, 



2 B 



