4 i o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



what is generally regarded as its own sphere, hut that it also produces 

 all mental phenomena. At the same time, while admitting the con- 

 sciousness the intelligence of man and hrutes, he denies to them the 

 faculty of will, thus virtually denying to them any power. 



He thus raises the question as to the power of matter, and also as 

 to that of intelligent beings ; at least of beings of no higher grade than 

 man. It is not very clear whether or not he denies all intelligent 

 power. In saying he has with him " Pere Malebranche, who saw all 

 things in God," he seems to recognize a supreme power ; but then this 

 power in his system might logically be but a deification of material 

 forces, ignoring intelligent activity. 



Against attributing power to matter, we may urge that its exist- 

 ence as a distinct entity has never been proved, and is seriously ques- 

 tioned. To assume that so important a quality inheres, and especially 

 to assume that it inheres only in something, the existence of which is 

 doubtful, when it may, with equal reason, be attributed to something, 

 the existence of which is admitted, would be a grave philosophical and 

 logical mistake. 



Prof. Huxley rfdmits the existence of intelligent (conscious) beings, 

 but perhaps does not admit that power may, with eqtial reason, be 

 attributed to them, nor perhaps that there is any reasonable doubt as 

 to the existence of matter as a distinct entity ; leaving these two ques- 

 tions open to discussion. In regard to the latter, he will probably 

 admit that there is no decisive proof, and that the existence of matter 

 is only an inference from the sensations which we attribute to its 

 agency. But all the phenomena of these sensations are as well ac- 

 counted for on the hypothesis that they are directly produced in our 

 minds by some intelligent power as that they are the effects of matter. 



If the material universe is regarded as the work of an intelligent 

 Creator, working with design to produce a certain effect, then, upon 

 either hypothesis, it is the expression of a conception of this Creator, 

 existing as thought and imagery in his mind before he gave it palpa- 

 ble, tangible existence in ours, and the only question between the two 

 modes is, whether, in making it palpable to us, he transfers this 

 thought and imagery directly to our minds, or first paints, moulds, or 

 carves them in a distinct material substance. The external univer.se 

 would not, in the first of these modes, be any the less real. The sen- 

 sations, which are all that under either hypothesis concern us, or that 

 we know any thing about, would be the same in both cases. But we 

 can no more impute power to such imagery than to an image in a mir- 

 ror, and under this hypothesis material sensation would have no exist- 

 ence. 



One consideration favoring the ideal theory is, that, under it, crea- 

 tion becomes more conceivable to us. We can, any of us, conceive or 

 imagine a landscape, and vary its features at will. This is an incipient 

 creation which, if we could impress it upon the mind of another, would 



