THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. 5 6i 



first is only an image of substance, the last an image of action ; but 

 substance and action both are only effects of intelligent force, that is, 

 of activity operating in view of a result. That activity, however, pre- 

 sents infinitely varied degrees of condensation, and we may say, with 

 Maudsley: "One equivalent of chemical force corresponds to several 

 equivalents of lower force ; and one equivalent of vital force to several 

 equivalents of chemical force." It is thus that modern science unties 

 the gordian knot of the composition of matter. 



in. 



A first exclusively analytical view of the world has led us to a first 

 undeniable certainty, the existence of a principle of energy and motion. 

 A second view of the universe, exclusively synthetic, leads us, as we 

 have seen, to another certainty, which is the existence of a principle 

 of differentiation and harmony. This principle is what is called spirit. 

 Thus spirit is not substance, but it is the law of substance ; it is not 

 force, but it is the revealer of force. It is not life, but it makes life 

 exist. It is not thought, but it is the consciousness of thought. A 

 distinguished English savant, Carpenter, has said lately, with de- 

 cisive clearness, " Spirit is the sole and single source of power." In 

 a word, it is not reality, yet in it and by it realities are denned and 

 differentiated, and consequently exist. Instead of saying that spirit is 

 a property of matter, we should say that matter is a property of spirit. 

 Of all the properties of matter, in fact, there is not one, no, not a 

 single one, which is not bestowed on it by spirit. The true explana- 

 tion, the only philosophy of Nature, is thus a kind of spiritualistic 

 dynamism, very different from materialism, or from the mechanism of 

 certain contemporary schools. 



Materialism is false and imperfect, because it stops short at atoms, 

 in which it localizes those properties for which atoms supply no cause, 

 and because it neglects force and spirit, which are the only means 

 we have, constituted as our souls are, of conceiving the activity and 

 the appearings of beings. It is false and imperfect, because it stops 

 half-way, and treats compound and resolvable factors as simple and 

 irreducible ones ; and because it professes to represent the world by 

 shows, without attempting to explain the production of those shows. 

 In a word, it sees the cause of diversity where it is not, and fails to 

 see it where it does exist. The source of differentiations cannot be in 

 energy itself; it must be in a principle apart from that energy, in a 

 superior will and consciousness, of which we have doubtless only a dim 

 and faulty idea, but as to which we can yet affirm that they have some 

 analogy with the inner light which fills us, and which we shed forth 

 from us, and which teaches us, by its mysterious contact with the 

 outer world, the infinite order of the universe. 



The danger from materialism is not, as we usually incline to 

 think, corruption of morals by degradation of the soul. Too much 

 vol. in. 36 



