THE RADICAL FALLACY OF MATERIALISM. 357 



clear ideas, there is no other alternative than to view the three as dis- 

 tinct but incomprehensible existences. Consciousness reveals itself 

 through matter and energy. Energy reveals itself through matter and 

 consciousness. Matter reveals itself through energy and consciousness. 

 Take away any one of the three and the other would be unknown. 

 How could we know matter but for vibrations ? How could we know 

 energy but for matter ? How could we know consciousness but for 

 sensations induced by energy ? No one of these can be known without 

 the other. Mr. Fiske's world of pure consciousness is as inconceivable 

 as a world of motion where there is nothing to move. We do not and 

 cannot know what the substance of matter is. We only know the 

 sensations it produces in us through its vibrations. The theory that 

 assumes the existence of matter is accepted because no other will ex- 

 plain our experiences. We meet precisely the same difficulties when 

 we assert that matter is the result of the combination of consciousness 

 and energy, or that energy is the result of the combination of con- 

 sciousness and matter, as when we declare that consciousness is the 

 result of matter and energy. Let any person attempt to conceive of 

 whatever pair he may choose of this trinity producing the third and he 

 will find every effort in vain. Take them pair by pair, and the difficulty 

 will be the same in every pair, thus revealing a common guarantee for 

 the identity of each as distinct from the other. Men talk glibly of the 

 production of consciousness by organization, but the words are mere 

 meaningless jargon. When we see what is meant by such an expres- 

 sion, we shall learn that the idea has equal lucidity with that of a round 

 square. Evolution deals only with the forms of this trinity. Forms 

 evolve, but the substances are eternal. As dissolution follows evolu- 

 tion, the forms of each are resolved into their elements, to be re- 

 fashioned again into new forms. Matter may form a tree, a crystal, a 

 man, or a world; energy may form heat, light, electricity, or sound ; 

 and consciousness may be fashioned into memory, intellect, color, or 

 emotion. These are the transient manifestations of the enduring veri- 

 ties. 



Men in prescientific times lost sight of the persistence of matter 

 because they looked upon the form as the reality. When fuel ceased 

 to show a solid, compact form after combustion, they thought it was 

 annihilated. Up to a later date they looked upon the form of energy 

 as the reality, and when that form vanished they were content to de- 

 clare it as swept from the universe. When motion changed to heat, 

 they thought it was annihilated. The form being destroyed, as that 

 form was mistaken for the reality, they thought the reality had van- 

 ished from existence. With broader and more enlightened views this 

 method of reasoning on energy and matter became obsolete, but it still 

 continues to be applied to consciousness. Intellect, memory, or emo- 

 tion, being put forward for consciousness, how can we refrain from think- 

 ing that it goes when these go ? As energy determines the form of 



