3^ THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



metaphysical spectre of a vital power, or empty theological 

 dogma. If we can prove that all nature, so far as it can be 

 known, is only one, that the same "great, eternal, iron 

 laws" are active in the life of animals and plants, as in 

 the growth of crystals and in the force of steam, we may 

 with reason i^naintain the monistic or mechanical view 

 of things throughout the domain of Biology — in Zoology and 

 Botany — whether it be stigmatized as "materialism " or not. 

 In such a sense all exact science, and the law of cause and 

 effect at its head, is purely materialistic. 



Moral, or ethical Materialism, is something quite distinct 

 from scientific materialism, and has nothing whatever in 

 common with the latter. This real materialism proposes 

 no other aim to man in the course of his life than 

 the most refined possible gratification of his senses. It is 

 based on the delusion that purely material enjoyment 

 can alone give satisfaction to man ; but as he can find that 

 satisfaction in no one form of sensuous pleasure, he dashes on 

 weariedly from one to another. The profound truth that the 

 real value of life does not lie in material enjoyment, but in 

 moral action — that true happiness does not depend upon 

 external possessions, but only in a virtuous course of Life — 

 this is unknown to ethical materialism. We therefore look 

 in vain for such materialism among naturalists and phi- 

 losophers, whose highest happiness is the intellectual 

 enjoyment of Nature, and whose highest aim is the know- 

 ledge of her laws. We find it in the palaces of ecclesi- 

 astical princes, and in those hypocrites who, under the 

 outward mask of a pious worship of God, solely aim at 

 hierarchical tyranny over, and material spoliation of, their 

 felloAv-men. Blind to the infinite grandeur of the so-called 



