538 Transactions. 



Art. XLIX. — A Preliminary Note of a Metaphysical Hypothesis. 



By Maurice W. Richmond, B.Sc. (Lond.), LL.B. (N.Z.), Pro- 

 fessor of English and[ New Zealand Law, Victoria College, 

 Wellington. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 2nd October, 1907.] 



The hypothesis of which this is a preliminary note is a par- 

 ticular form of monism. 



It rejects the dualistic view that there are two kinds of being, 

 the spiritual and the material, and adopts the monistic view 

 that there is only one kind of being — namely, the spiritual. 

 It accepts the latest view of physical science in regard to the 

 constitution of the universe, according to which (using for 

 the moment the language of physical science) the whole of the 

 (so-called) material world (including both ponderable matter 

 and the imponderable ether), and the whole of the phenomena 

 of the (so-called) material world, is resolved into the elements 

 of the ether and the transmission of states through the elements 

 (or from element to element) of the ether ; and it gives to this 

 view a particular monistic/ and therefore spiritualistic, inter- 

 pretation. 



It supposes^'every'| single one of the elements of the ether 

 to be in itself a conscious being or spirit. It supposes each of 

 these elements to have a sense of the existence of its neighbour 

 elements, to have feelings and to be affected towards them, 

 and to produce by an effort of will the effects which it produces 

 upon them. It supposes every single element of the ether, 

 therefore, to be conscious in all the three ways of knowing, 

 feeling, and willing. 



It supposes the principal seat of consciousness in man to be 

 in certain of the elements of the ether permeating or surrounded 

 by the brain of the man, and occupying a certain position rela- 

 tively to the brain as a whole, varying probably, more or less, 

 with the particular state of consciousness. And similarly in 

 regard to the principal seats of consciousness in the case of ani- 

 mals and in other cases. 



The hypothesis is, in fact, one not only that every single 

 one of the elements of the ether is a conscious being, a seat 

 of consciousness, but, further, that they are the seats of all 

 consciousness, or, at the least, of all finite consciousness, in 

 (In- universe, whether human, or animal, or other- that they 



