vii.J ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 14o 



cning grasp of law impedes tlieir freedom ; they are 

 alarmed lest man's moral nature be debased by the 

 increase of his wisdom. 



If the " New Philosophy " be worthy of the repro- 

 bation with which it is visited, I confess their fears seem 

 to me to be well founded. While, on the contrary, 

 could David Hume be consulted, I think he would smile 

 at their perplexities, and chide them for doing even as 

 the heathen, and falling down in terror before the 

 hideous idols their own hands have raised. 



For, after all, what do we know of this terrible 

 " matter/' except as a name for the unknown and hypo- 

 thetical cause of states of our own consciousness ? And 

 what do we know of that " spirit" over whose threatened 

 extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like 

 that which was heard at the death of Pan, except that 

 it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, 

 or condition, of states of consciousness ? In other words, 

 matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary sub- 

 strata of groups of natural phenomena. 



And what is the dire necessity and " iron" law under 

 which men groan ? Truly, most gratuitously invented 

 bugbears. I suppose if there be an "iron" law, it is 

 that of gravitation ; and if there be a physical necessity, 

 it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. 

 But what is all we really know, and can know, about the 

 latter phenomenon? Simply, that, in all human ex- 

 perience, stones have fallen to the ground under these 

 conditions ; that we have not the smallest reason for 

 believing that any stone so circumstanced w T ill not fall 

 to the ground ; and that we have, on the contrary, every 

 reason to believe that it will so fall. It is very con- 

 venient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have 

 been fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that 

 unsupported stones will fall to the ground, " a law of 



