340 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiv. 



science and declare that man is nothing but a machine, 

 I do not see any particular harm in their doctrines, so 

 long as they admit that which is a matter of experi- 

 mental fact — namely, that it is a machine capable of 

 adjusting itself within certain limits. 



I protest that if some great Power would agree to 

 make me always think what is true and do what is right, 

 on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and 

 wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I 

 should instantly close with the offer. The only freedom 

 I care about is the freedom to do right ; the freedom to 

 do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms 

 to any one who will take it of me. But when the Ma- 

 terialists stray beyond the borders of their path and 

 begin to talk about there being; nothing else in the 



CD O O 



universe but Matter and Force and Necessary Laws, 

 and all the rest of their " grenadiers," I decline to 

 follow them. I go back to the point from which we 

 started, and to the other path of Descartes. I remind 

 you that we have already seen clearly and distinctly, 

 and in a manner which admits of no doubt, that all our 

 knowledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness. 

 " Matter"' and " Force " are, so far as we can know, mere 

 names for certain forms of consciousness. "Necessary ; 

 means that of which we cannot conceive the contrary. 

 " Law " means a rule which we have always found to hold 

 good, and which we expect always will hold good. Thus 

 it is an indisputable truth that what we call the material 

 world is only known to us under the forms of the ideal 

 world ; and, as Descartes tells us, our knowledge of the 

 soul is more intimate and certain than our knowledge of 

 the body. If I say that impenetrability is a property of 

 matter, all that I can really mean is that the conscious- 

 ness I call extension, and the consciousness I call resist- 

 ance, constantly accompany one another. "Why and 



