xiv.] ON DESCARTES' " DISCOURSE." 341 



how they arc thus related is a mystery. And if I say 

 that thought is a property of matter, all that I can mean 

 is that, actually or possibly, the consciousness of exten- 

 sion and that of resistance accompany all other sorts of 

 consciousness. But, as in the former case, why they are 

 thus associated is an insoluble mystery. 



From all this it follows that what I may term legiti- 

 mate materialism, that is, the extension of the conceptions 

 and of the methods of physical science to the highest as 

 well as the lowest phamomena of vitality, is neither more 

 nor less than a sort of shorthand Idealism ; and Des- 

 cartes' two paths meet at the summit of the mountain, 

 though they set out on opposite sides of it. 



The reconciliation of physics and metaphysics lies in 

 the acknowledgment of faults upon both sides ; in the 

 confession by physics that all the phenomena of nature 

 are, in their ultimate analysis, known to us only as facts 

 of consciousness ; in the admission by metaphysics, that 

 the facts of consciousness are, practically, interpretable 

 only by the methods and the formula) of physics : and, 

 finally, in the observance by both metaphysical and 

 physical thinkers of Descartes' maxim — assent to no 

 proposition the matter of which is not so clear and 

 distinct that it cannot be doubted. 



When you did me the honour to ask me to deliver this 

 address, I confess I was perplexed what topic to select. 

 For you are emphatically and distinctly a Christian 

 body ; while science and philosophy, within the range 

 of which lie all the topics on which I could venture 

 to speak, are neither Christian, nor Unchristian, but are 

 Extrachristian, and have a world of their own, which, to 

 use language which will be very familiar to your ears just 

 now, is not only "unsectarian," but is altogether "secular." 

 The arguments which I have put before you to-night, for 



