EDITOR'S TABLE. 



-oi 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE BAD LOGIC OF MATERIALISM. 



IN a preceding article we used the ex- 

 pression, "healthy materialism," for 

 that view of things which frankly recog- 

 nizes and makes practical allowance for 

 the dependence of psychical phenomena 

 upon material conditions, without un- 

 dertaking in the least to decide the ques- 

 tion as to the relations ultimately ex- 

 isting between mind and matter. This 

 view we represented as at once conserva- 

 tive and progressive : conservative, in 

 the limits which it recognizes as set to 

 intellectual activity and in the prudence 

 it enjoins in regard to all intellect- 

 ual operations ; progressive, in the aid 

 which it affords toward securing the 

 proper material basis for all intellectual 

 and moral effort, and in the economy 

 of labor which thence results. 



This is not the materialism, how- 

 ever, against which the world has so 

 strong a prejudice. The greatest stick- 

 lers to-day for a spiritualistic philoso- 

 phy would make no objection to ac- 

 knowledging the facts on which mate- 

 rialism, in the sense above described, is 

 founded — that health of body is, other 

 things being equal, the best condition 

 for health of mind ; that a certain rela- 

 tion must be observed between physical 

 nutrition and repair on the one hand and 

 intellectual effort on the other ; that 

 the quality, both of thought and of feel- 

 ing, depends largely on the condition 

 of the physical functions, and so on. No, 

 these truths -have been too much ig- 

 nored in the past, but they are widely 

 advocated to-day by teachers of un- 

 blemished orthodoxy ; nevertheless, a 

 strong feeling against what is called 

 "materialism" survives. The common 

 feeling on the subject is that material- 

 istic theories tend to rob human life of 

 a certain dignity, to undo something 



that the ages have wrought. Men seem 

 to exclaim, in the words of Shelley : 



"... What can they avail? 

 They cast on all things surest, brightest, best, 

 Doubt, insecurity, astonishment." 



The explanation and, as we think, 

 the justification of this feeling lies in 

 the fact that materialism as held, and 

 more or less blatantly professed, by 

 many, is in effect an attempt to ex- 

 plain higher orders of phenomena by 

 lower, to ignore the complexities of 

 existence, and to reduce everything to 

 a kind of mechanical basis. Starting 

 from the assumption that matter is 

 not only the cause of everything, bnt 

 is everything, they proceed to inter- 

 pret matter according to the lowest 

 and simplest properties it manifests. 

 They want what Mr. Stallo calls a me- 

 chanical explanation of the universe; 

 but, not content with that, they strive 

 as much as possible to blind themselves 

 to the fact that, while mechanical rela- 

 tions may lie at the basis of all things, 

 in the actual evolution of the universe, 

 relations of a much higher and more 

 complex order have been estabhshed. 

 Wo have heard men argue thus : " Mat- 

 ter is everything and everything is mat- 

 ter; morality can not inhere in or be 

 any property of matter, therefore mo- 

 rality is an illusion, a prejudice, a su- 

 perstition." Exception might of course 

 be taken here to the major premise that 

 matter is everything; matter, according 

 to Mr. Spencer, not to mention less ad- 

 vanced thinkers, being simply one mode 

 of the manifestation of the Unknowable 

 Cause of all things. But, waiving this 

 objection, and meeting the materialist 

 on his own ground, we might say: 

 " You affirm that matter is coexten- 

 sive with existence, that whatever we 

 have any knowledge of is some form 



