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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of matter. Excellent! A good way, 

 therefore, to get as comprehensive and 

 adequate an idea as possible of what 

 matter is, would be to consider it in 

 all its forms ; in other words, to con- 

 sider its total outcome. Among the 

 realities of existence, nothing is more 

 real than thought and emotion. We 

 must, therefore, make provision for 

 these in our conception of matter. But 

 thought and emotion give rise to mo- 

 rality ; and, if matter is to include 

 everything, then must we concede to it 

 a certain moral element. Matter, there- 

 fore, is something which not only con- 

 tains . ' the promise and potency ' of 

 every kind of human excellence, but 

 which manifests itself in the highest 

 phenomena of human life just as dis- 

 tinctly as in the laws of mechanics and 

 physics. Our conception of matter is 

 thus made to embrace and embody all 

 that before had been divided between 

 mind and matter. We can no longer, 

 therefore, view matter as something 

 essentially limited to lower and simpler 

 manifestations. Our conception of it 

 is enlarged and dignitied just in propor- 

 tion to what we have made it absorb. 

 It is not apparent, therefore, that any 

 dignity or value which before had at- 

 tached to man's mental and moral life 

 is in any way impaired by your repre- 

 sentation of it as a function of matter. 

 You have simply by your definition 

 raised matter to a level with the highest 

 phenomena of the universe, and stamped 

 it with the character of equivalence 

 with those phenomena. We may not 

 accept your metaphysics, but we do not 

 think they touch the essential dignity 

 of those parts of human life which, 

 perhaps, it was your intention to de- 

 grade in our estimation." 



The trouble with "materialists" of 

 a certain stamp lies precisely here : they 

 think that by proclaiming the univer- 

 sality of matter they can bring every- 

 thing down to the level of the lowest, 

 i. e., the simplest, phenomena that mat- 

 ter displays; that they can dethrone 



love, rob honor of its luster, and virtue 

 of its bloom. They say: Everything 

 is matter, and matter should be inter- 

 preted in its lowest terms— in terms, 

 say, of mechanics. But, if any partial 

 interpretation is to be adopted, why in- 

 terpret matter in its lowest rather than 

 in its highest terms? As well ignore 

 the laws of mechanics and physics and 

 chemistry as the laws of mind, the laws 

 of morality, the laws of society. "Ma- 

 terialism," in the sense indicated, is 

 simply a willful tearing down of what 

 nature has set up. In the realm of Na- 

 ture, including the life of man, we dis- 

 cover an ascending series of laws and 

 relations. The simplest and most uni- 

 versal relations are those of space and 

 number. Above these, in complexity 

 and speciality, are those of physics; 

 above these, again, those of chemistry. 

 And so we pass on to biology, psychol- 

 ogy, and sociology. It would be the 

 merest folly to take one's stand, say, on 

 the laws of mathematics or mechanics, 

 and to refuse to recognize any higher 

 speciality or complexity in phenomena 

 than these will account for. It would 

 be folly for the chemist to refuse to 

 hear of a science of physiology, simply 

 because the problems and methods of 

 physiology transcended those of his 

 own science. It would be folly of the 

 same kind for the physiologist to insist 

 that his methods were adequate to the 

 solution of all questions in psychology 

 and ethics ; or, on the other hand, to 

 deny the validity of the methods em- 

 ployed in the latter sciences because 

 they were not identical with those with 

 which he was most familiar. We can 

 conceive that, at the moment of the 

 first formation of every higher science, 

 there might be those who, in the sup- 

 posed interest of established methods 

 and canons, would call in question the 

 phenomena upon which the new science 

 was being constructed, or deny their 

 special character. This would be "ma- 

 terialism " according to the conception 

 of it here put forward — i. e., an insist- 



