THE MONISTIC THEORY. 37 



"only a science progressing backwards can venture to 

 assert that matter alone exists, and that its laws alone 

 govern the world." It is none the less true that by 

 establishing the continuity between inert matter and 

 living matter, we thereby render probable the con- 

 tinuity between the world of life and the world of 

 thought. 



Matter and Energy. — Besides, and without any 

 wish to enter into this burning controversy, it is 

 only too evident that there is no agreement as to the 

 terms that are used, and in particular as to " matter " 

 and "laws of matter." It is not necessary to repeat 

 that the geometrical mould in which Descartes cast 

 his philosophy has long since been broken. The 

 celebrated philosopher, in defining matter by one 

 attribute — extension, does not enable us to grasp its 

 activity, an activity revealed by all natural facts ; and 

 in defining the soul by thought alone, prevents us 

 from seeking in it the principle of this material activity. 

 This purely passive matter, consisting of extension 

 alone, this bare matter was to Leibniz a pure concept. 

 A philosopher of our own time, M. Magy, has called it 

 a sensorial illusion. The bodies of nature exhibit to 

 us matter clad with energy, formed by the indissoluble 

 union of extension with an inseparable dynamical 

 principle. The Stoics declared that matter is mobile 

 and not immobile, active and not inert Leibniz also 

 had this in his mind when he associated it indissolubly 

 with an active principle, an "entelechy." Others have 

 said that matter is " an assemblage of forces," or with 

 P. Boscovitch, " a system of indivisible points without 

 extension, centres of force, in fact." Space would be 

 the geometrical locus of these points. 



In this conception the materialistic school finds the 



