THE MONISTIC THEORY. 39 



those facts, and that is why we picture to ourselves 

 "dominants" and "directing forces" more or less 

 analogous to the sidereal guiding principle of Kepler, 

 which, before the discovery of universal attraction, 

 regulated the harmony of the movements of the 

 planets. 



A Reservation relative to the Psychical Order. — 

 The scientific mind has shown in every age a real 

 predilection towards the mechanical or materialistic 

 theory. Contemporary scientists as a whole have 

 accepted it in so far as it blends the vital and the 

 physical orders. Objections and contradictions are 

 only offered in the realm of psychology. A. Gautier, 

 for example, has contested with infinite originality 

 and vigour the claims of the materialists who would 

 reduce the phenomenon of thought to a material 

 phenomenon. The most general characteristic of 

 material phenomenality is — as we shall later see — 

 that it may be considered as a mutation of energy — 

 i.e., it obeys the laws of energetics. Now thought, 

 says A. Gautier, is not a form of material energy. 

 Thought, comparison, volition, are not acts of material 

 phenomenality; they are states. They are realities; 

 they have no mass; they have no physical existence. 

 They respond to adjustments, arrangements, and 

 concerted groupings of material manifestations of 

 chemical molecules. They escape the laws of 

 energetics. 



Kinetic Theory. — We shall lay aside for a moment 

 this serious problem relative to the limits of the world 

 of conscious thought and of the world of life. It is on 

 the other side, on the frontiers of living and inani- 

 mate nature, that the mechanical view triumphs. It 

 has furnished a universal conception agreeing with 



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