440 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [FT. in 



instead of admitting the scientific theorem and showing that, 

 when rightly understood, it does not afford a premise for the 

 materialistic inference. Mr. Spencer pithily remarks that 

 the one class show by their fears, quite as much as the others 

 show by their hopes, that they believe in the theoretical 

 possibility of resolving mental phenomena into motions of 

 matter ; whereas those who really comprehend the import of 

 modern discoveries in molecular physics are more thoroughly 

 convinced than ever that any such reduction is utterly 

 beyond the bounds of possibility. A brief consideration will 

 suffice to show us that one of the great results of the dis 

 covery of the correlation of forces is the final destruction of 

 the central argument by which materialism has sought to 

 maintain its position. Henceforth the spiritualistic hypo 

 thesis may, perhaps, bo still regarded as on trial, in so far as 

 it needs much further explanation and limitation ; but the 

 materialistic hypothesis is doomed irretrievably. 



For let us note well what is implied in the assertion that 

 sun-derived radiance is metamorphosed, first into the static 

 energy of vegetable tissue, and afterwards into the dynamic 

 energy which maintains the multiform activity of the animal 

 organism ; and that through the liberation of a part of such 

 dynamic energy, in the form of discharges between inter 

 connected ganglia, there are rendered possible the pheno 

 mena of conscious activity. 1 Let us endeavour to mark out 

 precisely what is meant by this assertion. In its present 

 form it is a concrete statement, based upon the abstract 

 truths that, within the limits of our experience, any given 

 species of motion whatever has acquired its distinctive attri 

 butes through transformation from some other species, and 

 will again lose these distinctive attributes through a subse 

 quent transformation. For example, the heat which now 

 raises the temperature of a pound of water just one degree 

 of Fahrenheit, has acquired its present form of existence 

 1 See above, vol. L pp. 411, 416. 



