124 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vn. 



founded. While, on the contrary, could David Hume be con 

 sulted, I think he would smile at their perplexities, and chide 

 them for doing even as the heathen, and falling down in terror 

 before the hideous idols their own hands have raised. 



For, after all, what do we know of this terrible &quot; matter,&quot; 

 except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of 

 states of our own consciousness ? And what do we know of that 

 &quot; spirit &quot; over whose threatened extinction by matter a great 

 lamentation is arising, like that which was heard at the death of 

 Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypo 

 thetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness ? In other 

 words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary 

 substrata of groups of natural phenomena. 



And what is the dire necessity and &quot; iron &quot; law under which 

 men groan ? Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I 

 suppose if there be an &quot; iron &quot; law, it is that of gravitation ; and 

 if there be a physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, 

 must fall to the ground. But what is all we really know, and 

 can know, about the latter phenomena ? Simply, that, in all 

 human experience, stones have fallen to the ground under these 

 conditions ; that we have not the smallest reason for believing 

 that any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground ; and 

 that we have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it 

 will so fall. It is very convenient to indicate that all the condi 

 tions of belief have been fulfilled in this case, by calling the 

 statement that unsupported stones will fall to the ground, &quot; a 

 law of nature.&quot; But when, as commonly happens, we change 

 will into must, we introduce an idea of necessity which most 

 assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty 

 that I can discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly repudiate 

 and anathematize the intruder. Fact I know ; and Law I know ; 

 but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own 

 mind s throwing ? 



But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the 

 nature of either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity 

 is something illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate 



