xiv.] ON DESCARTES &quot; DISCOURSE.&quot; 297 



talk about there being nothing else in the universe but Matter 

 and Force and Necessary Laws, and all the rest of their 

 &quot; grenadiers,&quot; I decline to follow them. I go back to the point 

 from which we started, and to the other path of Descartes. I 

 remind you that we have already seen clearly and distinctly, and 

 in a manner which admits of no doubt, that all our knowledge is 

 a knowledge of states of consciousness. &quot; Matter &quot; and &quot; Force &quot; 

 are, as far as we can know, mere names for certain forms of 

 consciousness. &quot; Necessary &quot; means that of which we cannot 

 conceive the contrary. &quot; Law &quot; means a rule which we have 

 always found to hold good, and which we expect always will 

 hold good. Thus it is an indisputable truth that what we call 

 the material world is only known to us under the forms of the 

 ideal world ; and, as Descartes tells us, our knowledge of the 

 soul is more intimate and certain than our knowledge of the body. 

 If I say that impenetrability is a property of matter, all that I can 

 really mean is that the consciousness I call extension, and the 

 consciousness I call resistance, constantly accompany one 

 another. Why and how they are thus related is a mystery. 

 And if I say that thought is a property of matter, all that I can 

 mean is that, actually or possibly, the consciousness of extension 

 and that of resistance accompany all other sorts of consciousness. 

 But, as in the former case, why they are thus associated is an 

 insoluble mystery. 



From all this it follows that what I may term legitimate 

 materialism, that is, the extension of the conceptions and of the 

 methods of physical science to the highest as well as the lowest 

 phenomena of vitality, is neither more nor less than a sort of 

 shorthand Idealism ; and Descartes two paths meet at the 

 summit of the mountain, though they set out on opposite sides 

 of it. 



The reconciliation of physics and metaphysics lies in the 

 acknowledgment of faults upon both sides; in the confession 

 by physics that all the phenomena of nature are, in their 

 ultimate analysis, known to us only as facts of consciousness; 

 in the admission by metaphysics, that the facts of consciousness 



