50 DR. BUCHNER ON DARWINISM. [iv. 



Accordingly, in applying these terms to Dr. Biichner, 

 they become divested of their old opprobriousness, 

 and are enabled to discharge the proper function of 

 descriptive epithets by serving as abstract symbols 

 for certain closely allied modes of thinking. Con- 

 sidered in this purely philosophical way, an " atheist " 

 is one to whom the time-honoured notion of Deity 

 has become a meaningless and empty notion ; and a 

 " materialist " is one who regards the story of the 

 universe as completely and satisfactorily told when 

 it is wholly told in terms of matter and motion, with- 

 out reference to any ultimate underlying Existence, 

 of which matter and motion are only the phenomenal 

 manifestations. To Dr. Buchner's mind the criticism 

 of the various historic conceptions of godhood has not 

 only stripped these conceptions of their anthropo- 

 morphic vestments, but has left them destitute of any 

 validity or solid content whatever; and in similar 

 wise he is satisfied with describing the operations of 

 nature, alike in the physical and psychical worlds, as 

 merely the redistributions of matter and motion, with- 

 out seeking to answer the inquiry as to what matter 

 and motion are, or how they can be supposed to exist 

 as such at all, save in reference to the mind by which 

 they are cognised. 



Starting, then, upon this twofold basis, that the 



