14 



of the Mind, any of the Will, any of the Conscience, and yet 

 claims to account for everything, must speedily lose its hold 

 on intelligent men. 



And it seems to me that he has gone a long way, quite 

 unintentionally of course, towards showing that the Will is 

 free. As parts of his Philosophy form our most invulnerable 

 defence against the attacks of Materialists and Idealists, so it 

 may be that he has also supplied some of the most solid argu- 

 ments for the Freedom of the Will. We have been assured 

 by him that Mind and Matter are at the two opposite poles of 

 being. They are x and y, two existences having no factors 

 in common ; no one thing being found in the one which is 

 also found in the other. I understand his rhetoric to mean or 

 to imply that they are logical contradictories, whatever the 

 the one has that the other has not. They form a perfect 

 series of antitheses, and if they are at the opposite poles of 

 being, as he says, I do not see how this conclusion can be 

 avoided. If they h^,ve any one element in common, there 

 surely they can unite, and that element makes a bridge over the 

 mighty chasm that divides them. But Mr. Spencer says no 

 such bridge is possible ; they are the Jews and Samaritans of 

 the philosophical world, eschewing all intercourse with each 

 other. 



Now if this conception be just, as it seems to me it is, 

 surely it must be true that whatever is found in the one will 

 not be found in the other. And beyond all question fixed 

 causation does obtain in the world of Matter. Everything 

 there is held in the iron grip of law. Thus it seems to me 

 that such fixed causation cannot obtain in the realm of Mind, 

 but that, as the logical contradictory of the law obtaining in 

 Matter, the opposite rule, of Freedom, must obtain in the 

 realm of Mind. 



It can readily be ascertained whether Mind and Matter are 

 logical contradictories in all other things. Certainly they seem 

 to be. Matter is extended; Mind is unextended. Matter 

 is unintelligent ; Mind is intelligent ; Matter has space rela- 

 tions and has weight ; Mind has no space relations and has no 

 weight. Matter is capable of motion or of transit in space ; 

 Mind, having no space relations, is incapable of motion. It 

 seems to me the antitheses might go on ad infinitum. If, 

 then, in every other conceivable category of thought Mind 

 were the proved antithesis of Matter, that doctrine would 

 have but a very precarious hold on a strong intelligence 

 which asserted that in this one instance, viz., of bondage to 

 fixed law, Mind and Matter were alike. One frail spider's 

 web spanning the almost infinite chasm between Matter and 



