SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 571 



Science has done this, it has done nothing more than sys- 

 tematize our experience; and has in no degree extended 

 the limits of our experience. We can say no more than be- 

 fore, whether the uniformities are as absolutely necessary, 

 as they have become to our thought relatively necessary. 

 The utmost possibility for us, is an interpetation of the 

 process of things as it presents itself to our limited 

 consciousness; but how this process is related to the 

 actual process we are unable to conceive, much less to 

 know. Similarly, it must be remembered that 



while the connection between the phenomenal order and 

 the ontological order is for ever inscrutable; so is the con- 

 nection between the conditioned forms of being and the 

 unconditioned form of being for ever inscrutable. The 

 interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, 

 and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our com- 

 plex symbols of thought, to the simplest symbols; and 

 when the equation has been brought to its lowest terms the 

 symbols remain symbols still. Hence the reasonings con- 

 tained in the foregoing pages, afford no support to either of 

 the antagonist hypotheses respecting the ultimate nature of 

 things. Their implications are no more materialistic than 

 they are spiritualistic; and no more spiritualistic than they 

 are materialistic. Any argument which is apparently fur- 

 nished to either hypothesis, is neutralized by as good an 

 argument furnished to the other. The Materialist, seeing 

 it to be a necessary deduction from the law of correlation, 

 that what exists in consciousness under the form of feeling, 

 is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion, 

 and by consequence into equivalents of all the other forces 

 which matter exhibits; may consider it therefore demon- 

 strated that the phenomena of consciousness are material 

 phenomena. But the Spiritualist, setting out with the same 

 data, may argue with equal cogency, that if the forces 

 displayed by matter are cognizable only under the shape of 

 those equivalent amounts of consciousness which they pro- 



