APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 115 



no objective existence, and the thing without 

 qualities was nothing, the solid world seemed 

 whittled away to my great horror. As I grew 

 older, and learned to use the terms "matter" and 

 " force," the boyish problem was revived, mutato 

 nomine. On the one hand, the notion of matter 

 without force seemed to resolve the world into a 

 set of geometrical ghosts, too dead even to jabber. 

 On the other hand, Boscovich's hypothesis, by 

 which matter was resolved into centres of force, 

 was very attractive. But when one tried to think 

 it out, what in the world became of force con- 

 sidered as an objective entity? Force, even the 

 most materialistic of philosophers will agree with 

 the most idealistic, is nothing but a name for the 

 cause of motion. And if, with Boscovich, I resolved 

 things into centres of force, then matter vanished 

 altogether and left immaterial entities in its place. 

 One might as well frankly accept Idealism and have 

 done with it. 



Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of 

 the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, 

 is for a man to presume to go about unlabelled. 

 The world regards such a person as the police do 

 an unmuzzled dog, not under proper control. I 

 could find no label that would suit me, so, in my 

 desire to range myself and be respectable, I in- 

 vented one ; and, as the chief thing I was sure of 

 was that I did not know a great many things that 

 the -ists and the -ites about me professed to be 

 familiar with, I called myself an Agnostic. Surely 

 no denomination could be more modest or more 

 appropriate ; and I cannot imagine why I should 

 be every now and then haled out of my refuge 

 and declared sometimes to be a Materialist, some- 



