MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE OR T. 217 



standing. It has never deviated from its original 

 program ; it has but been enriched with scientific 

 notions ; it has been transformed in appearance only, 

 by being surcharged with the data, the views, the 

 hypotheses, infinite in number, which are the out- 

 growth of the physical, chemical, and physiological 

 sciences. Democritus would easily recognize his 

 teaching, if he were to read the works of M. Btich- 

 ner ; even the language used has undergone but a 

 trifling change." 1 Indeed, "the history of Material- 

 ism," as has well been remarked, "may be reduced 

 to indicating the influence which it has exercised at 

 divers epochs, and to recording the names of its 

 most famous representatives." 



The advocates of Dualism, like the defenders of 

 Materialism, taught the eternity of matter, but in 

 addition to eternal, uncreated matter, recognized the 

 existence of a personal God. Many of the philoso- 

 phers of antiquity, who escaped the errors of Mate- 

 rialism and Pantheism, fell headlong into those of 

 Dualism, which possessed as many forms as Proteus 

 himself. Thus, the Manicheans asserted the exist- 

 ence of two principles, one good, the other evil ; 

 the former, the creator of souls, the latter, the crea- 

 tor of bodies. According to the gnostics, the world 

 is the work of the angels, and not the immediate re- 

 sult of Divine creative action. Even according to 

 J. Stuart Mill, matter is uncreated and eternal. God, 

 he will have it, but fashioned the universe out of 

 self-existent material, and far from being the Crea- 



1 " Le Mate*rialisme et la Science," p. 136. 



