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MATERIALISM AS A QUESTION OF SCIENCE 

 AND PHILOSOPHY. 



WHAT more can be said on this question than has 

 heretofore been said? The arguments of the mate- 

 rialist are essentially the same, whencesoever derived 

 or however worded. Their truth can never be proved, 

 nor absolutely disproved in other words, they cannot 

 logically be disproved, because they are incapable of 

 proof. You may refine ad infinitum upon material 

 structure and the forces affecting it, and indicate new 

 relations of these to the functions and faculties of 

 mind, without advancing one step to the real solution 

 of the problem. The old questions still start up : 

 What more do we know of matter than of spirit? 

 May not the qualities, so-called, of matter have their 

 reality in mental consciousness only? That such 

 questions have been asked and vindicated is the best 

 proof that human reason is unable to encounter them 

 in this ultimate form. 



Still it is well to simplify the reasonings which thus 

 end in a confession of ignorance. They have been so 

 far entangled in the fluctuating language of different 

 ages and schools, that some care is needed to keep the 

 argument and conclusion fairly in sight. Even now 

 new terms come in quick succession to perplex the 

 questions which two or three centuries ago Descartes, 



