IS 



that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting place 

 between the admission that snch is the case, and the further con- 

 cession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, he said to 

 be the result of the molecular forces of the pratoplasm which dis- 

 plays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to 

 the same extent, that the thoughts to which I am noAV giving 

 utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, are the expression 

 of molecidar changes in that matter of life which is the source of 

 our other vital phenomena. Past experience leads me to be tolei'- 

 ably certain that, when the propositions I have just placed before 

 you are accessible to 2:>ublic comment and critieism, they will be 

 condemned by many zealous ]:)ersons, and pertiaps by some few 

 of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder if " gross and 

 brutal materialism" Avere the mildest phrase applied to them in 

 certain quarters. And most imdoubtedly the terms of the pro- 

 positions are distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless, two things 

 are certain : the one, that I hold the statements to be substantially 

 true ; the other, that I, individually, am no materialist, but, on 

 the contrary, belicA^e materialism to involve grave philoso]diical 

 error. 



This nnion of materialistic terminology with the repudia- 

 tion of materialistic philosophy I share with some of the most 

 thoughtful men with whom I am acquainted. And, when I first 

 undertook to deliver the present discourse, it appeared to me to 

 be a fitting opportunity to explain how such an union is not only 

 consistent with, but necessitated by sound logic. T pur])0sed to 

 lead you through tlie territory of vital phenomena to the materi- 

 alistic slough in which you find yourselves now plunged, and then 

 to point out to you the sole patli by which, in my judgment, 

 extrication is possible. An occurrence, of which I was unaware 

 until my arrival here last night, renders this line of argument sin- 

 gularly opportune. I found in your papers the eloquent address 

 " On the Limits of Philosophical Inquiry," which a distinguished 

 prelate of the English Church delivered before the members of 

 tlie Philosophical Institution on the ])revious day. My argument, 

 also, turns upon this very point of limits of philosophical inquiry ; 

 and I cannot bring out my own views better than by contrasting 

 them with those so plainly, and, in the main, fairly stated by the 

 Archbishop of York, But I may be permitted to make a prelimi- 

 nary comment upon an occurrence that greatly astonished me. 

 Applying the name of "the Xew Philosophy" to that estimate of 



