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1 luivc endeavored, in the ti^^^t \)[\vt of tliis discourse, to give 

 you ii conception of tlie direction towards wliicli modern physi- 

 ology is tending ; and I ask you, wliat is tlie difference between 

 the conce])tion of life as the 2)roduct of a certain disposition of 

 material molecules, and the old notion of an ArchiBus governing 

 and directing blind matter Avithin each living body, except this 

 — that here, as else^vhere, matter and la^v have devoured spirit 

 and spontaneity? And as surely as every future grows out of 

 past and present, so will the physiology of the future gradually 

 extend the realm of matter and law until it is co-extensive with 

 knowledge, witli feeling, and with action. Tlie consciousness of 

 this great truth weighs like a nightmare, I believe, upon many 

 of the best minds of these days. They watch what they con- 

 ceive to be the progress of materialism, in such fear and power- 

 less anger as a savage feels, when, during an eclipse, the great 

 shadow creeps over the face of the sun. Tlie advancing tide of 

 matter threatens to drown their souls ; the tightening grasp of 

 law imi)edes their freedom ; they are alarmed lest man's moral 

 nature be debased by the increase of his wisdom. 



Tf the " Xev,' Pliilosophy" be worthy of the reprobation 

 with which it is visited, I confess their fears seem to me, to be 

 well founded. While, on the contrary, could David Hume be 

 consulted, I think lie would smile at their perplexities, and chide 

 them for doing even as the heathen, and falling down in terror 

 before the hideous idols their own hands have raised. For, after 

 all, what do we know of this terrible " matter," except as a 

 name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our 

 own consciousness ? And what do we know of that " spirit'' 

 over whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamentation 

 is arising, like that which was heard at the death of Pan, except 

 that it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or 

 condition, of states of consciousness ? In other w*ords, matter 

 and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of groups of 

 natural phenomena. And what is the dire necessity and " iron" 

 law under which men groan ? Truly, most gratuitously invented 

 bugbears. I suppose if there l)e an " iron" law, it is that of 

 gravitation ; and if there be a physical necessity, it is that a 

 stone, unsuj^ported, must fall to the ground. But Avhat is all we 

 really know and can know about the latter phenomenon ? fSim- 

 ply, that, in all human experience, stones have fallen to the 

 gi'ound under these conditions ; that we have not the smallest 



