114 SELECTED ESSAYS FROM LAY SERMONS 



matter — each statement has a certain relative truth. But 

 with a view to the progress of science, the materialistic ter- 

 minology is in every way to be preferred. For it connects 

 thought with the other phenomena of the universe, and 

 suggests inquiry into the nature of those physical conditions, 

 or concomitants of thought, which are more or less accessible 

 to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to 

 exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought, as 

 we already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, 

 the alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, 

 and leads to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas^ 



Thus there can be little doubt, that the further science 

 advances, the more extensively and consistently will all the 

 phenomena of Nature be represented by materialistic for- 

 mulae and symbols. 



But the man of science, who, forgetting the limits of philo- 

 sophical inquiry, slides from these formulae and symbols 

 into what is commonly understood by materialism, seems to 

 me to place himself on a level with the mathematician, who 

 should mistake the a;'s and ;y's with which he works his 

 problems, for real entities — and with this further disadvan- 

 tage, as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders 

 of the latter are of no practical consequence, while the errors 

 of systematic materialism may paralyse the energies and 

 destroy the beauty of a life. 



