METAPHYSICS 259 



as vibrating in ether, and ether is not regarded as 

 Matter. 



Hence Mr. Rix comes to the conclusion of " One 

 Entity, that of Energised Matter = Universe = God ". 



He then discusses the universe as an "organism " and 

 says there can be unity with diversity. He starts with 

 the assumption " Nature lives ". . . . " It is all life . . . 

 nothing is inert, even a stone is not inert." But non- 

 inertness is not what we understand by " life ". He is 

 here merging or confounding physical molecular motions 

 with life. A stone is no^ all alive, as he asserts. To say 

 so is one thing, but to correlate its internal vibrations 

 with life in any organism, is quite another matter : and so 

 he comes to the conclusion that " the Universe which we 

 call material is in every particle and shred of it alive ".^ 

 It can only be said so, by quite illegitimate abuse of 

 terms and their meanings. Stones do not grow and 

 propagate as all animals and plants do, and until Mr. 

 Rix or other metaphysician can find flints breathing, 

 digesting or breeding, I, for one, utterly refuse to recognise 

 molecular vibrations as synonymous with the above 

 phenomena, characteristic of life. 



Haeckel traces " soul " to a protoplasmic cell and 

 " life " to ether ; but has scarcely reached Mr. Rix's 

 position. 



His next point is " the world you see is not so certain 

 as the visual sensation itself". ..." Sight is more certain 

 than the existence of anything that is seen ".^ He says 

 there is no place for that which we call matter, it is a 

 phantom and a dream. 



But is he right ? How about colour, which is a purely 

 "visual sensation". Indeed the author disproves his 



1 P. 67, he is by no means alone in this idea. 2 p^ g^. 



