MATTER AND MIND 21 



upon such labours, without attempting to 

 fix any impossible gulf which some superman 

 of future evolution may not be able to pass 

 over. 



The scientist after he has collected a suffi- 

 cient number of accurate observations, may 

 discover an existing law of science which 

 enables him to correlate phenomena, and in 

 a secondary sense explain them ; but he 

 never discovers the primary cause that has 

 set his law in existence. His observations 

 have taught him that something which he 

 names matter or material exists in many var- 

 ious forms, deeper study has shown him the 

 relationships of these forms to one another 

 and enabled him to reduce the number of 

 primary forms of matter to a small set, which 

 for the time he called chemical elements, 

 and from which he has been able by appro- 

 priate unions to construct hundreds of thous- 

 ands of derived forms. Even now he stands 

 on the verge of the discovery that all his 

 elements are derived from one form of stuff 

 only, which may not be matter itself, but 

 when tenanted by something which he has 

 recognised and named as energy becomes 

 converted into forms of matter leading up to 

 those elements which he first unearthed. 

 But as to why all these things happen, or 



