TRUE LESSON OF PROTESTANTISM 



rialism, as it was held in the eighteenth century 

 by La Mettrie, and as it is held by Biichner to- 

 day. Whoever holds such views as these con- 

 cerning the relations of matter and spirit may be 

 properly called a materialist, and no doubt there 

 are many educated people who hold such views, 

 but that the general tendency- of modern philo- 

 sophic thought is toward the adoption of ma- 

 terialism as thus defined, I emphatically deny. 

 On the contrary, it seems to me that the course 

 of modern philosophy is distinctly in the oppo- 

 site direction, and that materialism is hopelessly 

 behind the age, so that it argues a much more 

 superficial mind and a much more imperfect 

 education to agree with Biichner to-day than 

 to have agreed with La Mettrie a hundred years 

 ago. 



Bear in mind that, before a philosopher can 

 be correctly charged with materialism, it is ab- 

 solutely necessary that he should hold that psy- 

 chical phenomena such as love and hate, or 

 the sensation of redness, or the idea of virtue 

 are interpretable in terms of matter and mo- 

 tion. Nothing short of this will do. It is not 

 enough that he should hold that, along with 

 every emotion or sensation or idea, there goes 

 on a change in nerve-tissue which is probably 

 resolvable into some form of undulatory mo- 

 tion ; for this is but an amplification of what 

 we all begin by admitting when we admit that 

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