66 Life and Matter [chap. iv. 



scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men 

 back to common sense ' " (p. 282). 



And on p. 286 he speaks concerning 

 " substance " that substance which con- 

 stitutes the foundation of Haeckel's phil- 

 osophy almost as if he were purposely con- 

 futing that rather fly-blown production : 



"Thus, if any man think he has reason to 

 believe that the c substance " of matter, to the 

 existence of which no limit can be set either in 

 time or space, is the infinite and eternal sub- 

 stratum of all actual and possible existences, 

 which is the doctrine of philosophical materialism, 

 as I understand it, I have no objection to his 

 holding that doctrine ; and I fail to comprehend 

 how it can have the slightest influence upon any 

 ethical or religious views he may please to 

 hold. . . . 



" Moreover, the ultimate forms of existence 

 which we distinguish in our litde speck of the 

 universe are, possibly, only two out of infinite 

 varieties of existence, not only analogous to 

 matter and analogous to mind, but of kinds 

 which we are not competent so much as to con- 

 ceive in the midst of which, indeed, we might 

 be set down, with no more notion of what was 

 about us, than the worm in a flower-pot, on a 

 London balcony, has of the life of the great city. 



