COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



been proved to be an inevitable corollary from 

 the assertion of materialism, though it may freely 

 be admitted to be a probable corollary. But 

 with these two unverified inferences we are not 

 now especially concerned. What concerns us is 

 the initial non sequitur^ — that every attempt to 

 interpret mental manifestations by a reference 

 to material structure involves the assertion of 

 materialism. This is the non sequitur which lies 

 at the very bottom of the theological misrepre- 

 sentation, and its utter fallaciousness needs to 

 be thoroughly exposed. 



It would be grossly unjust to throw all the 

 blame of this particular non sequitur upon the 

 theologians, who have enough logical delin- 

 quencies of their own to answer for, without 

 being required to carry the burden of their ad- 

 versaries' errors into the bargain. The illegiti- 

 mate inference is one which scientific writers, 

 and philosophers of a certain school, have been 

 quite as ready to make as theologians : indeed, 

 I believe it was the former who first suggested 

 it to the latter. At all events, without going 

 into historical minutiae concerning the origin of 

 materialism, but confining our attention to its 

 more recent scientific phases, we may observe 

 that it was not a theologian, but an eminent 

 man of science, who first suggested that the 

 results of modern objective psychology might 

 be represented in the formula, Ohne Phosphor 

 266 



