270 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. i 



movements of matter. It is with the movements, actual or 

 inferred, of certain specific masses of matter, that astronomy 

 in both its branches is concerned. Movements of matter, 

 likewise, in a specific region of the universe, and under 

 specific conditions characteristic of this region, constitute 

 the facts about which geology speculates. "We need but 

 remember that nutrition is at bottom merely a process in 

 which certain molecules shift their positions, and that the 

 life of an organism is simply a long-continued series of 

 adjustments and readjustments among mutually-related and 

 mutually-influencing systems of aggregated molecules, in 

 order to see that the fundamental laws of the movements of 

 matter must underlie biology also. And although the 

 phenomena of mind — whether manifested in individuals or 

 in communities — cannot be explained as movements of 

 matter ; yet, as will be hereafter shown, there is no mental 

 phenomenon which does not involve, as its material correlate, 

 some chemical change in nerve-tissue consisting in a redis- 

 tribution of molecules ; so that in psychology and sociology 

 likewise, our conclusions must become ultimately implicated 

 with theorems concerning matter and motion. Thus in every 

 department of concrete science, the leading problem is in 

 some way or other, either directly or indirectly or very 

 remotely, concerned with distributions and redistributions 

 of matter and motion ; and in all our specific conclusions 

 pome general conclusion relating to movements of matter 

 must be directly or indirectly or very remotely involved. 



Our course is thus still more definitely marked out. We 

 must first search for the deepest attainable truth respecting 

 matter and motion abstractly considered. We must pursue 

 this truth and its corollaries, among the most general groups 

 of phenomena in which these corollaries are exemplified, 

 until we arrive at some concrete result concerning the most 

 general aspects of that redistribution of matter and motion 

 which is everywhere going on. And upon this concrete 



