160 



o\ THi: PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 



III 



The consciousness of this great truth weighs 

 like a nightmare, I believe, upon many of the best 

 minds of these days. They watch what they con- 

 ceive to be the progress of materialism, in such 

 fear and powerless anger as a savage feels, when, 

 during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over 

 the face of the sun. The advancing tide of matter 

 threatens to drown their souls ; the tightening 

 grasp of law impedes their freedom ; they are 

 y alarmed lest man's moral nature be debased by 

 the increase of his wisdom. 



If the " New Philosophy " be worthy of the 

 reprobation with which it is visited, I confess 

 their fears seem to me to be well founded. While, 

 on the contrar} r , could David Hume be consulted, 

 I think he would smile at their perplexities, and 

 chide them for doing even as the heathen, and 

 falling down in terror before the hideous idols 

 their own hands have raised. 



For, after all, what do we know of this terrible 

 " matter," except as a name for the unknown and 

 hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious- 

 ness ? And what do we know of that " spirit " 

 over whose threatened extinction by matter a 

 great lamentation is arising, like that which was 

 heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a 

 name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or con- 

 dition, of states of consciousness ? In other words. 

 matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary 

 substrata of groups of natural phaeuomena. 



