104- DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ox METHOD iv 



constantly accompany one another. Why and 

 how they are thus related is a mystery. And if 

 I say that thought is a property of matter. ;ill 

 that I can mean is that actually or possibly, the 

 consciousness of extension and that of resistance 

 accompany all other sorts of consciousness. But, 

 as in the former case, why they are thus associated 

 is an insoluble mystery. 



From all this it follows that what I may term 

 legitimate materialism, that is, the extension of 

 the conceptions and of the methods of physical 

 science to the highest as well as the lowest pha>- 

 nomena of vitality, is neither more nor less than 

 a sort of shorthand Idealism ; and Descartes' two 

 paths meet at the summit of the mountain, though 

 they set out on opposite sides of it. 



The reconciliation of physics and metaphysics 

 lies in the acknowledgment of faults upon both 

 sides; in the confession by physics that all the 

 phamomena of Nature are, in their ultimate ana- 

 lysis, known to us only as facts of consciousness ; 

 in the admisson by metaphysics, that the facts of 

 consciousness are, practically, interpretable only 

 by the methods and the formulae of physics : and, 

 finally, in the observance by both metaphysical 

 and physical thinkers of Descartes' maxim 

 assent to no proposition the matter of winch 

 is not so clear and distinct that it cannot be 

 doubted. 



