286 THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 



Thus, if any man think he has reason to believe that the 

 " substance " of matter, to the existence of which no limit can be 

 set either in time or space, is the infinite and eternal substratum 

 of all actual and possible existences, which is the doctrine of 

 philosophical materialism, as I understand it, I have no objec- 

 tion 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. If matter is the substratum of 

 any phenomena of consciousness, animal or human, then it may 

 possibly be the substratum of any other such phenomena ; if 

 matter is imperishable, then it must be admitted to be possible 

 that some of its combinations may be indefinitely enduring, 

 just as our present so-called "elements" are probably only 

 compounds which have been indissoluble, in our planet, for 

 millions of years. Moreover, . the ultimate forms of existence 

 which we distinguish in our little 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 conceive 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. 



That which I do very strongly object to is the habit, which 

 a great many non-philosophical materialists unfortunately fall 

 into, of forgetting all these very obvious considerations. They 

 talk as if the proof that the " substance of matter " was the 

 "substance" of all things cleared up all the mysteries of 

 existence. In point of fact, it leaves them exactly where they 

 were. 



The philosophical Materialist who takes the trouble to com- 

 prehend Berkeley finds that strict logic carries him no further 

 than some such answer as this to the philosophical Idealist : 

 Well, if I cannot show that you are wrong, you cannot show 

 that I am ; if I should happen to be right, your proofs of the 

 impossibility of knowing anything but states of consciousness 

 would be as valid as they are now ; moreover, your religious and 

 ethical difficulties are just as great as mine. The speculative 

 game is drawn let us get to practical work. 



