84 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



these words from that " Lay Sermon" to which I 

 have made so many references. 



" In itself it is of little moment, whether we 

 express the phenomena of matter in terms of 

 spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in terms of 

 matter : matter may be regarded as a form of 

 thought, thought may be regarded as a property 

 of matter,* each statement has a certain relative 

 truth. 



" But with a view to the progress of science 

 the materialistic terminology is in every way to 

 be preferred. 



"For it connects thought with the other 

 phenomena of the universe,! and suggests 

 inquiry into the nature of those physical con- 

 ditions, or concomitants of thought, which are 

 more or less accessible to us, and a knowledge 

 of which may, in future, help us to exercise the 

 same kind of control over the world of thought, 

 as we already possess in respect of the material 

 world; whereas the alternative or spiritualistic 

 terminology is utterly barren, and leads to 

 nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas. 



"Thus there can be little doubt that the 

 further science advances, the more extensively 

 and consistently will all the phenomena of 

 Nature be represented by materialistic formulae 

 and symbols. 



" But the man of science, who, forgetting the 



* This shortly expresses the distinction between the teaching 

 of Plato and that of St. John the Divine. 



f Compare 1 Ep., St. John i., 1st and 2nd verses. 



