24 NATURE AND LITE. 



principle of energy and motion. A second view of the 

 universe, exclusively synthetic, leads us, as we have seen, 

 to another certainty, which is the existence of a principle 

 of differentiation and harmony. This principle is what is 

 called mind. Thus mind is not substance, but it is the 

 law of substance ; it is not force, but it is the revealer of 

 force. It is not life, but it makes life exist. It is not 

 thought, but it is the consciousness of thought. A distin- 

 guished English savant, Carpenter, has said lately, with 

 decisive clearness, " Mind is the sole and single source of 

 power." In a word, it is not reality, yet in it and by it 

 realities are -defined and differentiated, and consequently 

 exist. Instead of saying that mind is a property of mat- 

 ter, we should say that matter is a property of mind. 

 Of all the properties of matter, in fact, there is not one, no, 

 not a single one, which is not bestowed on it by mind. 

 The true explanation, the only philosophy of Nature, is 

 thus a kind of spiritualistic dynamism, very different from 

 materialism, or from the mechanism of certain contemporary 

 schools. 



Materialism is false and imperfect, because it stops short 

 at atoms, in which it localizes those properties for which 

 atoms supply no cause, and because it neglects force and 

 spirit, which are the only means we have, constituted as 

 our souls are, of conceiving the activity and the appearings 

 of beings. It is false and imperfect, because it stops half- 

 way, and treats compound and resolvable factors as simple 

 and irreducible ones ; and because it professes to represent 

 the world by shows, without attempting to explain the pro- 

 duction of those shows. In a word, it sees the cause of 

 diversity where it is not, and fails to see it where it does 

 exist. The source of differentiations cannot be in energy 

 itself; it must be in a principle apart from that energy, in a 

 superior will and consciousness, of which we have, doubt- 

 less, only a dim and faulty idea, but as to which we can yet 



