GENERAL DEFINITION 43 



world, or with materialistic conceptions of reality. 

 These theories and conceptions are extra-scientific 

 speculations, and we do not have to commit ourselves 

 to any one of them in accepting the scientific hypothesis 

 with which this lecture is concerned. 



This conclusion relieves us from the necessity of 

 dealing in these lectures with the arguments by which 

 materiahstic monism is said to be supported. That 

 philosophy, it ought to be noticed, does not at the pres- 

 ent time exercise the influence in the higher world of 

 thought that it did in the last generation. The leaders 

 of thought of to-day have largely abandoned it, and 

 this fact is acknowledged and bewailed by its chief 

 defender, Professor Haeckel.^ 



I ought to add, however, that the advanced thought 

 of yesterday is usually the prevailing thought of to-day 

 among untrained and unguided common folk. Mate- 

 rialism is still a foe to be reckoned with in the work of 

 winning the multitude to Christ. Works which pre- 

 sent materialistic objections to Christianity in popular 

 forms are published in cheap editions, and have a 

 much wider sale than any other type of hterature bear- 

 ing on religious questions. Our apologists and pastors 

 are apt to be oblivious of this fact, and often yield to a 

 mistaken optimism. The most dangerous effects of 

 infidel systems of thought are produced after they have 

 ceased to influence trained thinkers. This is so because 

 it is only after some time has elapsed that new thought 



1 Op. cU., pp. 100-103. He accounts for it by the naive explana- 

 tion of brain decay in old age. 



