I56 HUXLEY 



know. There is " only one abstract certainty possi- 

 ble to man — namely, that at any given moment the 

 feeling which he has exists. All other so-called cer- 

 tainties are beliefs of greater or less intensity." 1 The 

 poet-astronomer of Naishapur stretches " lame hands" 

 across the ages to the modern psychologist : — 



" We are no other than a moving row 

 Of Magic Shadow-Shapes that come and go 

 Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held 

 In Midnight by the Master of the Show." 



But, as Huxley points out, although it is of small con- 

 sequence whether we speak of the phenomena of 

 matter in terms of spirit, or of those of spirit in terms 

 of matter, since matter may be regarded as a form of 

 thought, and thought may be regarded as a property 

 of matter, there is every reason for using the mate- 

 rialistic terminology : — 



For it connects thought with the other phenomena 

 of the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature 

 of those physical conditions, or concomitants of 

 thought, which are more or less accessible to us, and 

 a knowledge of which may 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. . . . But the man of 

 science who, forgetting the limits of philosophical in- 



ill. 262. 



