26 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



matter, or all diversities of its forms, depend," he 

 affirms, " on motion " ; and " the matter which 

 exists in the world is everywhere one and the 

 same." Here we have the idea of motion in 

 matter becoming prominent. 



Coming on to the eighteenth century, we 

 find Boscovitch bringing forward his famous theory 

 that matter has no extension, and consists simply 

 of mathematical points endowed with attractive 

 and repulsive forces. 



In the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer was 

 representative of an idealistic counter-tendency, 

 and analysed matter into /F/7/ and Idea, thus giving 

 it a purely immaterial foundation. He expresses 

 his theorem in various ways. " Pure matter .... 

 is causality itself thought objectively, consequently 

 in space, and therefore filling it. Accordingly, the 

 whole being of matter consists in acting. Only thus 

 does it occupy space and last in time. It is through 

 and through pure causality." " For what is material 

 is that which acts (the actual) in general, and regarded 

 apart from the specific nature of its action. Hence 

 also matter, merely as such, is not an object of per- 

 ception, but only of thought, and thus is really an 

 abstraction." " Matter is causality itself bound up 

 with space and time, hence objectified, i.e. conceived 

 as that which fills space." " Accordingly matter is 

 that whereby the will which constitutes the inner 



