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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 213. 



we have seen, are number, space, motion, 

 time and judgment. They miist all exist 

 in every particle, but besides and beyond 

 them there is nothing. They are matter. 

 Sometimes (e. g., on p. 119) he calls these 

 the ' properties of matter. ' At other times 

 lie seems to talk as though it were rather 

 the five ' essentials ' or ' manifestations ' 

 (unity, extension, speed, persistence, con- 

 sciousness) that really ' constitute the par- 

 ticle ' (p. 183). But at any rate there is 

 nothing but these properties or manifesta- 

 tions, and when he sj)eaks of ' substrates ' 

 he calls the essentials the substrates of the 

 corresponding variables (plurality, position, 

 path, change, choice), and does not mean 

 any real substrate of which any one or all 

 of these attributes can be predicated. Now, 

 to the ordinary mind, or naive intellect, 

 such things as space, time, motion, or as 

 extension and speed (rate of motion), seem 

 to be wholly immaterial. Some of them, as 

 space and time, are mere conditions under 

 which things exist. Motion we must agree 

 with him in regarding as a state in which 

 all matter always exists. Extension is a 

 property that matter possesses. But when 

 Major Powell refers to space he says he 

 does not mean ' void space,' which he says 

 is a pseud-idea. Yet most persons can 

 clearly conceive of void space. He must 

 refer to the matter that is in space. This 

 is simply a question of language. When 

 he speaks of time he says he does not mean 

 ' void time, but the time of states and 

 events' (p. 253). But any one can ' think 

 away ' the whole universe of matter and 

 both space and time will remain. He says 

 there is no such thing as void space, and 

 many passages indicate that he accepts the 

 plenum. Although this is inconsistent with 

 motion, and even with number, except 

 unity, it will seem to many that if matter is 

 made up of such intangible constituents as 

 space, time, extension, speed, and judgment 

 it makes very little difference whether the 



universe is full of them or not. Like the 

 deathless Shades of AValhalla, hack and 

 hew them as you may, they will instantly 

 regain their forms and return to the combat. 

 By thus constructing the material uni- 

 verse out of five immaterial elements Major 

 Powell seems to think that he has made 

 his peace with the idealists and won the 

 right to turn upon the materialists. It can- 

 not be denied that he has evolved a system 

 as thoroughly ideal as that of Berkeley, and 

 about the only difference between it and 

 the Berkeleyan idealism is that it consists 

 of five nothings instead of one. For the 

 last of the Powellian nothings, judgment, 

 consciousness, etc., is the whole of the 

 Berkeleyan nothing, mind, and the Hegelian 

 Nichts, thought. But are not consciousness, 

 mind, thought, real things and important 

 things? Undoubtedly, and so are justice, 

 honor, truth, freedom, yet no one thinks of 

 making these the constituents of matter 

 and the contents of the material universe. 

 All these numberless terms of elevated and 

 refined thought and sentiment stand for 

 relations subsisting among material things, 

 but which are themselves necessarily im- 

 material, as much so as distance or direc- 

 tion. The number and kinds of relations 

 are innumerable. By a little convenient 

 expansion the term may be made to include 

 space, time, motion, extension, velocity, 

 persistence, resistance, judgment, conscious- 

 ness, feeling, thought, mind, love, sympathy, 

 virtue, justice, truth, liberty, peace, ambi- 

 tion, character — all the higher and more 

 evolved conseptions of intellectual and 

 emotional beings. But if any one prefers 

 to call them properties, attributes, or even 

 qualities, there need be no objection ; they 

 may be any of these things, but they are 

 not matter nor the constituents of matter. 

 Major Powell says that the metaphysicians 

 ' reify ' mere properties or attributes. He 

 has reified abstract relations and constructed 

 a phantom world out of nothing. 



