MATTER AND "MIND-STUFF" 337 



types have doubtless become adapted to them. 

 In all these various types, however, we should 

 expect to find the operation of like forces ; the pro- 

 duction of such organic forms as we are familiar with 

 being, there as well as here, the products of forces 

 which are equally subservient to the same laws. 



But now, granting all this ; assuming as we 

 have assumed, and think we have had a right 

 to assume, that all the phenomena of organic 

 as well as of inorganic nature are alike the 

 manifestations of the great principles of action and 

 reaction ; of conservation of energy and possibly 

 of substance too, how much farther do we thus 

 get towards the comprehension of the great system 

 itself ? 



So much have we said of molecules, of atoms, 

 and of electrons ; but what then are these ? 



If matter and life can be reduced to the con- 

 figurations and motions of electrons, what then is 

 the electron ? 



If we regard it as a rotational strain in the 

 aether, that all-pervading medium we have alluded 

 to so often, that may account for its physical 

 properties ; but surely not for all of them. 



We can reduce matter to motion, and what do 

 we know of motion save that it is a complex 

 perception or a mode of thought ? The student 

 of science finds that the phenomena of mind 

 are largely, if not altogether, dependent upon the 

 phenomena of matter ; or, more accurately, upon 

 the phenomena of electrons or of aether, and these 



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