AS APPLIED TO MAN. 369 
than those which consist in reducing the whole universe, 
not merely to matter, but to matter conceived and 
defined so as to be philosophically inconceivable. It 
is surely a great step in advance, to get rid of the 
notion that matter is a thing of itself, which can exist 
per se, and must have been eternal, since it is supposed 
to be indestructible and uncreated,—that force, or the 
forces of nature, are another thing, given or added to 
matter, or else its necessary properties,—and that 
mind is yet another thing, either a product of this 
matter and its supposed inherent forces, or distinct 
from and co-existent with it;—and to be able to sub- 
stitute for this complicated theory, which leads to 
endless dilemmas and contradictions, the far simpler 
and more consistent belief, that matter, as an entity 
distinct from force, does not exist; antl that FORCE 
is a product of minp. Philosophy had long demon- 
strated our incapacity to prove the existence of matter, 
as usually conceived; while it admitted the demon- 
stration to each of us of our own self-conscious, ideal 
existence. Science has now worked its way up to 
the same result, and this agreement between them 
should give us some confidence in their combined 
teaching. 
The view we have now arrived at seems to me 
more grand and sublime, as well as far simpler, than 
any other. It exhibits the universe, as a universe 
of intelligence and will-power ; and by enabling us to 
rid ourselves of the impossibility of thinking of mind, 
but as connected with our old notions of matter, 
2B 
