24 NATURE AND LIFE. 
principle of energy and motion. A second view of the 
universe, exclusively synthetic, leads us, as we have seen, 
to another certainty, which is the existence of a principle 
ef differentiation and harmony. ‘This principle is what is 
called mind. Thus mind is not substance, but it is the 
law of substance; it is not force, but it is the revealer of 
force. It is not life, but it makes life exist. It is not 
thought, but it is the consciousness of thought. A distin- 
guished English savant, Carpenter, has said lately, with 
decisive clearness, “Mind is the sole and single source of 
power.” In a word, it is not reality, yet in it and by it 
realities are defined and differentiated, and consequently 
exist. Instead of saying that mind is a property of mat- 
ter, we should say that matter is a property of mind. 
Of all the properties of matter, in fact, there is not one, no, 
not a single one, which is not bestowed on it by mind. 
The true explanation, the only philosophy of Nature, is 
thus a kind of spiritualistic dynamism, very different from 
materialism, or from the mechanism of certain contemporary 
schools. . 
Materialism is false and imperfect, because it stops short 
at atoms, in which it localizes those properties for which 
atoms supply no cause, and because it neglects force and 
spirit, which are the only means we have, constituted as 
our souls are, of conceiving the activity and the appearings 
of beings. It is false and imperfect, because it stops half- 
way, and treats compound and resolvable factors as simple 
and irreducible ones ; and because it professes to represent 
the world by shows, without attempting to explain the pro- 
duction of those shows. In a word, it sees the cause of 
diversity where it is not, and fails to see it where it does 
exist. The source of differentiations cannot be in energy 
itself; it must be ina principle apart from that energy,ina . 
superior will and consciousness, of which we have, doubt- 
less, only a dim and faulty idea, but as to which we can yet 
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