91 



physician could have told them without any aid from falling 

 machines, lenses, or electrical and galvanic batteries. 



Dr. Hickock's fundamental position on which he builds 

 his entire superstructure, is this : "Matter is Force." We 

 quote in full the passage in which he lays down his first 

 principles. After speaking of the absurdity of the common 

 conception of matter, as being some " dead, dry, hard sub- 

 stance," he proceeds (page 93). 



" We must, therefore, wholly renounce such a conception 

 of matter ; for indeed, upon rational examination, it will 

 be found to be an impossible conception, a mere negation 

 in thought. Let us, however, keep this force which we have 

 supposed to have been supplied to matter, and which we 

 have found in such cases must work all the mutations that 

 occur in matter, carefully subjected to the rational insight, 

 and determine whether indeed this force which does all 

 that is done is not matter itself. Simple activity is spirit- 

 ual activity, and has nothing in it that can awaken the 

 thought of force ; and it is only as it meets some opposing 

 action and encounters an antagonist that we come to have 

 the notion of force. * * *. * * When the conception 

 is that of simple action in counteration, an activity that 

 works from opposite sides upon itself, we have at once the 

 true notion of force. ***** Conceive of two 

 simple activities meeting each other and reciprocally hold- 

 ing back or resting against each other, and thus of the two 

 making a third thing unlike either at the point of contact. 

 In neither of the two activities can there be the notion of 

 force, but at the point of antagonism force is generated, 

 and one new thing comes from the synthesis of the two 

 activities. To distinguish this from other forces hereafter 

 found we call it antagonist force. In this position is taken, 

 and there is more than the idea of being, which the simple 

 activities each have, there is being standing out, an existence; 

 being in re, a reality, a THING." 



A point or molecule of matter, as we understand this pas- 



