i88i.] 
Animism versus Hylozoism. 
593 
This necessarily involves the conclusion that all mental 
processes, even the most complex, — all moral affections and 
emotions, — all imagination and poetry, — all knowledge, even 
the highest and noblest, — all the sublimest conceptions of 
the human mind, — are nothing more than the motions of 
solid atoms ! ! And this (I must call it) degrading view of 
human intellect is said to be Science, in the nineteenth 
century ! But let us calmly examine this monstrous idea.* 
If such are indeed the “ inalienable ” prerogatives of 
matter, — if it can, of and by itself , think, feel, choose, and 
calculate, — then it is what men in general call mind; and 
I hardly know whether the confusion of thought thus 
manifested, or the confusion of language, is most to be con- 
demned. We have no data, no common ground for reasoning. 
We know not what we are talking about. 
C. N. assumes that the Lucretian doCtrine — of matter being 
composed of an infinity of solid atoms — is undisputed and 
indisputable. To say nothing of the visionary Idealism of 
Berkeley, derived from Oriental myths, — has C. N. never 
heard of the Physical hypothesis of Boscovich, as set forth 
in his “ Theoria Philosophise Naturalis ” ? He maintains — 
upon the plausible ground that our bodily senses inform us 
of nothing more than phenomena, the aCtual causes of which 
are unseen Realities — that Matter has no objective existence 
at all ; but that all the motions and properties usually as- 
cribed to matter, can be logically accounted for, by assuming 
the existence of an infinitude of centres , from which emanate 
forces of various intensities, as well as of diverse kinds. By 
this view, therefore, Matter as an objective reality is wholly 
dispensed with ; and the sceptic who denies the existence of 
mind as a distinCt entity, finds himself confronted by “ a 
scepticism still more sweeping, and reasoning still more re- 
fined than his own.” Granted that both theories are infer- 
ences, — for they can be nothing higher, — still mind is 
demanded to form the inferences ; so that the Materialist is 
fairly stranded ; he can make no way, except by the recog- 
nition of the prior existence of Mind. It must not be sup- 
posed that I adopt Boscovich’s theory. But I say, with 
confidence, that if the question is to be decided upon logical 
grounds alone, it is not Mind, but Matter, that is in danger 
of going to the wall. 
Again, I ask, What is Reason, if it is not a faculty of 
* On the general subject of spiritual realities I may refer C. N. (without 
saying that I accept all their conclusions) not only to Cudworth, but, in our 
own days, to the authors of “ The Unseen Universe ” and Fiske's “ Cosmic 
Philosophy.” 
