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Materialism of the present day — the Materialism of such men as Huxley, 
Spencer, Tyndall, and others, who taught the Materialistic doctrine. 
Wherever they went, in the marts of commerce or among the students of 
nature, they found that this Materialism was gaining ground, and gradually 
undermining the conscience of the nation. In ordinary conversation, in 
their own homes and among their own families, they found this doctrine 
making way, while even art and poetry had caught the infection, and were 
coming down to the mere level of pounds, shillings, and pence. Thus they 
saw that in all classes of society this Materialism was undermining morality, 
and he could not do otherwise than believe that it would have a most 
injurious effect, not only on us as individuals, but also as a country and 
a people. 
Mr. D. Howard, Y.P.I.C., said that there were one or two points in con- 
nexion with the subject which he thought worthy of special attention ; not 
that there was anything new in them, but there seemed perpetual need of 
repeating an old story. He believed the popular confusion which prevailed 
as to the words “ cause ” and “ force,” and the fact that we habitually used 
the word “ force ” for “ energy,” and constantly spoke of “ force and the 
correlation of the physical forces” where we undoubtedly meant energy, 
while we employed the word “cause” in the most lax manner possible, 
was the reason for a great deal of the Materialism of the present day. 
Of the evil of all this he thought there could be no doubt. Even with 
reference to the phrase which had been used with regard to the consistency 
of Hume and his school, the real explanation of this was to be found in the 
very lax use made of the word “ science,” which, with them, meant merely 
physical science. The fact was that the Materialists and the Semi- 
materialists were allowed to apply the word “ science ” solely to physical 
science ; why, he did not know. Aristotle did not admit such a distinction, 
and no Greek or Latin thinker could possibly have allowed such a confusion 
of ideas with regard to human knowledge being confined to material 
phenomena. The very expression “scientific,” nowadays, was habitually 
used in contradistinction to “metaphysical,’’ and even the word “philo- 
sophy ” was very often used as meaning physical science, while, behind this, 
there was much confusion as to the real origin of force, which, to many 
people, was entirely a new proposition. One objection, and in his opinion 
a fatal one, to the theory that thought is but a form of molecular motion, 
was, he thought, well put in the paper. If thought, and feeling, and 
life were the result of the molecular motion of atoms, it was evident that 
there must be caused thereby a loss of some other form of energy. The 
theory of the conservation of energy was, that any one of the “physical 
forces” might be converted into another, the total amount of force remaining 
unchanged, and that thus one might be measured in terms of another. Thus, 
to produce the electric light, a perfectly definite amount of engine power 
must be exerted beyond that required to overcome friction and that lost as heat, 
and a definite amount of light expressed in candles required a definite amount 
Qf power expressed in foot-pounds 5 on the other hand, in an electric railway 
