soil. Nevertheless, it is highly desirable that our common 
experience should be treasured up in common English words, 
and that we should abolish entirely the “ idols ” which 
shield themselves under the misuse of terms in so-called 
“ philosophy.” 
24. Let our word matter be, then, agreed upon as the same 
as the Latin materia , from which it is derived. What does 
this express but the “ ivood ” * which the carpenter employs 
for the erection of his building ; or the created sub- 
stance out of which the Creator forms and fashions the 
Cosmos. 
25. We will not, then, confound the carpenter with the 
wood that he uses, nor the Creator with His handiwork. We 
will not for a moment admit that Matter and Mind are the 
same. 
26. But it is to the more accurate philosophic genius of 
the Greeks that we must turn for a more perfect definition. 
So we find r 'YA r\ to mean “wood,” or, “like the Latin 
materia, the stuff or matter of which a thing is made,” or 
“ matter as a principle of being, — mostly as opposed to the 
intelligent principle vovg ” ; and when I turn to this word 
(Nous) in the lexicon, I find that it implies purpose, will, and 
design, and that “ Anaxagoras gave this name to the Principle 
which acted on the elementary particles of matter.” j* 
27. We have, then, in the word Nous brought before us 
a Divine Being, full of will, purpose, and personality, acting 
on the subject-matter of the universe. Well might St. Paul 
say, “Whom, therefore, ye agnostically (ay voovvreg) worship, 
Him declare I unto you,” — and reason with them on the folly 
of idolatry, since we are the offspring of God, and possess 
something of His likeness. 
28. Part of this likeness consists in our possessing 
Personality and Will. We begin from our infancy to learn 
that we are ourselves “ Centres of Force,” — of force not only 
independent of our surroundings, but in opposition to that 
of other individualities, whom we must either dominate, or 
fall under subjection to them. Hence the knowledge of 
personality, and of force as the expression of this personality, 
becomes a part of our educated nature. The idea of all 
* See Latin Dictionary, sub voce. This meaning is kept up in some of 
the languages derived from the Latin, e.g., the Kio Madera S.A., from the 
number of trees brought down by the stream. Appendix A. 
f Liddell and Scott’s Gr. Lex., sub voce. 
