GO 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE RATIONALE OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN 
MATTER AND MIND. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY PROFESSOR CHAPMAN, M.A. 
Read December 5tb., 1878. 
The object in view in this discussion is to indicate the lines along 
which a satisfactory account may be found of the distinction which 
is ordinarily made between the essential nature of Matter and 
of Mind. 
The fact that the majority of great thinkers of ancient times did 
recognize the distinction and based their systems on the then 
generally admitted truth, is adduced not by way of evidence, but 
to indicate that men regarded it as fundamental. At the same 
time, if there is any value in the concurrence of most of the 
acutest reasoners of the past, the natural issue is, that those who 
now are inclined to deny or question the conclusion thus held must 
in all fairness accept the burden of proof. 
The profound mystery which every thoughtful man feels in the 
conscious existence of a nature that can assert its power in the 
presence of a complicated universe, and even debate its own reality, 
was appreciated by the profoundest intellects of India and Greece. 
This it was that gave impulse to their endeavours to penetrate the 
darkness and solve the riddle of life. The culmination of these 
early efforts appears, perhaps, in Plato's characterizing Matter as 
rather a negation of reality, and Mind as being a spontaneous 
energy and formative influence. The indeterminate substratum, 
under the potent action of this positive formative power, issued in 
a Kosmical Phenomenon. The Platonic conclusion, not being based 
on scientific analysis as applied to physics, has little weight with 
those who hope to ascertain all truth from purely physical researches ; 
but nevertheless the sharp antithesis thus enunciated has not been 
set aside. It is significant that the more logical Aristotle worked 
out his physics and metaphysics to essentially the same conclusion ; 
