even so understood, will bear the test of thought. It needs to be made perfect by some added considerations. Taken as a complete philosophy of the world, it does not suffice.

The atomistic way of looking at things has made a great advance possible in natural science. Moreover, the principle of the conservation of energy, in spite of its obscurity (especially when a metaphysical value is sought for it), has given us an elastic chain which binds all the material beings in the universe, and at length draws them into a centre of absolute unity. Thus far from Democritus to Count Rumford and Dr. Joule. Next we have Darwin, whose bold conception of species gives a similar principle of unity to all the life in the universe. And, lastly, the physical dependence of mind upon organism and molecular changes, gives an apparent justification to the revolt of Moleschott and Büchner against the existence of substantive thought. Here are three orders of perfection-matter, life, and mind, each on its own ground, but the higher following out the vicissitudes of the lower. They are connected so far as this; no life without matter, no mind without an accompanying vehicle of impressions. Are they, also, intrinsically derivative? Can matter pass over into mind, and, if it can, by what process? Change supposes that one and the same thing, without being annihilated, or ceasing wholly to be, takes upon itself another form, or displays qualities hitherto dormant, and, in this case, not of the same order as those which it had before. There is a terminus a quo, and a terminus ad quem, but what is found at both poles, so to speak, ought in an intelligible sense to be identical. Change, therefore, is the alteration of the same thing from one state to another. Well, then, is matter a state of mind, or mind a state of matter, or are they entirely discrepant? Mr. Tyndall has asked himself these questions, not without an understanding of the issues they involve. But having started from Democritus alone, he cannot add life and mind to matter as series lying outside of it and above it, for they are not given. He is precluded himself from supposing that they can exist independently of matter by his inflexible rule, that anything not capable of being clearly present to his imagination is a figment. And he asks, in a tone of conviction, what would be the phantasma, the clear-defined picture of life apart from organism, or thought apart from cerebral motion? Then the problem is this; given matter in any complexity you please of perfect organism, how does it produce consciousness?

The solution yields itself up at last, and by a process as beautiful as it is simple. Life, species, and mind have been certainly unfolded from their prepotent elements in the

past."* And these elements are rightly described as matter, the definition of which has been in all text-books the same for centuries. But, taken only as thus defined, the notion of any form of life coming out of it is altogether inconceivable. This is the Professor's deliberate opinion. We are much obliged to him for expressing it so strongly. S. Thomas could hardly have done better. However, here is the rub, matter can be defined in other ways, and then the difficulty assumes quite a new appearance. Lucretius believed in what we may call the real existence of a physical universe. Can we do so, now that Berkeley and Kant and Fichte and Bain have examined the question from the point of view of the thinking subject? At our peril. It is impossible to show that anything exists outside of ourselves. What we cognize, if anything at all, are the variations of our own condition, changes in the nervous organization which nurtures and feeds our thought. We may, if we like, infer that there is something, not ourselves, which answers to the Lucretian matter; but inference is not fact. The whole sum of our knowledge is the sum of states of consciousness. Then matter has vanished off the scene. Not merely has it gone into vapour, or, like the waves of the ethereal medium, hidden itself in its own light, but it has ceased absolutely and by force of logic out of our intuition. In this view, matter is empirical, or, at best, is the unknown and unknowable contents of an empirical sensation. And we already agreed that mind is dependent upon matter, is inseparable from it, and is nothing substantial in and by itself. The substance, at our starting, was matter, not mind. Since, then, the solidity of matter has turned into a phantom, and thought has become states of empirical consciousness, we are wholly bereft of substance, and must feel thankful that, in our sadly reduced condition, we may still boast of two sets of phenomena and one Unknowable. (This last may well be made the most of, and spelt with a capital letter.) Now, then, let us reconsider our problem on its new basis.

What ought we to say when questioned as to the extent of our knowledge? Since Pure Reason is now in the world, we must know this, at least, that all our thought is cast into subjective forms which are destitute of objective valuc. Shade of Coleridge! are we to begin those interminable conversations over again for the benefit of Mr. Carlyle in his declining years? But what are we to do? Professor Tyndall himself introduces us to these two fractious conceptions. Only, he adds what perhaps Immanuel Kant might have been allowed

VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIV.

* "Address," p. 50.
[New Series.]

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to tell us, that it is inconceivable to the human mind, in its present state, how these contrasted phenomena should arise. Considered fundamentally, they are the result of The source of an operation which to us is inscrutable. And this, if we desire phenomena is beyond all thought. to speak Greek, is the cosmic mystery. Matter is unknowable, so is mind; when we think one, we are obliged to think of the other, they interpenetrate, and yet are contradictories. Mind seems a mere effervescence of perfected matter, but in the very instant we judge so, matter has become a term of thought, and the reality has taken wings and fled. The Absolute, resting in itself, we can never know, and the Universe, once called the life-garment of an eternal power, is We speak of reality, but have never an uneasy dream. grasped it; we distinguish phenomena and substance, yet The world goes from eternity to substance we never saw. eternity, and its movement is fatal, yet we discuss free-will, and for a moment seem to apprehend what we discuss. Matter, life, and mind, as we experience them, are a hasting stream, whose water no man touches a second time. They come out of something and must needs pass into it again, for science-science, indeed, at this stage, when we are no longer in the porch, but with the hierophants in the penetralia! Science tells us that nothing comes from nothing, and that annihilation is unthinkable. How to reconcile these things? The mystery of existence lies all enfolded in that little word "to be." We gaze into it, and suddenly become silent; for us it is infinite. Lucretius was great, but Fichte is greater. He will surpass both who confesses that they knew not all their own ignorance, though they had cast away the cheap knowledge of priest and prophet.

It is, we have said, an advantage, when some creed has been expounded for our benefit, if we gather its characteristic notes into a name, just as we are used to describe complex natures by definition. Nor will any one complain of our so doing, provided that we can assure the world of our competence to understand the doctrine or the nature. Regarded, therefore, as science, we think Mr. Tyndall's views are akin to materialistic Hegelianism. The proof is very plain. The absolute substratum of things known to us is matter, and that not real but phenomenal. By a process of irrevocable change, this comes at last to be phenomenal mind. Substance is an unknown quantity, but of the two orders which we seem to see, the lower in point of perfection is the efficient and formal cause of the higher. It is true that Mr. Tyndall's efficient cause does not produce anything, but is merely an invariable

antecedent. This, however, only makes it more evident that in the course of the changing upwards no new thing comes to the front (how could it?) So we have now got an identity of substratum, or whatever it is to be called, in the various phenomena, and such that it is at home as matter and goes forth as life and mind. Then matter and mind are one and the same thing, but the former originates the latter. Every one would allow that this is materialism. But next, it is also Hegelianism, because it does not rawly assert that matter is mind from first to last; it will have a change take place, and the subject rise up inscrutably out of the object. Now, this is the sum total of the Hegelian method, according to which the only reality is what becomes, or the momently steadfast result of a change from one opposite to another. Identity in change, and change in identity, this is the entire explanation and the entire mystery: how one thing remaining itself can become another? Hegel's way of stating the axiom was easier and much more consistent than Mr. Tyndall's. The latter speaks of the "promise and potency of all things in matter." The former said more plainly,-"Whatever is real is ideal, and the ideal is the real." And these words close the book of science.

But as regards religion, there is more to be elucidated. Objective knowledge we cannot have about anything: still science takes the same shape in all ages. For the moulds wherein we fashion beliefs are simply of us, and human nature is a type in little of the universals which seem to exist in the outer worlds. All knowledge is therefore anthropomorphic, and the laws of our intellect being always the same, no wonder that science should take an identical impression whenever it has been studied. Religion, however, has not had the same fate. Rude, inexperienced men, project into history the vision of a gross theology from out of their imagination. It holds a place of honour for many years as the tradition of the earliest time. Then the same human nature is urged forward by its needs and its longings to the attainment of a better self. It makes progress in all directions. It grows so intent over the new acquisitions that the former state is no more remembered. The enthusiastic creeds give way to a predominant interest in literature, science, and discoveries of all sorts. But this stage of religious formalism does not continue. Man has other strivings than after a consummate insight into nature and the inanimate world. He has imagination as well as reason, he may be a poet as naturally as he handles the real objects of common life. It is in him and of him to be many-sided and to seek contentment in the greatest variety of pleasures

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and goods. Mr. Tyndall deprecates the substitution of physical or abstract science for the vanished dreams of the religious soul. We must make provision, he says, for the whole man, who is more than intellect. Even when we are strenuous advocates of science, it behoves us not to lose sight of the manifold wants of human nature which as yet science will not satisfy. Especially, there is the tendency in us to direct our ways by a rule of morality, and to fashion some heavenly scheme with which we may quiet our restlessness in the present irregular growth of physical interpretation. cannot acquiesce in the childish, though childishly attractive, myths and legends upon the strength of which we have hitherto leant for support. What then? Does science take away religion? For if it shows us that we know nothing of reality, that our intellect when left to itself weaves a strange illusory dream of the subject and object, there seems no foothold for religion. It must perish like a dove among the waters of the Deluge, unless some window open in the ark to give it a shelter. But the ark is a myth.

Mr. Tyndall makes reply that we ought to distinguish the religious need from such accidental expressions of it as the changing knowledge of men allows them to utter. The need cannot perish, because it springs out of the very essence of the subject, who remains the subject, though his wisdom be never so increased. The feeling persists as a formative principle, and takes hold of all that facts and theories persuade a man to believe. Whilst the human family traverses a cycle of errors correcting themselves into fuller information and less inadequate hypotheses, there is a revolution, indeed, of mere dogmas, but an inflexible assertion of the necessity to man of religion. So that in every creed (not excepting Christianity) which has taken hold of the multitude, there is a mixture of truth and falsehood, inevitable almost, considering the wants and imperfections of our nature, though a thoughtful man will know how to winnow the good grains from the chaff. Look at any period of history, and you will observe the greatness of religion when crowned with the beauty (as many think it) of dogmatic faith. The sentiment needs this embodiment, this artistic falsification. But if it be so, we can and ought to admire all religions, as we appreciate the literature of many nations even when it is made up of imperfect attempts at delineating human life. What, then, is the error to be guarded against? What has religion done that Mr. Tyndall and his friends should be so fierce with it? The answer given is this. So long as religion professes to satisfy a need of the human heart it does well, and no one should withhold