PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

I.

METAPHYSICS.

THE nature of the world-The hypothesis of matter-The universe is God's action perceived as motion-Nature is action-Nature is one with man- -Berkeley's error-The mind is not more real than the external world-The laws of Nature are given by man-The work of Science is to harmonise our perceptions with our conceptions-Can we know the fact of the world ?-How come we to perceive a physical world?-Wherever sin is, matter is-The law of cause and effect is a form of thought-God's act is not the cause but the fact of the world-Granting illusion, all mysteries are removed-The error of regarding this as an imperfect physical world-The mental is physical-Things are forms of the spiritual -Science now is too abstract-The error of "inherent tendencies,” etc.-Nature is a process felt as matter-Metaphysics is a Mathematics-The world is the symbol of an unknown quantityMatter Science, like Mathematics, exists for the sake of the unknown quantity-The point, that is, absence of matter, is the only infinite, and the symbol of God—The molecule is in reality a point-Chemistry and Physics correspond with MathematicsMetaphysics and Science must be used together-What will make Philosophy popular ?-The tendency of Positivism-The life of Metaphysics.

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MEN may adopt three views concerning the nature of the world. (1) That there is a material and an actual (spiritual), both truly existing, and necessarily with a certain antagonism between them; this leads rightly to asceticism. (2) That there is only the material; this

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being the true existence (at least to us), and such as we perceive it. There is (to us) no actual. This is positivism, as it speaks. (3) That the sole true existence is the actual; and that this material, or real, is our way of perceiving it. The last is actualism (or positivism as it truly is), the practical inference being that we have to deal with the real, but on the principle that it is truly actual, if we could see it aright, getting at the true Being by leaving out the negation. Now which is the best?

Newton says, "the first cause is certainly not mechanical." This is just the point at which science stops the conversion as it were of the first cause into mechanical cause, or motion. Or as the problem may be better put what is that wherein consists the act of spirit becoming motion? This is the problem, to bridge the gulf which separates a spiritual act from motion: the mystery of creation is here. The hypothesis of matter or a substratum in which motion inheres as one of its properties is evidently simply a mode of solving the difficulty; the hypothesis was manifestly invented for that object. It appeared, I suppose, simpler that a spiritual being should create matter and put it in motion, which motion would then "naturally" continue, or continue by the laws of motion (whatever that means), than that a spirit's action should itself be motion. And indeed at first sight this solution does seem to have some advantages; to our minds it does seem natural that matter should move, there is a conformity between the nature of the two things: also it does not seem so hard to understand that a spirit should put matter in motion: not that the idea is at all simple or intelligible, but I suppose we readily accept the supposition because we are conscious of being able to do the same thing; by our

spiritual act, our will, we move matter. The idea has that deceptive appearance of comprehensibility which arises from familiarity. Also by supposing a creation of matter once and putting it in motion, which continues as a matter of course, we throw back the difficulty if we do not diminish it: it does not press on us as a present mystery-the thing was very wonderful when it took place, but it was so very long ago that it does not concern us much, and besides it was altogether a different process from any that takes place now, so that it is no wonder if we find it mysterious. But upon this we may remark (1) That it does not really relieve the difficulty. (2) That it rather substitutes a greater difficulty for a less one. (3) That it is in point of fact utterly inadmissible. If a spiritual may become a physical action at any time, why not now? Why suppose two processes or orders of things when one, which must in any case be supposed, will suffice? And again, as has been said, we are conscious continually in ourselves of a spiritual act becoming a physical act; why should we exclude God from doing that which we do ourselves? If part of the motion which exists is our spiritual act, why is not the rest of it God's spiritual act? Why two different causes for like events? But the difficulty is, by the hypothesis of matter, really rendered greater. We cannot see how a spiritual act, either our own or God's, can produce or be (which is a better term) motion; but, hard as this may be, we do at least perceive it in our own experience, whereas the creation of matter is a thing at once much harder to conceive, and entirely beyond experience. It is not only inconceivable as a process but is illustrated by no analogies. That God creates the world by a spiritual act, as we by spiritual acts take a part in the production of the phenomena, appears by the

side of this past and done creation of matter, a thing of course, so simple by comparison, that we almost forget that it, too, is an impassible mystery. But also this hypothesis of matter is inadmissible (as long seen) on scientific grounds. Useless and worse than useless as an explanation of the fact which it was invented to explain, it is positively shown to be false alike by metaphysics and by science. It fills the world with needless mysteries without helping in the least to remove a necessary one. But though the hypothesis of matter only makes bad worse, the problem may be attempted in other ways, and, as it seems to me, somewhat mitigated if not solved. Berkeley tried to do this by affirming the world to be God's action upon man's mind, which is at least better than the material hypothesis, although open on one side to fatal objections. I propose this view: That the universe is God's action absolutely, and quite independently of any percipient. But God being a spirit, His action, of course, is spiritual action. How then do we see it as physical, i.e. as motion, which is not a spiritual attribute? (I do not say as matter and motion, because the idea of matter is evidently derived from motion, viz. through resistance, which is only motion opposed to motion.) This is my solution. We perceive God's spiritual action as motion, because we ourselves, by our own finite nature, impose a limit on it: i.e. God's action being in itself unlimited, having relation neither to time nor space, we, by virtue of our finitude, perceive it in relation only to such boundaries: that is, we see it as motion, the material universe.

This is why the laws of Nature are truly the laws of our minds, why the conceptions by which material phenomena are bound into science are supplied from within, not gathered from without; why it is in truth

himself that man studies in the universe. Science is man's view of God's action. Doubtless each order of intelligent beings has a different science; according to the limit their nature compels them to put upon the divine action. Our perceptions themselves involve the ideas of space and time; they are only human "forms," not actualities; and we can conceive of force only as motion; whatever God might do, if we perceived it, it would be motion to us.

We must have action, getting rid of matter altogether. The one error of science is the considering action as substance; and so, in its advance, we get rid of substance continually, seeing nature more and more truly, till at last, giving up substance altogether, we get the true nature, the spiritual, the divine. And we take with shame, yet a shame that should be full of hope and joy, the "inertia" wholly to ourselves. Inertia is selfishness, the subjectness to passion, the not acting, the true or spiritual death.

Surely Nature is one because knowledge is one. To comprehend anything is to have it in us-one with our own central "thought." Surely we "comprehend" nothing but axioms: comprehension is of one fact, at once primary and ultimate. As I have said of life, it comprehends all and is comprehended in the least. Our comprehension is of life; our minds being life we comprehend life. This and this alone we understand or know. To understand a thing is for it to become one with us. The mere accumulation of ideas and theories -nutrition-is not truly knowledge, in fact it is error, which is opposed to it: it is a mere preparation for it. Knowledge is the result of interpretation or function,