AUTHOR'S PREFACE. THIS Volume contains a transcript, unaltered, except by omissions and by verbal corrections, of papers written at various intervals, simply as a private record of my thoughts. They embrace subjects of many kinds, often having no special connection, save that they were regarded from a common point of view, and were felt to throw on each other a mutual light. To render them intelligible, a few things should be stated. These papers are not to be assumed to represent my present opinions. They are not a statement of my thoughts, but a history of them, and present, not the results, but the process. Necessarily, therefore, they contain that which I now think erroneous or partial. Here and there I have indicated this by a brief remark, but on the whole I have treated the papers as documents merely, and not as subjects for criticism or statements for revision. I have, indeed, specially sought not to exclude my errors, wherever they seemed to me to have any vital connection with the progress of my ideas, because the chief value which I attach to the papers is that of being an exact transcript of a process that has taken place quite independently of any volition of mine, and the record of which may perhaps have the same interest that Science finds in every natural event, quite apart from its intrinsic importance. I take, however, this opportunity to explain a few terms which occur in meanings other than their customary ones. The terms nutrition and function I have adopted from physiology, and applied to the mental and moral life of man. They mean always the production of a tension, and its ceasing; with this idea also implied, that the tension is produced in an "organization," that is, under conditions whereby the ceasing of the tension produced definite results, or a "function." "function." For example: the process of a reductio ad absurdum, with its impossible consequences enforced by sound logic, and ending in a correction of the premiss, is a mental "nutrition," ending in a "function; "the tension against reason is the nutrition. The change of basis, in which the tension ceases, is the function. So too in the cases in which a false thought of right enforces a false duty, making a "tension" against the moral reason, which ceases with a truer apprehension of the duty: here is a moral nutrition and a function. The words theory and interpretation are used in a sense precisely corresponding. Theory means that which is imposed on us as true while there is an error in the basis of our thought; interpretation, the rectifying of the basis. The word polarity has been used rather in unusual connections than with unusual meaning. It denotes nothing more than an oppositeness in two things, which implies in them a special tendency to union. The positive and negative electricities are examples of polar opposites. Continuous and transitive vibrations are sufficiently explained by the context. The motion of a pendulum is a continuous vibration, the upward motion being of the same form as the downward; a body falling into water, and making the water rise, is a transitive vibration; the upward motion, though equivalent to the downward, being changed in form. One new word I have introduced, which I would prefer to have omitted if it had not been too much interwoven with the thoughts-the word actualism. This term I gave, for convenience, to the general conception I had formed: it is parallel to idealism, materialism, positivism, etc., and was adopted to express the idea that all existence is truly active or spiritual, as opposed to inert or dead. As I have been re-perusing these writings, I have grown more and more conscious how far my words have often been from conveying my whole meaning; how my very thought, indeed, has changed and grown beneath my hands, and from being what seemed like a clear perception, has become only a suggestion of far distant things. I have felt this especially in relation to God and Nature. To me, Nature means God's action towards me and towards man; and it is so much, and grows to me perpetually so much more, and so joins itself with Revelation, and becomes one with all that I have most prized in that, that all seems to come into it, and I cannot draw a line; nor can I even try. But I know this is no end-my eyes are dazzled; others will judge for me. To any reader who has felt interest enough to extend his glances at these papers even to their end, let me say that I hope he has felt this about them, that with whatever weaknesses and errors and waste of time and thought they are mixed, yet there is in them some sign of the opening of a road into farther truths. This is all they were wished to afford. JAMES HINTON. CONTENTS. 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 a matter-Metaphysics is a Mathematics— The world is the symbol of an unknown quantity-Matter=x -Science, like Mathematics, exists for the sake of the un- known 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 Mathematics-Metaphysics and Science must be used together 1 |