erwise orderly system of Nature.

From this vice of radical contradiction, to which both the dualistic
theories are committed, the monistic theory is free. Moreover, as we
shall immediately find, it is free to combine the elements of truth
which severally belong to both the other theories. These other theories
are each concerned with what they see upon different sides of the same
shield. The facts which they severally receive they severally report,
and their reports appear to contradict each other. But truth can never
be really in contradiction with other truth; and it is reserved for
Monism, by taking a simultaneous view of both sides, to reconcile the
previously apparent contradictions. For these and other reasons, which
will unfold themselves as we proceed, I fully agree with the late
Professor Clifford where he says of this theory--'It is not merely a
speculation, but is a result to which all the greatest minds that have
studied this question (the relation between body and mind) in the right
way have gradually been approximating for a long time.' This theory is,
as we have already seen, that mental phenomena and physical phenomena,
although apparently diverse, are really identical.

If we thus unite in a higher synthesis the elements both of spiritualism
and of materialism, we obtain a product which satisfies every fact of
feeling on the one hand, and of observation on the other. We have only
to suppose that the antithesis between mind and motion--subject and
object--is itself phenomenal or apparent: not absolute or real. We have
only to suppose that the seeming duality is relative to our modes of
apprehension: and, therefore, that any change taking place in the mind,
and any corresponding change taking place in the brain, are really not
two changes, but one change. When a violin is played upon we hear a
musical sound, and at the same time we see a vibration of the strings.
Relatively to our consciousness, therefore, we have here two sets of
changes, which appear to be very different in kind; yet we know that in
an absolute sense they are one and the same: we know that the diversity
in consciousness is created only by the difference in our mode of
perceiving the same events--whether we see or whether we hear the
vibration of the strings. Similarly, we may suppose that a vibration of
nerve-strings and a process of thought are really one and the same
event, which is dual or diverse only in relation to our modes of
pe