teps in the profound difference
between Atheism and Pantheism; both posit an Existence at present
inscrutable by human faculties, of which all phenomena are modes; but
to the Atheist that Existence manifests as Force-Matter, unconscious,
unintelligent, while to the Pantheist it manifests as Life-Matter,
conscious, intelligent. To the one, life and consciousness are
attributes, properties, dependent upon arrangements of matter; to the
other they are fundamental, essential, and only limited in their
manifestation by arrangements of matter. Despite the attraction held
for me in Spinoza's luminous arguments, the over-mastering sway which
Science was beginning to exercise over me drove me to seek for the
explanation of all problems of life and mind at the hands of the
biologist and the chemist. They had done so much, explained so much,
could they not explain all? Surely, I thought, the one safe ground is
that of experiment, and the remembered agony of doubt made me very
slow to believe where I could not prove. So I was fain to regard life
as an attribute, and this again strengthened the Atheistic position.
"Scientifically regarded, life is not an entity but a property; it is
not a mode of existence, but a characteristic of certain modes. Life
is the result of an arrangement of matter, and when rearrangement
occurs the former result can no longer be present; we call the result
of the changed arrangement death. Life and death are two convenient
words for expressing the general outcome of two arrangements of
matter, one of which is always found to precede the other."[9] And
then, having resorted to chemistry for one illustration, I took
another from one of those striking and easily grasped analogies,
facility for seeing and presenting which has ever been one of the
secrets of my success as a propagandist. Like pictures, they impress
the mind of the hearer with a vivid sense of reality. "Every one knows
the exquisite iridiscence of mother-of-pearl, the tender, delicate
hues which melt into each other, glowing with soft radiance. How
different is the dull, dead surface of a piece of wax. Yet take that
dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of the
mother-of-pearl that it shall take every delicate marking of the
shell, and when you raise it the seven-hued glory shall smile at you
from the erstwhile colourless surface. For, though it be to the naked
eye imperceptible, all the surface of the mother-of-pearl is in
deli