e mode of regarding it, or one
set of formulae expressing it, can possibly be sufficient and complete.
Even a sheet of paper has two sides: a terrestrial globe presents
different aspects from different points of view; a crystal has a
variety of facets; and the totality of existence is not likely to be
more simple than any of these--is not likely to be readily expressible
in any form of words, or to be thoroughly conceivable by any human
mind.

It may be well to remember that Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist of the
most pronounced and thorough conviction, although he had a great deal
to do with the reduction of the major Cosmos to mechanics, _i.e._ with
its explanation by the elaborated machinery of simple forces; and he
conceived it possible that, in the progress of science, this process of
reduction to mechanics would continue till it embraced nearly all
phenomena. (See extract below.) That, indeed, has been the effort of
science ever since, and therein lies the legitimate basis for
materialistic statements, though not for a materialistic philosophy.

The following sound remarks concerning Newton are taken from Huxley's
_Hume_, p. 246:--

"Newton demonstrated all the host of heaven to be but the elements
of a vast mechanism, regulated by the same laws as those which
express the falling of a stone to the ground. There is a passage in
the preface to the first edition of the _Principia_, which shows
that Newton was penetrated, as completely as Descartes, with the
belief that all the phenomena of nature are expressible in terms of
matter and motion:--

"'WOULD THAT THE REST OF THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE COULD BE DEDUCED
BY A LIKE KIND OF REASONING FROM MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES. FOR MANY
CIRCUMSTANCES LEAD ME TO SUSPECT THAT ALL THESE PHENOMENA MAY
DEPEND UPON CERTAIN FORCES, IN VIRTUE OF WHICH THE PARTICLES OF
BODIES, BY CAUSES NOT YET KNOWN, ARE EITHER MUTUALLY IMPELLED
AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, AND COHERE INTO REGULAR FIGURES, OR REPEL AND
RECEDE FROM ONE ANOTHER; WHICH FORCES BEING UNKNOWN, PHILOSOPHERS
HAVE AS YET EXPLORED NATURE IN VAIN. BUT I HOPE THAT, EITHER BY
THIS METHOD OF PHILOSOPHISING, OR BY SOME OTHER AND BETTER, THE
PRINCIPLES HERE LAID DOWN MAY THROW SOME LIGHT UPON THE MATTER.'"

Here is a full-blown anticipation of an intelligible exposition of the
Universe in terms of matter and force: the substantial basis of what
smaller men call materialism