tualism'--or the theory which would suppose that mind is the cause
of motion--is pronounced from the point of view of science not
impossible indeed but 'unsatisfactory,' and the more probable conclusion
is found in a 'monism' like Bruno's--according to which mind and motion
are co-ordinate and probably co-extensive aspects of the same universal
fact--a monism which may be called Pantheism, but may also be regarded
as an extension of contracted views of Theism[17]. The position
represented by this lecture may be seen sufficiently from its
conclusion:--
'If the advance of natural science is now steadily leading us to the
conclusion that there is no motion without mind, must we not see how the
independent conclusion of mental science is thus independently
confirmed--the conclusion, I mean, that there is no being without
knowing? To me, at least, it does appear that the time has come when we
may begin, as it were in a dawning light, to see that the study of
Nature and the study of Mind are meeting upon this greatest of possible
truths. And if this is the case--if there is no motion without mind, no
being without knowing--shall we infer, with Clifford, that universal
being is mindless, or answer with a dogmatic negative that most
stupendous of questions,--Is there knowledge with the Most High? If
there is no motion without mind, no being without knowing, may we not
rather infer, with Bruno, that it is in the medium of mind, and in the
medium of knowledge, we live, and move, and have our being?
'This, I think, is the direction in which the inference points, if we
are careful to set out the logical conditions with complete
impartiality. But the ulterior question remains, whether, so far as
science is concerned, it is here possible to point any inference at all:
the whole orbit of human knowledge may be too narrow to afford a
parallax for measurements so vast. Yet even here, if it be true that the
voice of science must thus of necessity speak the language of
agnosticism, at least let us see to it that the language is pure[18];
let us not tolerate any barbarisms introduced from the side of
aggressive dogma. So shall we find that this new grammar of thought does
not admit of any constructions radically opposed to more venerable ways
of thinking; even if we do not find that the often-quoted words of its
earliest formulator apply with special force to its latest
dialects--that if a little knowledge of physiology and a little
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