condemned by many zealous persons,
and perhaps by some few of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder
if "gross and brutal materialism" were the mildest phrase applied to
them in certain quarters. And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the
propositions are distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things are
certain: the one, that I hold the statements to be substantially true;
the other, that I, individually, am no materialist, but, on the
contrary, believe materialism to involve grave philosophical error.

This union of materialistic terminology with the repudiation of
materialistic philosophy, I share with some of the most thoughtful men
with whom I am acquainted. And, when I first undertook to deliver the
present discourse, it appeared to me to be a fitting opportunity to
explain how such a union is not only consistent with, but necessitated
by, sound logic. I purposed to lead you through the territory of vital
phenomena to the materialistic slough in which you find yourselves now
plunged, and then to point out to you the sole path by which, in my
judgment, extrication is possible.

An occurrence of which I was unaware until my arrival here last night,
renders this line of argument singularly opportune. I found in your
papers the eloquent address "On the Limits of Philosophical Inquiry,"
which a distinguished prelate of the English Church delivered before the
members of the Philosophical Institution on the previous day. My
argument, also, turns upon this very point of the limits of
philosophical inquiry; and I cannot bring out my own views better than
by contrasting them with those so plainly, and, in the main, fairly,
stated by the Archbishop of York.

But I may be permitted to make a preliminary comment upon an occurrence
that greatly astonished me. Applying the name of "the New Philosophy" to
that estimate of the limits of philosophical inquiry which I, in common
with many other men of science, hold to be just, the Archbishop opens
his address by identifying this "New Philosophy" with the Positive
Philosophy of M. Comte (of whom he speaks as its "founder"); and then
proceeds to attack that philosopher and his doctrines vigorously.

Now, so far as I am concerned, the most reverend prelate might
dialectically hew M. Comte in pieces, as a modern Agag, and I should not
attempt to stay his hand. In so far as my study of what specially
characterises the Positive Philosophy has led me, I find therein little
or n