e final triumph of human thought, we should sweep them
into the dust-bin, and seek for some better explanation from a new point
of view.

And, indeed, a better explanation is sought, and sought not only by
idealists, but by scientific men themselves,--did they only comprehend
their own main tendency and method. The impulse towards unity, which is
the very essence of thought, if it is baulked in one direction by a
hopeless dualism, just breaks out in another. Subjective idealism, that
is, the theory that things are nothing but phenomena of the individual's
consciousness, that the world is really all inside the philosopher, is
now known by most people to end in self-contradiction; and materialism
is also known to begin with it. And there are not many people sanguine
enough to believe with Mr. Huxley and Mr. Herbert Spencer, that, if we
add two self-contradictory theories together, or hold them alternately,
we shall find the truth. Modern science, that is, the science which does
not philosophize, and modern philosophy are with tolerable unanimity
denying this absolute dualism. They do not know of any thought that is
not of things, or of any things that are not for thought. It is
necessarily assumed that, in some way or other, the gap between things
and thought is got over by knowledge. How the connection is brought
about may not be known; but, that there is the connection between real
things and true thoughts, no one can well deny. It is an ill-starred
perversity which leads men to deny such a connection, merely because
they have not found out how it is established.

A new category of thought has taken possession of the thought of our
time--a category which is fatal to dualism. The idea of development is
breaking down the division between mind and matter, as it is breaking
down all other absolute divisions. Geology, astronomy, and physics at
one extreme, biology, psychology, and philosophy at the other, combine
in asserting the idea of the universe as a unity which is always
evolving its content, and bringing its secret potencies to the light. It
is true that these sciences have not linked hands as yet. We cannot get
from chemistry to biology without a leap, or from physiology to
psychology without another. But no one will postulate a rift right
through being. The whole tendency of modern science implies the opposite
of such a conception. History is striving to trace continuity between
the civilized man and the savage. Ps