which man built his dwelling. Here you
have the whole secret of matter. It is building-material, oak, pine,
birch, whichever you prefer. Abstract every individual characteristic,
generalise as you will, the wood, the _hyle_, always remains. And you will
have it that thought, or even the thinker, originated from this wood. Do
you really believe that there is an outer world such as we see, hear, or
feel? Where have we a tree, except in our imagination? Have you ever seen
a whole tree, from all four quarters at once? Even here we have something
to add first. And of what are our ideas composed, if not our
sense-perceptions? And these perceptions, imperfect as they are, exist
only in us, for us, and through us. The thing perceived is and always
remains, as far as we are concerned in the outer world, transcendent, a
thing in itself; all else is our doing; and if you wish to call it matter
or the material world, well and good, but at least it is not the _prius_
of mind, but the _posterius_, that which is demanded by the mind, but is
always unattainable. Even the professional materialist ascribes inertia to
matter. The atoms, if he assumes atoms, are motionless, unless disturbed.
From whence comes this disturbance? It must proceed from something outside
the atoms, or the matter, so that we can never say that there is nothing
in the universe but matter. And now if we ascribe motion to the atoms, or
like other philosophers, perception, then that is nothing more nor less
than to ascribe mind to them, which, however, if you are right, must first
evolve itself out of this matter. If we wind something into these atoms,
then we can also wind something out of them; in doing this, however, we
give up at the outset the experiment of letting mind evolve itself out of
matter. Give an atom the germ-power of an acorn, and it will develop into
an oak. Give an atom the capacity of sense-perception, and it will become
an animal, possibly a man. But what was promised us was the development of
feeling and perception out of the dead atoms of hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, carbon, etc. Even if we could explain life out of the activities
of these atoms, which may be possible,--although denied by Haeckel and
Tyndall,--still feeling, perception, understanding, all the functions of
mind, would remain unexplained. J. S. Mill is certainly no idealist, and
no doubt is one of your heroes. Well Mr. Mill declares that nothing but
mind could produce mind. Even Tynd