always has been and always will be. It is indestructible, and, in its elements, unchangeable. Force is inseparable from matter. According to the theory no matter is without force, and no force is without matter. No force exists of itself; and, ^therefore, there is none to which the creation of matter is to be referred. The uni- verse as it now is, is due to the gradual evolution of the two ele- ments, matter and force ; which evolution proceeds under the opera- tion of fixed laws. The lower oi'ganisms are first formed ; then the higher, until man appears. All life, whether animal, vegetable, or spiritual, is due to the working of physical and chemical forces in matter. As no power exists but in matter, there can be no divine Being with creative power nor any created human soul. Berger quotes Virchow as saying, " The scientific naturalist knows only bodies and the properties of bodies." All that is beyond them he pronounces " transcendental, and the transcendental is the chimeri- cal." He also quotes B. C. Vogt, as saying, " We admit of no creator, either in the beginning, or in the course of the world's history; and regard the idea of a self-conscious, extramundane creator as ridiculous." Man, according to these writers, consists only of a material body ; all mental acts and states are of the brain. When the body dies, the man ceases to exist. " The only immor- tality," says Moleschott, " is, that when the body is disintegrated, its ammonia, carbonic acid, and lime, serve to enrich the earth, and to nourish plants, which feed other generations of men." ^
F. Refutation. As Materialism, in its modern form, in all that is essential to the theory, is the. same that it Avas a thousand years ago, the old argu- ments against it are as available now as they ever were. Its fun- damental affirmation is, that all the phenomena of the universe, physical, vital, and mental, are to be referred to unintelligent physi- cal forces ; and its fundamental negation is, that there is no such objective entity as mind or spirit. If, therefore, it can be shown that unintelligent force cannot account for all the phenomena of the universe ; and that there is such an objective entity or substance, as mind, the theory is refuted. There are two methods of con- bating any given theory. The one is the scientific, which calls in question the accuracy or the completeness of the data on which it is founded, or the validity of the inferences deduced from them. The other is the shorter and easier method of the reductio ad ttbaurdum. The latter is just as legitimate and valid as the
1 See Berger, i. iii. 5 ; part i. pp. 264 to 271.
276 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. in. — Anti-Theism
former. It is to be remembered that every theory includes two factors ; facts and principles ; or, facts and inferences drawn from them. The facts may be admitted, when the principles or infer- ences may be denied. Thus the facts on which Materialists insist may, for the most part at least, be acknowledged ; while the sweep- ing inferences which they draw from them, in the eye of reason may not be worth a straw^ All such inferences must be rejected whenever they conflict with any well-established truth, whether of intuition, experience, or of divine revelation.
Three general theories have been proposed to solve the great problem of the universe : the Materialistic, the Pantheistic, and the Theistic. According to the first all the phenomena of the universe are due to matter and its forces ; according to the second, in its most rational form, all power, activity, and life, are the power, activ- ity, and life of the one universal mind. The third, or Theistic the- ory, assumes the existence of an infinite, extramundane God, wdio created matter, endow^ed with forces, and finite minds gifted with intelligence and will ; and that all the ordinary phenomena of the universe are proximately due to these physical and mental forces as constantly upheld and controlled by the omnipresent wisdom and power of God. It may be doubted whether any amount of argu- ment can deepen the conviction that tlie Theistic solution of this great problem is the true one. It is seen to be true, because it is seen to be a solution. It satisfactorily accounts for all the facts of consciousness and observation. It satisfies the reason, the heart, and the conscience. It is in fact self-evidently true, in the sense that no man to whom it has been once proposed, can ever perma- nently shake off the conviction of its truth. The other theories are not solutions. They may account for some classes of facts, but not for others. Our present concern, however, is with Materialism.
Materialism contradicts the Facts of Consciousness. 1. The pi'imary principle of all knowledge is the knowledge of self. This must be assumed. Unless we are we cannot know. This knowledge of self is a knowledge that we are something ; a real existence ; not merely a state or mode of something else ; but that the self is a substance, a real, objective entity. It is, more- over, a knowledge not only that we are a substance, but also that we are an individual subsistence, which thinks, feels, and wills. Here, then, is mind, i. e., an individual, intelligent, voluntary agent, necessarily included in the first, and the most essential of all truths. If this be denied, then Hume is right, and we can