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such argumentation really proves is, not that materialism is innocuous, but that it is absurd-not that it is compatible with morality, but that it is incompatible with reason. It shows that materialism starts from the first with the assumption that matter is not matter, but something more than matter, and that at every onward step it has renewed recourse to this assumption; in other words, it shows that materialism is consistently unreasonable.

The views of morality actually taught by many contemporary materialists are extremely debasing. It would be easy and perhaps useful to prove this by quotations, but it would also be painful, and I refrain. Mivart (Lessons from Nature, ch. xiii.), J. B. Meyer (Phil. Zeitfragen, kap. ix.), and various other writers, have touched on the subject. It is lamentable to observe how widely heathenish and even brutish sentiments as to individual and social morality are springing forth, especially in Germany, from the materialism which is at present prevalent.

The argument from conscience against materialism is thus stated by an able American author, Prof. G. P. Fisher: "No man of sane mind can deny that the phenomena of the moral nature are as real as any which the senses or instruments of a physicist can observe. They are facts which science, in the large sense of the term, must take notice of or abdicate its functions. To ignore the vast and various phenomena which connect themselves with the sense of moral responsibleness is impossible. What account shall be given of moral praise and blame-of self-approval and censure? Here these feelings are, and here they always have been. Do they testify to the truth? If they do not, then away with

the language which only serves to deceive; away with all the multiform expressions of moral approbation or condemnation; away with courts of law and the other infinitely various manifestations of the sense of justice and moral accountableness on which the entire fabric of social life reposes! The evolutionist must allow that these verdicts of the moral faculty, be their genesis what it may, are as valid as are any judgments of the intellect. The moral discernment rests on as solid a foundation as the intellectual perceptions. Now apply the doctrine that the determinations of the will-the faithfulness of St John and the treachery of Judas alike are the necessary effect of atomic movements of matter. They simply indicate a certain molecular action of the matter in a corner of the brain. Their moral approval or condemnation, the joy of one who has triumphed over a temptation, the remorse of one who has betrayed the innocent, are the veriest folly. A man who maliciously shoots his neighbour has no more occasion to blame himself for the deed than has a horse who destroys a man's life by a Men call such an animal, in figurative speech, a vicious animal; and if materialism is true, there is no other kind of vice possible to a human being. Tyndall, in one of his late productions, argues that this doctrine of molecular ethics is perfectly consistent with the application of motives for the purpose of inducing men to act in one way rather than another. These motives, it is implied, are forces thrown into the scale that the beam may rise on the opposite side. This is the statement which fatalists of every time are for ever making. But the point insisted upon is not the freedom of the will as found by direct consciousness, although this evidence of man's moral freedom is incontrovertible; but

the phenomena of moral approval and disapproval, of guilt, self-accusation, and remorse, are the facts demanding some explanation which shall not destroy their reality in the very act of attempting to explain them. Here it is that the materialistic psychology breaks down. Nor can it be said that this is opposing a doctrine by merely pointing out its mischievous consequences. The affirmations of conscience referred to as putting to rout the advocates of materialism are as truly perceptions and judgments as are any of the propositions that result from the exercise of the senses or the understanding. If materialistic evolution, as predicated of moral action, be true, the rational nature is at war with itself. There is an insoluble contradiction in human intelligence itself, which no sophistical juggle of words can avail to cover up, much less to remove."-Princeton Review, January 1878, pp. 210, 211.

Principal Tulloch, in the first of his 'Croal Lectures,' makes some interesting remarks to the same effect. What he says of "sin," for example, in the following passage may be applied to all the phenomena of our moral consciousness. "It"-the doctrine of materialistic evolution "leaves no room for the idea of sin. For that which is solely a growth of nature cannot contain anything that is at variance with its own higher laws. If the individual and social man alike are merely the outcome of natural forces working endlessly forward toward higher and more complex forms, then, whatever man is, he is not and cannot be a sinner. The mixed product of internal and external forces-of what is called organism and environment—he may, at certain stages of his progress, be very defective. But he has not fallen below any ideal he might have reached. He is only at

any point what the sum of natural factors which enter into his being have made him. The two conceptions of sin and of development, in this naturalistic sense, cannot coexist. I cannot be the outcome of natural law and yet accountable for the fact that I am no better than I am."

Carneri, Jaeger, and others have attempted to apply Darwinism to morals. Miss Cobbe, Ebrard, R. Schmid, Trümpelmann, Wigand, and others, have criticised it in this relation.

NOTE XX., page 183.

POSITIVISM AND ITS SCHOOLS.

The chief works regarding positivism published before 1874 are mentioned on p. 259 of my Philosophy of History in France and Germany.' The following publications may be specified as among the most important which have appeared on the subject since that date: Many excellent papers by M. Pillon, and some by M. Renouvier, in the 'Critique Philosophique' for the years 1875 and 1878; 'La Philosophie Positive,' a review, edited by MM. Littré and Wyrouboff; 'La Revue Occidentale,' edited by M. Pieree Lafitte; the articles of Mr Harrison on "The Religious and Conservative Aspects of Positivism," in the Contemporary Review,' vols. xxvi. and xxvii.; É. Littré, Fragments de Philosophie Positive' (1876); and M. Ferraz, 'Étude sur la Philosophie en France,' ch. vi. (1877).

Positivists who acknowledge any allegiance to Comte

may be thus grouped in relation to him. First, those who accept his system as a whole-the philosophy, the polity, and the religion. Their head, the present Comtist pontiff, is M. Lafitte; and among their representatives in France are M. Audiffrent, Dr Robinet, and M. Sémerie; and in England Dr Bridges, Mr Congreve, and Mr Harrison. Their literary organ is the 'Revue Occidentale.' Second, those who accept the entire general philosophy of Comte, but reject his polity and religion. Their acknowledged chief is M. Littré; and M. Naquet, Dr Robin, and M. Wyrouboff are among their best known representatives. Their organ, 'La Philosophie Positive,' was founded in 1867. Third, those who do not accept even the philosophy of Comte as a whole, but who profess to receive the spirit, method, and principles of his teaching as to the doctrine of science. They are often called English positivists, although, of course, writers like M. Taine must be included among them. They are simply phenomenalists and experimentalists. They have no common system of doctrine, and their Comtism is so variable as to be indefinable.

Positivism is a hopelessly ambiguous term, and has been claimed by and applied to diverse and dissimilar theories. Some consider themselves positivists because they are positive that matter is the only reality; others because they are positive that sensation is the source and measure of all knowledge; others because they are positive that there is no God, no soul, and no future life; others because they are positive that there is nothing positively certain; and others for other reasons.

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