Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-18
NOTHING TO FEAR.
Evolution Only Another Indication
of the Existence Of God.
ASSUMPTIONS Of MATERTALISM.
Proof That They Are Unprovable, ImprOb-
able and Unscientific.
THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF CREATION
WRITTEN FOR THE prspArcH. !


complish by way Of destruction in the realm
of religion. spoke OF the fears of theolo.
gians and hopes of philosophers.
There is no need for the fear of the theolo.
gians, and no ground for the hope of the
philosophers. Much which is conceived
to be the progress of materialism, to take
Prot. Huxley's careful phrase, is not really
the progress of materialism at all. "Mete-
rialist" is handy stone to throw, but nine
times out Of ten to-day it hits the wrong
person. Whoever thinks that "every at
tempt to interpret mental manifestations by
: a reference to material structure involves
the assertion of materiallsm," is very much
mistaken. There is much less actual mate
rialism in modern philosophy than a good
many people imagine. And whenever there
is genuinely materialistic inference from
the doctrine of evolution it can be shown to
rest upon true foundation assumptions
which are not only unscientifc, but are alb
solutely unprovable and improbable, not to
say impossible. One of these baseless as
sumptions is that matter and mind are
| identical; the other is that matter and force
| are eternal.
The first of these assumptions irresstibly
involves three evident absurdities. One is
the absurdity of denying an absolutely un-
deniable fact. The fact is mental fact 1t
Is one OF those assertions which we have seen
already to he the most certain of all truths.
1 mean the fact of personality. Whatever
else we know or know not, this at least we
are superlatiyely sure of-that we exist. I
am. That know. Between my body and
me, between my brain and me, between my
thoughts and me. there is distinction of
which am irresistibly conscious. All facts
are reported to US BY consciousness. II, IN
this initial fact consciousness is deceiving
me. then must stop thinking. Ihave COM
mitted intellectual suicide. But the fact Of
personality involves the fact of mind and its
distinction from matter.
MENTAL PRODUCTS NOT MATERIAL.
Another absurdity implied in the initial
materialistic assumption is the absurdity 10
which that assumption would logically lead
OF asserting that the products OF mind can
be described in terms which express the
properties of matter. The materialists do
not make this assertion; but why not? II
there is no existence except matter and force,
there should be no fact which could not be
described in materialistic language. Can a
thought be triangular, or red, or capable of
mathematical expression3 Can 1t be meas
ured with a yard stick, seen through a mi
croscope, or weighed in scales? Can it be
given an adequate physiological descrip-
ton?
A third absurdity lies in the identifying
OF an organ with an organist. If the body
is illconditioned, thinking is also ill-con-
ditioned. The removal OF certain portions
OF the brain will affect the mind. The OBJ
struction of certain transit lines" will
'obliterate certain specific memories"
Without phosphorus there is no thinking.
Well? With poor organ there will be in
ferior music; will there also be of necessity
an inferior organist? With no organ, there
will be no music, and therefore no organist?
The statements Of the materialists, taken
as bare statements, are mere platitudes.
They express what everybody has always
known. We cannot see without an eye, nor
think without a head, nor play an organ
without an organ. The inference which is
made from them, that mind and matter are
therefore identical, is entirely unwarranted.
WHAT MAY BE DONE.
The time may come, Mr. John Fiske
says (Cosmic Philosophy, H., ,442) )when it will
be possible "to furnish algebraic equations
for every curve described by every particle
OF matter during the entire series OF trans
formations, from the arrested molar motions
of the gravitating particles of the sun down
to the endIessly complex molecular motions
which take place within the cerebral tissue
of Mathematician engaged in solving par
tial differential equations, still, we would
be not one step nearer to the Identification
of mind and matter. Have we made"
asks Mr.. Fiske, "the first step toward the |
resolution of psychical phenomena into
modes of motion? Obviously, we have
not. The closed circuit of motion, mo-
tion, motion, remains just what it was
before" A parallel is established of |
which we are already we'll aware, but |
the antithesis betw the phenomena of |
mind and the phenomena of matter is not
and cannot be destroyed. Molecular motion
can never be identified with love, or with
grief, or with anger. can never be translated
into self-conscousness; the translation, is |
itself unthinkable. 1.-THE latest results of |
scientific inquiry, whether in the region of |
objective psychology or in that of molecular |
physics, leave the gulf between mind and |
matter quite as wide as it was Judged |
to be in the time of Descartes. 1t still |
remains as true as then, that between that |
of which the differentaI attribute is |
thought, and that of which the differential |
attribute is extension, there can be moth
ing like identity or similarity. (Cosmlc
Philosophy ii, 445), the organist uses the
THE OTHER ASSUMPTION.
The other materialistic assumption is that
matter and force are eternal. 1t has already
been shown, however, that there are two
distinct existences. There is matter and
here is mind. But our thought is unable
% rest in the conception of two distinct ex-
stences which are equally eternal. Either
,ne of these must be the cause of the other,
oil Of ha hah nd thar hot
bird existence which is the cause and
ource of both. But each of these alterna-
ives contradcts the eternity of two distinct
.xistences. Only one can be eternal. |
Which is it? Is il matter or is it mind?
But this throws us back at once upon our
,riginal question, which is the first cause,
natter or mind? And all the arguments by
which we have already decided that mind
ather than matter is the first cause hold
till. Evolution does not weaken them.
indeed, we shall see that evolution
does not as some imagine, ex-
,lain the growth OF the universe. All that
t proposes or attempts to do is to describe
t. 1t is not explanation, but description. !
And if the description could be carried
Jack with continuous accuracy to the pfi-
nordial atom of star-dust, and it could be ,
hown how out OF that primordial atom
verything had proceeded, step by step, into
his nineteenth century, still no explanation
7ould have been given. We would still be ,
to ask who or what did this?
v hat lies behind it all-matter or mind?
hat initial bit of star-dust, how came it {
nto being? That unspeakably remarkable
tom In which lay folded this whole mar G
ellous universe, with all its infinitely I
aried life, with all the thoughts OF ali its 9
first world-acorn, whence {
anne it? What power brought it into q
or mind? 1t would seem that /