Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/698

 Could the friends of dogmatic religion know the things belonging to their peace, they would bestow upon this doctrine their most earnest support; for it deals the death-blow to that semi-scientific materialism which derives a certain countenance from the discoveries of the day, and which is—second to religious dogmas themselves—the most dangerous enemy of the spiritual conception of the universe and of mankind. Not that in lifting a voice against materialistic views, I mean for a moment to lend a helping hand to the vulgar and irreverent outcry which is so often raised against matter itself as something gross and degraded, and deserving only of a contemptuous tolerance at our hands. I should have thought that the endless beauty of the material universe, and the varied enjoyments to be derived from its contemplation, as also the profound instruction to be obtained by its study, would have sufficed to give it a higher place in the estimation of religious minds. With such opposition to materialism as this I can have no vestige of sympathy. The form of materialism which I contend against, not as irreligious but as unphilosophic, is that which confounds the two orders of phenomena—physical and mental—under one idea, that of matter. Matter is supposed in this philosophy to be the parent of mind. A bridge is sought to be thrown across the great gulf which is fixed between us and the world without. But the moment we seek to walk over this imaginary bridge it crashes beneath our feet, and we are hurled into the abyss below.

Between that which feels, thinks, perceives, and reasons on the one hand, and that which is felt, thought about, perceived, and reasoned on, there is no community of nature. The distinction between these two, though it need not be ultimate in the order of things, is absolutely ultimate in the order of thought. In their own undiscoverable nature these two manifestations may be one; in their relation to us they are for ever two.