Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/267



AMES ALLANSON PICTON, the author of "The Mystery of Matter," is one of those rare persons who, to use his own quaint phrase, have "gone through materialism, and come out at the other side." Such an explorer, it will readily be admitted, well deserves a place in this or any other series of pioneers of progress. But I would rather not be the chronicler of his toilsome journey. No wonder if the St. Thomas'ssquare congregation, Hackney, found difficulty in following their spiritual guide on his dim and perilous way. But, though the path which Mr. Picton has cleft through the materialistic jungle be arduous for ordinary mortals to tread, it is, in my opinion, the best that has yet been cleared. "Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Mr. Picton makes a clean sweep of the supernatural, but imparts to the natural a lofty significance which more than compensates for the loss. "All forms of finite existence may, for aught I care, be reduced to modes of motion; but motion itself has become to me only the phenom- 253