Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/523

 522 S. ALEXANDER : theory which Lotze put forward in the Microcosmus he never perhaps really maintained as an atomic theory, and in his later system the atoms have ceased to be animated and have become in reality a metaphysical explanation of matter, centres of force, or rather points of intersection of the forces which constitute the relations between so-called 'atoms'. It is mentioned here, however, because it is a theory which naturally occurs to many minds. One objec- tion Hegel would have had to it, that it erected mere con- veniences of thinking into real existences, would be avoided by the doctrine that the cells or the molecules have souls, for their existence is beyond doubt. Clifford's theory of mind-stuff is a different one, and has difficulties of its own. Its merit is that it retains a distinction between organic nature and inorganic things whose mind-stuff neither feels nor thinks ; and the same merit belongs to the view of Schopenhauer, the progenitor of many of these theories, who regards the different stages of nature as different ways in which the will objectifies itself. But the distinction, in the theory of mind-stuff, is not drawn out or regarded as any- thing more than a matter of complexity, and we need to be shown how a difference in degree of complexity can produce a difference of quality. Moreover, if mind-stuff neither feels nor thinks, it is difficult to see why it should be called mind- stuff, or how it can have anything to do with mind, and such an inference does certainly not follow from Prof. Clifford's premisses. This is pointed out in a new version of the ani- mate theory of nature (that of Mr. Romanes in his Rede Lecture 1 ), which very reasonably identifies matter i motion) and mind, absolutely, and regards them as only dif- ferent ways in which we conceive the same ultimate reality of mind. Subtle as this theory is, it is almost impossible to understand how if mind and matter are only ' relative to our modes of apprehension ' the ultimate reality of mind should be apprehended by one of the modes in which it is apprehended. What would have made all these theories repugnant to Hegel would probably be their mystical character ; for mysticism is that mood in which the mind is lost in the bare contemplation of a unity into which all differences are submerged ; and Hegel with his common sense would have been quick to see that, in their yearning to find a single explanation of the world and, if possible, to give it the elevation of the spirit, these theories were guilty of the Contemporary Hri-im, July, 1885.