unseen, of the temporal than the eternal, it may be anticipated that many will fancy that matter and motion explain everything—and this fancy is the essence of materialism. Thus materialism is a danger to which individuals and societies will always be more or less exposed. The present generation, however, and especially the generation which is growing up, will obviously be very specially exposed to it; as much so, perhaps, as any generation in the history of the world.

Within

the last thirty years the great wave of spiritualistic or idealistic thought, which has borne to us on its bosom most of what is of chief value in the nineteenth century, has been receding and decreasing; and another, which is in the main driven by materialistic forces, has been gradually rising behind it, vast and threatening. It is but its crests that we at present see; it is but a certain vague shaking produced by it that we at present feel; but we shall probably soon enough fail not both to see and feel it fully and distinctly. Materialism has gained to itself a lamentably large proportion of the chiefs of contemporary science, and it finds in them advocates as outspoken and enthusiastic as were Lucretius and Holbach. Multitudes are disposed to listen and believe with an uninquiring and irrational faith. Materialism-atheistical materialism-may at no distant date, unless earnestly and wisely opposed, be strong enough to

undertake to alter all our institutions, and to abolish those which it dislikes.

How is it that materialism has reappeared in such force? The following considerations may yield a partial answer. In the first place, the materialism of the eighteenth century has actually descended to, or been inherited by, the present generation. Although for a considerable time. materialism was feeble and unpopular, it was never wholly without defenders. The continuity of its history was at no point completely broken. In England, for example, three generations of Darwins have entertained materialistic convictions. Works like Thomas Hope's 'Essay on the Origin and Progress of Man,' and the anonymous 'Vestiges of Creation,' connect the 'Zoonomia' of Erasmus Darwin with the 'Origin of Species' of Charles Darwin. The principles of sensationalism found not a few zealous defenders when the antagonistic doctrine was at the height of its success, and sensationalism is intimately related to materialism. About 1840 atheism began to be openly avowed to a considerable extent among the working classes, and what has since been. called secularism made its appearance. Secularism involves materialism. In 1851 Mr Henry G. Atkinson and Miss Harriet Martineau published their 'Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,' advocating without reservation or

restraint a crude materialism and utter atheism. They taught that "philosophy finds no God in nature, nor sees the want of any;" that "fitness in nature is no evidence of design;" that "all causes are material causes influenced by surrounding circumstances;" that "mind is the manifestation or expression of the brain in action;" that "instinct, passion, thought, are effects of organised substances;" that "only ignorance conceives the will to be free;" that "there is no more sin in a crooked disposition than in a crooked stick in the water, or in a hump-back or a squint;" and that we ought to be content that in death the lease of personality shall pass away, and that we shall be as we were before we were-in a sleep for evermore." It was no wonder that England was shocked to be asked in the middle of the nineteenth century to receive this old and sad story as good news of great joy. But in the years which have since elapsed a host of compositions have appeared avowing quite as nakedly disbelief in God, spiritfreedom, responsibility, and belief only in the properties and products of matter.1

Materialism was still more influential in France than in England throughout the first half of the present century. What little philosophy there was under the revolutionary governments and the Empire proceeded mainly on sensationalistic

1 See Appendix XIV.

or materialistic principles. Cabanis, De Tracy, Volney, Garat, Broussais, Azais, adhered essentially to the popular philosophical creed of the eighteenth century. Other systems of thought in process of time appeared and gained a temporary supremacy. The theocratic and eclectic theories, in particular, had for a season the most brilliant success, and both were hostile to materialism in all its forms. Alongside of them, however, arose and spread the socialistic doctrines and schools, which all favoured more or less both theoretical and ethical materialism. The rehabilitation of the flesh-the subordination of everything in man to his stomach and senses-was the common aim of the socialistic schemes for the improvement of humanity. Even when the existence of God was not denied, as in the system of Fourier, duty was dethroned and sensuous desire raised into the vacant throne. The condemnation of socialism is that it has shown itself blind to spiritual and open-eyed to material interests. M. Emile de Girardin expressed clearly and pointedly, not merely his own faith, but that of the vast majority of his socialistic countrymen, when he laid down as established truths

"That God has no existence; or that if He exists, it is impossible for man to demonstrate the fact.

That the world exists of itself, and of itself solely.
That man has no original sin to ransom.

That he bears about him memory and reason, as flame bears with it heat and light.

That he lives again in the flesh only in the child that he begets.

That he survives intellectually only in the idea or the deed by which he immortalises himself.

That he has no ground for expecting to receive in a future life a recompense or punishment for his present conduct. That morally good and ill do not exist substantially, absolutely, incontestably, by themselves; that they exist only nominally, relatively, arbitrarily.

That, in fact, there only exist risks, against which man, obeying the law of self-preservation within him, and giving law to matter, seeks to insure himself by the means at his command."

The principles of materialism in combination with socialism have been widely taught in France for about half a century. The creed of the Commune of Paris had been a prevalent and uninterrupted tradition among certain classes during that length of time.

It may be remarked, in the second place, that idealism itself led to materialism. This was especially the case in Germany, where idealism had for a considerable time the field almost entirely to itself. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, reigned in succession. The sway of the last was for a time very widely and humbly acknowledged. It seemed as if he had founded an empire which would lastas if absolute idealism had been demonstrated to