done nothing of the kind; it has not taken us a step towards unity. The ancient Greek philosophers believed the elements of matter to be far fewer than do our modern chemists. It is just the reverse of the truth to affirm that the tendency of physical research has been to demonstrate the unity or simplicity of matter. Chemical science may display that tendency in the future, but it has not displayed it in the past. Even if we are content to ignore mind, to treat psychical elements as if they had no existence, scientific analysis takes us to about sixty-four ultimates instead of to one ultimate. Had the number been much smaller-had it been only two-it would still have been a result incompatible with a materialistic monism. Reason cannot acquiesce even in two ultimates, although much less, of course, in sixty-four.

It may very well be that many of the substances which chemists at present call elementary are not simple. Spectrum analysis and the phenomena of allotropy suggest the conclusion that some of them are complex. It is free to any one to conjecture that they have all been formed by compounding and recompounding absolutely indecomposable and homogeneous units. But it is free to no one to put this forward as more than a conjecture, or to conceal that the analysis of the so-called elementary substances might result not in dimin

ishing but in increasing the number of substances which would have to be admitted, at least provisionally, as ultimate. In the present state of our knowledge this is just as legitimate a conjecture as the opposite. We have as yet no properly scientific reason for believing that the elements of matter are really fewer than they are supposed to be. We are very far, indeed, from being entitled to affirm that there is only one physical element. But until this conclusion is established, the original of the materialist cannot even be regarded as one in kind. His matter is not all of the same sort. It is essentially a multiplicity of things specifically distinct. It cannot, consequently, be the basis of a monistic system of thought.

Let me, however, make to the materialist an enormous concession, and one to which he is not entitled. Let me suppose him to have done what he has certainly not done-to have proved what he has merely conjectured-namely, that there exists but a single truly elementary physical substance. Let me, further, not press him with any of the perplexing questions which suggest themselves as to the nature of the wholly undifferentiated, absolutely homogeneous matter which his single primordial element must be. Matter, let it be granted, then, is reducible to a single physical constituent. That proves matter to be of one kind or sort. But does it prove it to be one? This is

the decisive question, and obviously the only possible answer is a negation. A pure, homogeneous, physical element is not in the least a real unity. It is an aggregate of parts, each of which is as much a substance as the whole. You may take a portion of it from one place and another portion of it from another place-a yard, say, or a mile distant-and these portions may be perfectly alike, yet they are also perfectly distinct. The one is not the other. They are not identical; not one. A physical element, therefore, although entirely pure and unmixed, is necessarily a multitude. It consists of as many substances as it consists of atoms. Real unity is precisely what it has not and cannot have in itself. To talk of materialistic monism is, therefore, as self- contradictory as to talk of a circular square. It is a kind of speech which betrays intellectual bankruptcy.

The unsatisfactoriness of materialism as regards the demand of reason for unity becomes only the more evident when we take into consideration the fact that force is always combined with matter. This fact is disputed by no one, but opinions differ widely as to how matter and force are combined. Is matter the cause of force? Is force a result of matter? An answer in the affirmative is, perhaps, the only one which materialism can consistently give. It is an answer, however, which satisfies the principle of unity at the ex

pense of the principle of causality, and is, besides, inherently unintelligible. How can matter be the cause of force or any other effect unless it have force to cause the effect? A matter which produces force without force is a cause which is destitute of power to be a cause. Matter which is mere matter-matter which is antecedent to force is matter which explains nothing; and that such matter should, in a universe of which the original principle is matter, be always and everywhere accompanied by force, is a greater mystery than any contained in theology or metaphysics.

Hence the majority of materialists have preferred to represent matter and force as at once inseparable and co-ordinate. According to this view both are ultimate, and the one is not related to the other as cause and effect. But what, then, becomes of the unity or monism of the materialist? It vanishes, and in its place there emerges a duality by which he cannot fail to be embarrassed. But the difficulty which he has now to encounter has been so accurately and comprehensively stated by Professor Calderwood, that quotation will completely serve my purpose. "The perplexity of the problem under a materialistic theory is not lessened but increased when duality of origin is assigned, by introducing Force in addition to Material Substance. Duality of existence, with co

eternity of duration, involves perplexity sufficient to bar logical procedure. This duality of existence implies diversity of nature and mutual restriction; and these two, diversity and limitation, raise anew the problem which they were meant to solve. The explanation needs to be explained. Again, matter and force are postulated primarily to account for motion, but in accounting for motion, they are proved insufficient to account for existence. That which needs to have force exerted upon it in order to be moved is not self-sufficient, and the same is true of the force which needs matter on which to exert its energy."- HandBook of Moral Philosophy, pp. 235, 236.

Force may be conceived of as neither the effect of matter nor co-ordinate with it, but its cause. This is a not uncommon view, and much may be urged in its support. But obviously, if it be true, materialism is erroneous. Matter is in this case not what is first in the universe-force is before it; and indeed matter, when thus reduced to a mere effect of force acting on sense, is virtually abolished as a substance. The universe of matter is resolved into a universe of force. The force may, however, be conceived of as merely physical force. Would this universe of physical force be a unity? Certainly not. As physical force-force indissolubly associated with a material manifestation-it could merely be force of one kind, not one force. It must