It would be unprofitably occupying the space assigned to this article to undertake even to give a summary of the history and development of the various theories con nected with the doctrine of materialism. Its history, is found scattered through various writings, much of it embodied in the biographies of the various philosophers who have from time to time in all ages propounded theories; in philosophical histories of different epochs and nations; in philosophical and religious disquisitions and sermons; in various works on metaphysics and philosophy, and in systematic histories. No attempt will therefore be made even to assign many of those who have written upon the subject their just and proper position. It would be impossible to give a fair representation of their views in a few pages, when long dissertations have failed. As far, therefore, as regards the history of the subject the reader is referred to the various biographical notices of per sons which may be found in this work, such as Democritus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Etnpedocles, Epicurus, Bacon, Locke, IIobbes, Berkeley, Gassendi, Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Spinoza, Flegel, Holbach, and Priestly, and to the accessible works of these philosophers, as well as to those of more modern authors, on both sides of the subject, metaphysicians and scientists, such as sir William Hamilton, Paley, Jona than Edwards, Mark Hopkins, Charles Hodge, Edward Hitchcock, 3laudsley, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, James D. Dana, John W. Draper, 'William B. Carpenter, Joseph Le Conte (Religion and Science), Ba.stian, Lionel Beale, Hermann Lotze, Heckel, Charles Darwin, aud Du Bois Reymond. and to Lewes's History of Philosophy, and Lange's History of Materialism.
What are the evidences in favor of materialism, w-hat are the eviclenceg ag,ainst it, and what is the nature of these evidences? On the one hand, physical examination fails to find, or at least to demonstrate, any physical power in the living organism which cannot be accounted for by correlation of physical forces, and it is contended that the perform ances of various functions follow each other consecutively, according to external cir cumstances. As far as the doctrine of evolution may be made use of to favor that of rnaterialism, it is contended that geology and zoology furnish evidence of the gradual progression in development. from lower to higher forms of life. There are connecting links, it is asserted, which shbw that one form of aninud organization has been trans formed into another. In some of the lower crustaceans particularly, the transformations are held to be quite evident. In the ccelenterata (jelly fishes, etc.) various metamorphoses and alternations of generations occur (see GENERATIONS, ALTERNATION OF) which are held as evidence of the power of evolution possessed by protoplasmic matter. Geology is claimed to have given a verdict in favor of progressive development in the discovery of fossils of the horse family in tertiary formations from the eocene up to the quaternary period (see HORSE, Fossu,). The experiments of several scientists with vegetable infusions for a long time seemed to show that animal organisms could be developed in dead organie matter containing no living 0.erms, but recently it has been shown that when proper pre cautions are taken to exclude all atmospheric germs and also to destroy all living matter contained in the infusions, no development of life takes place. A recent writer remarks: " Numerous questions have arisen from time to dine through the conflicts of materialism with opposing doctrines, and it will be found that these questions have been brought to definite issues, in our day, for final settlement." This is either hoping for too much or for a questionable result. It is more probable that human investioation will never bring the question to a settlement, but that it will ever elude the grasp a the investigator, and it is probably a wise provision that it is so. It is a conflict out of which thaws the most beneficial effects upon human character and understanding; for it is a law of nature that all our faculties, physical as well as mental, are strengthened and more perfectly devel oped in combating with opposing forces. No machine, intellectual or physical, can accomplish work without opposing force or resistance. Moreover, if we possessed corn-, plete evidence that we totally perished when our bodies underwent dissolution, or that our spirit,s were immortal, coupled with a foresight of our destiny, no beneficial result,. could follow, hut we would, with the natures we now possess, perhaps be rendered mis erable. One of the principal evidences which have been brought forward against the doctrine of materialism is the almost universal aspiration after a future life. Dr. John_ William Draper, in his History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, says: "Nature has thus implanted in the organization of every man means which impressively suggest to him the immortality of the soul and a future life." But this is a belief and will probably always continue a belief. Leibnitz attempted to prove. the immortality of the soul by his doctrine of monads, but probably no writer has famished more ideas to fortify the doctrines of materialism than he; the essence of his docirine was indeed materialistic. The atom produces its own sensations from itself, and it develops itself in accordance with its own internal laws of llfe. Every monad is a world to itself, and no one is like another, but the ideas of all the monads consist in an eter nal system, in a complete harmony, which. was ordained from the beginning of time, and which constantly persists through the continuous vicissitudes in all the monads. Every monad represents to itself, confusedly or clearly, the whole universe, the whole sum of all that happens, and the sum of all the monads in the universe. The monads of inorganic nature have only ideas which completely neutralize themselves, as those of a man in a dreamless sleep. The monads of the organic world are higher, the lower animals being. formed of dreaming monads. In the higher, they have sensation and
memory, and in man they have thought. Lange observes: "The monads with their pre established harmony reveal to us the true nature of things as little as the atoms and the laws of nature. They afford, however, a pure and self-contained conception of the world, like materialism, and do not contain more inconsistencies than this system. But what especially secured the popularity of the Leibnitzian system is the ductile looseness of its notions, and the circumstance that its radical consequences were much better marked than those of materialism. In this respect nothing is more useful than a thoroughgoing abstraction. The tyro who shudders at the thought that the ancestors of the human race might once have been compared with the apes of to-day, comfortably swallows down the monad theory, which declares the buman soul to be essentially like all the beings of the universe, down to the most despised mote, which all mirror the uni verse in themselves, are all small divinities to themselves, and bear within them the same content of ideas, only in various arrangement and development. We do not imme diately observe that the ape monads are also included in the series, that they are as immortal as the human monads, and that they may yet, perchance, in the course of development, attain to a beautifully ordered content of ideas. . . It is very much the same with the much-extolled and much-abused optimism of Leibnitz's system. Viewed in the light of reason, and tested by its real presuppositions and consequences, this optimism is nothing but the application of a mechanical principle to the foundation of the facts of the world. God, in choosing the best of possible worlds, does nothing that would not be quite mechanically produced if we suppose the essences of things to act :upon each other. In all this, God proceeds like a mathematician in solving a problem, and he must so proceed, because his perfect intelligence is bound to the principle of sufficient reason—in the result it all comes to the same thing as if we were to deduce the development of the universe from the mechanical presuppositions of a Laplace and a Darwin." (Lange, History of Materialism. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1880, pp. 130, 131, 132.) The question ever recurs, how can matter produce thought? The asser tion by Leibnitz that it is the inherent principle of the monad, it is contended, is only an assertion, a product of the imagination, and the doctrine that a certain combination of atoms produces it, is likewise held to be just as much the result of Imagination. That it requires organization to produce monifestations of thought, which we, as physically -constituted beings, can comprehend or perceive, is a necessity of the case, and a condi tion which limits human knowledge. We cannot make a physical demonstration of a purely spiritual subject. If the mmd acts or exists without the intervention of matter We are necessarily unconscious of it, and are obliged to search for other evidences than material phenomena, and for the advocate of the production of thought by the correla tion of atomic energy to demand that the spiritualist shall accept only physical evi dences is equivalent to the dictating the limits of controversy. Four thousand years of experience and 2,000 years of controversy have not settled the question. Perhaps if an instance could be cited in which rapidity of thought had far outstripped all the possi bilities of physical methods, it would furnish strong evidence of the immateriality of the human mind, unless, indeed, we adopt Leibnitz's doctrine of monads. Have there been such instances? Is it possible that there ever was a case in which the nervous mechan ism, or a part of it, admitted a perfectly unobstructed -performance of an intellectual function by the immaterial principle or mind? Can we account in any other manner for the remarkable mathematical calculating powers of Zerah Colburn (q.v.), who could answer accurately, almost in an instant, such questions as the following, and others much more difficult: Ilow many seconds are there in 11, 15, or 16 years? What is the square of 999,999? etc. This is an instance of the almost perfect adaptability of nervous organization to its uses. It is so much in excess of ordinary—what we term, perhaps improperly—normal mental activity, that it becomes a question whether we are not .compelled to regard it as the result of the comparatively unobstructed operations of a spiritual intelligence. The fact that this remarkable talent left him at about the age of 21 would be explained by a spiritualist in one way, and by a materialist in another. An unsolvable question is always capable of receiving opposite explanations. The proba bilities may very greatly preponderate to one side, but they are not sufficient to con Vince, and the most sincere minds may be so constituted as to form opposite conclusions. When the experiments in spontaneous generation above alluded to were shown to be faulty, it was believed by many that the doctrine of evolution, as well as that of more decided materialisin, had received a. severe blow, but an evolutionist was among the foremost in demonstratino- the failure of spontaneous generation, and the majority of evolutionists are probabfy opposed to the doctrine of spontaneous generation. The results of such experiments do not, however, affect permanently either the doctrine of evolution or of materialism or spontaneous generation. If spontaneous generation ever takes place, it may require conditions which are incompatible with the sealing of boiled infusions in flasks, or their protection from the descent of atmospheric germs by the bending down of open capillary beaks of the flasks. But if it could be satisfactorily proved that spontaneous generation never occurs, it would not aid the establishment of the doctrine of spiritualism. The truth is that the nature of the question does not admit of physical or experimental proof, and, inde,ed, does not seem to be affected by geologi cal evidence.