i
People say we can conceive the existence of matter and the existence of
mind. I doubt it. I doubt how far we have any definite conception of
mind or of matter, pure and simple.
What is meant by conceiving a thing or understanding it? When we hear of
a piece of matter instinct with mind, as protoplasm, for example, there
certainly comes up before our closed eyes an idea, a picture which we
imagine to bear some resemblance to the thing we are hearing of. But
when we try to think of matter apart from every attribute of matter (and
this I suspect comes ultimately to “apart from every attribute of mind”)
we get no image before our closed eyes—we realise nothing to ourselves.
Perhaps we surreptitiously introduce some little attribute, and then we
think we have conceived of matter pure and simple, but this I think is as
far as we can go. The like holds good for mind: we must smuggle in a
little matter before we get any definite idea at all.
ii
Matter and mind are as heat and cold, as life and death, certainty and
uncertainty, union and separateness. There is no absolute heat, life,
certainty, union, nor is there any absolute cold, death, uncertainty or
separateness.
We can conceive of no ultimate limit beyond which a thing cannot become
either hotter or colder, there is no limit; there are degrees of heat and
cold, but there is no heat so great that we cannot fancy its becoming a
little hotter, that is we cannot fancy its not having still a few degrees
of cold in it which can be extracted. Heat and cold are always relative
to one another, they are never absolute. So with life and death, there
is neither perfect life nor perfect death, but in the highest life there
is some death and in the lowest death there is still some life. The
fraction is so small that in practice it may and must be neglected; it is
neglected, however, not as of right but as of grace, and the right to
insist on it is never finally and indefeasibly waived.
iii
An energy is a soul—a something working in us.
As we cannot imagine heat apart from something which is hot, nor motion
without something that is moving, so we cannot imagine an energy, or
working power, without matter through which it manifests itself.
On the other hand, we cannot imagine matter without thinking of it as
capable of some kind of working power or energy—we cannot think of matter
without thinking of it as in some way ensouled.
iv
Matter and mind form one another, i.e. they give to one another the form
in which we see them. They are the helpmeets to one another that cross
each other and undo each other and, in the undoing, do and, in the doing,
undo, and so see-saw _ad infinitum_.