But if it be true that, in themselves, these epithets should have merely
a literary value, since both are probably inaccurate and no more
represent reality than the epithet "Atlantic" or "Pacific" represents
the ocean to which it is applied, they do, nevertheless, according as we
adhere exclusively to the first or to the second, exercise a prodigious
influence over our future, over our morality and, consequently, over
our happiness. We wander round the truth, with no other guide than
hypotheses which light, by way of torches, some famous, but magic
phrases, and soon those phrases become for us so many living entities,
which place themselves at the head of our physical, intellectual and
moral activity. If we believe that mind directs the universe, all our
researches and all our hopes are concentrated upon our own mind, or
rather upon its verbal and imaginative faculties and we become addicted
to theology and metaphysics. If we are persuaded that the last word of
the riddle lies in matter, we apply ourselves exclusively to
interrogating this and we place our confidence in experimental science
only. We are beginning, however, to recognize that "materialism" and
"spiritualism" are merely the two opposite, but identical names of our
impotent labour after comprehension. Nevertheless, each of the two
methods drags us into a moral world that seems to belong to a different
planet.