When I was a mere boy, with a perverse tendency to think when I ought
to have been playing, my mind was greatly exercised by this formidable
problem, What would become of things if they lost their qualities?
As the qualities had no objective existence, and the thing without
qualities was nothing, the solid world seemed whittled away--to my
great horror. As I grew older, and learned to use the terms "matter"
and "force," the boyish problem was revived, _mutato nomine_. On the
one hand, the notion of matter without force seemed to resolve the world
into a set of geometrical ghosts, too dead even to jabber. On the other
hand, Boscovich's hypothesis, by which matter was resolved into centres
of force, was very attractive. But when one tried to think it out,
what in the world became of force considered as an objective entity?
Force, even the most materialistic of philosophers will agree with the
most idealistic, is nothing but a name for the cause of motion. And if,
with Boscovich, I resolved things into centres of force, then matter
vanished altogether and left immaterial entities in its place. One might
as well frankly accept Idealism and have done with it.