we are considering; and when we say Matter is this or that, we must understand whether we are speaking of the Matter represented by our First Notion, which agrees tolerably well with what ordinary men mean by the term, -or the Matter represented by our theoretic Conception, which is a symbol varying according to the condition of scientific theory at the time, or according to the individual opinion. The first of these stands for Matter, properly so called; the second, for what I propose to call Extra-sensible Matter, and this it is which is usually meant in philosophical discussion. But this Conception, as before stated, not only gets confused by being mixed up with the First Notion, from which it is not carefully extricated, but also with the Metempirical Conception; so that the discussion, instead of being conducted in definite and constant terms, is rendered confused by the intermingling of indefinite and varying terms, and the positive, speculative, and metempirical data are worked up into a hybrid product. What we have known through sensible experience is mingled with what we have inferred from sensible experience, and what we have inferred from assumptions which are not verifiable.

DEFINITIONS OF MATTER.

31. To take a single example, from the writings, not of a metaphysician, but of an illustrious physicist: "There is one universal Matter," says Boyle," common to all bodies,

an extended, divisible, and impenetrable substance.” * This is a definition which most writers would accept. Who does not see that it is a purely speculative assertion, if taken for more than the expression of the logical artifice making Matter the subject of certain observed predicates? How do we know that there is one Matter in all bodies, and that it is extended, divisible, and im

* BOYLE, Works (Ed. SHAW), 1738, I. 197.

penetrable? All we positively know of Matter is what its qualities are; and if we group these into a general synthesis, naming the group Matter, we are not entitled to infer anything more than is given in the particulars thus grouped.

32. Let us pass on to some other definitions: Le mot matière a dans le langage philosophique deux acceptions parfaitement distinctes: quelquefois il indique l'être indéterminé en général, par opposition à la forme; plus ordinairement on appelle matière l'ensemble des corps qui composent l'univers visible."* Imagine the confusion which would result in Mathematics or Biology from such a laxity in the terms as this, where Matter means both the indeterminate and the determinate existence, the subject divested of all predicates, and the subject clothed with infinite predicates. If we admit the postulate of an indeterminate existence, by way of logical artifice separating a subject from its predicates, generalizing our particular perceptions, and transforming this generality into a substance, we cannot be said to know this unknowable indeterminate, since all our knowledge. is of determinates. And yet metaphysicians, for the most part, are all actively engaged in trying to solve the problem of Matter by disregarding the known functions, and theorizing on the unknown quantity, disdaining the observable phenomena, and longing for insight into the unobservable noumenon.

33. Not to encumber these pages with the multitude of definitions proposed by metaphysicians, it may suffice to cite that of Schelling: "Matter is nothing but Spirit (Geist) viewed in the equilibrium of its activities";† which may be interpreted thus: "Matter is the Felt viewed in its statical aspect." Thus interpreted, I should

* Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, IV. 153. + SCHELLING, Transcendentalen Idealismus, p. 190.

accept the definition. All we know is Feeling, and the Changes of Feeling. We class the Felt apart from the Changes, the one as Matter, the other as Force. The qualities of Matter are our feelings; the properties of Matter are its qualities viewed in reference to the effects of one body on another rather than their effects on us; but the distinction is only roughly used. Both qualities and properties are forces when considered as effecting changes.

In defining Matter as the Felt, we are by no means adopting Idealism. We are simply saying that to us the Existence which is given in Feeling, and abstracted in Thought, is, when considered in its objective aspect, Matter-Force. Whatever the external cause of Feeling may be out of all relation to Feeling, - however it may exist in relation to other beings, sentient and insentient, that is not the Matter-Force with which we are concerned.

In defining Force as the Activity of the Felt, — i. e. "mass animated by Velocity," we mark the distinction between Action and Agent, which, although purely a logical distinction, is of great importance. The question of Force, and the various definitions it has received both from metaphysicians and mathematicians, will occupy us in the next Problem. Here we have only to say, that by Force we understand Activity; and what Activity is to Agent, that is Force to Matter. Fully two thirds of the errors which abound in the lax writers of the day on the subject of Force arise from the notion that it is a special thing, an agent, a peculiar kind of substance, spiritual or semi-spiritual.*

*

* It is not only in the lax literature of the day, but even in the writings of celebrated men, that we find Force habitually spoken of as an Agent. M. Hirn, one of the distinguished advocates of the Thermodynamic theory, expressly separates Force from Matter as a "substance

34. Having glanced thus at the definitions offered by metaphysicians, and proposed the one which will be followed in these pages, it may not be uninstructive to see in how far that definition agrees with the one accepted by mathematical authorities. "La matière," La matière," says Poisson, est tout ce qui peut affecter nos sens d'une manière quelconque," the Sensible, in fact. Biot, after noticing various metaphysical definitions, and the doubts raised respecting the existence of Matter, sets them aside, observing that they do not concern the physicist, who, because he rests wholly on Experience, "appelle corps matériels tout ce qui produit ou peut produire sur nos organes un certain ensemble de sensations determinées; et la faculté d'exciter en nous ces diverses sensations, constitue pour lui, autant de propriétés par lesquels il reconnaît la présence des corps." + In the great work of Thomson and Tait, we read, "We cannot, of course, give a definition of Matter which will satisfy the metaphysician, but the naturalist may be content to know matter as that which can be perceived by the senses, or as that which can be acted upon by, or can exert, force. The latter, and, indeed, the former also, of these definitions, involves the idea of Force."†

+

35. In its widest sense, Matter is the symbol of all the known Properties, statical and dynamical, passive and active, i. e. subjectively as Feeling and Change of Feeling, or objectively as Agent and Action. And unless this bipolar aspect be admitted, we shall fall into one of two serious errors, 1°, that of supposing two distinct and

de nature entièrement différente, capable de se manifester comme agent de relations, comme lumière, chaleur, electricité,” in a word, the same as what J. R. Mayer, in a passage formerly quoted, represents as the Imponderable Substance.

* POISSON, Traité de Mécanique, I. 1.

+ BIOT, Physique Expérimentale, 1824, I. 1.

‡ THOMSON AND TAIT, Natural Philosophy, I. 161.

unallied entities, Matter and Force; 2°, that of supposing that we can get rid of Matter altogether, either by reducing it to a projection of Consciousness, or by reducing it to unextended monads, centres of Force attracting and repelling each other.* Both these errors arise from a disregard of the primary facts of Feeling, and from forgetfulness of the principle that, since all explanation is an endeavor to make conspicuous, by analysis into its components, of what was given in the synthesis of Feeling, though inconspicuous there (in other words, explanation is the ideal representation of the constituents of real presentation), there can be no true explanation if the original facts of Feeling are left out of sight. Now it is indisputable that what we represent by Agent and Action, or by Matter and Force, or less technically by Thing moved and Motion, are inseparably given in Feeling, and must therefore be inseparably united in the Felt.

ELIMINATION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL.

36. Having thus defined the meaning of our symbol, we proceed to separate the positive and speculative from the metempirical elements, and to attempt a solution of the Problem of Matter by eliminating the metempirical, and systematizing what is known and knowable. This is the procedure of the geometer. He takes Space as it is given in the First Notion of Common Knowledge, and raises it into the theoretic Conception of homogeneous. continuous Magnitude of three dimensions. He does not

* "It is probable," says Professor Clerk Maxwell, referring to this hypothesis of Boscovich, "that many qualities of bodies might be explained on this supposition, but no arrangement of centres of force, however complicated, could account for the fact that a body requires a certain force to produce in it a certain change of motion, which fact we explain by saying that the body has a certain measurable mass. No part of this mass can be due to the existence of the supposed centres of force." Theory of Heat, 1871, p. 86.