Materialism — Prof. Tyndall
If Materialism is confounded, science is rendered dumb.... Materialism, therefore, is not a thing to be mourned over, but to be honestly considered; accepted if wholly true, rejected if false. (“Fragments of Science,” p. 221.) It ought to be known and avowed that the physical philosopher, as such, must be a pure Materialist. His inquiries deal with matter and force, and with them alone. (Ib., p. 72.) As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. (Ib., p. 52.) It is the advance of [this] knowledge that has given a materialistic color to the philosophy of our age. (Ib., p. 222.) We may fear and scorn Materialism; but he who knew all about it, and could apply his knowledge, might become the preacher of a new gospel. (Ib., p. 221.)
Through our neglect of the monitions of a reasonable Materialism, we sin and suffer daily. (Ib., p. 224.) The practical monitions are plain enough which declare that on our dealings with matter depend our weal or woe, physical and moral. (Ib., p. 222.) It is our duty not to shirk—it ought rather to be our privilege to accept, the established results of physical inquiries; for here, assuredly, our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to truth. Is mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence [on matter]? Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to the level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance would remove it. (Ib., p. 221.)
Matter is not that empty capacity which philosophers and theologians have pictured it, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb. Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously, without the meddling of the gods. (Ib., p. 193.) Matter I define as that mysterious thing by which all that is, is accomplished. How it came to have the power which it possesses is a question on which I never ventured an opinion. (Ib., p. 193.) I discern in matter the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. (Ib., p. 251.)
Does life belong to what we call matter, or is it an independent principle infused into matter at some suitable epoch? (Ib., p. 131.) There does not exist a barrier, possessing the strength of a cobweb, in opposition to the hypothesis which ascribes the appearance of life to that “potency of matter” which finds its expression in natural evolution.... Divorced from matter, where is life? (Ib., p. 192.) To man, as we know him, matter is necessary to consciousness. (Ib., p. 192.) Every meal we eat, and every cup we drink, illustrates the mysterious control of mind by matter. (Ib., p. 50.)
If these statements startle, it is because matter has been defined and maligned by philosophers and theologians, who were ignorant alike of its mystical and transcendental powers. (Ib., p. 51.) Two courses, and two only, are possible: either let us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them let us radically change our notions of matter. (Ib., p. 191.) Without this total revolution of the notions now prevalent, the evolution hypothesis must stand condemned. (Ib., p. 133.)
If we look at matter as defined by our scientific text-books, the notion of conscious life coming out of it cannot be formed by the mind. (Ib., p. 191.) Spirit and matter have ever been present to us in the rudest contrast: the one as all noble, the other as all vile. But is this correct? Upon the answer to this question, all depends. (Ib., p. 133.) #/
Physiology proves Materialism to be true, and the following testimony to that fact by eminent scientific men is only a small part of what might be quoted of similar tenor:
Bain tells us: The most careful and studied observations of physiologists have shown beyond question, that the brain as a whole is indispensible to thought, feeling, and volition.
Dr. Ferrier says: The brain is the organ of mind, and that mental operations are possible only in and through it. This fact is so well established that we may start from it as we should from any ultimate fact.
Prof. Virchow, of Berlin, says: Every one must admit that without a brain, nay, more, without a good and well developed brain, the human mind has no existence.—Man has a mind and rational will only in as much and in so far as he possesses a brain.
Huxley says: What we call the operations of the mind are functions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity. Sensations are products of the inherent properties of the thinking organ.
Tyndall says: We believe that every thought and every feeling has its definite mechanical correlative in the nervous system; that it is accompanied by a certain separation and remarshalling of the atoms of the brain.
Dr. Maudsley says: I do not go beyond what facts warrant, when I say that, when a thought occurs in the mind, there necessarily occurs a correlative change in the gray matter of the brain. Without it, the thought could not arise; with it, it can not fail to rise.
What is matter! I take a handful of earth in my hands, and into that dust I put seeds, and arrows from the eternal quiver of the sun smite it, and the seeds grow and bud and blossom, and fill the air with perfume in my sight. Do you understand that? Do you understand how this dust and these seeds and that light and this moisture produced that bud and that flower and that perfume? Do you understand that any better than you do the production of thought? Do you understand that any better than you do a dream? Do you understand that any better than you do the thoughts of love that you see in the eyes of the one you adore? Can you explain it? Can you tell what matter is? Have you the slightest conception? Yet you talk about matter as though you were acquainted with its origin; as though you had compelled, with clenched hands, the very rocks to give up the secret of existence. Do you know what force is? Can you account for molecular action? Are you familiar with chemistry? Can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not something in matter that forever eludes you? Can you tell what matter really is? Before you cry Materialism, you had better find what matter is. Can you tell of anything without a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? Is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of a single atom? Can you have a thought that is not suggested to you by what you call matter? Did any man or woman or child ever have a solitary thought, dream or conception, that was not suggested to them by something they had seen in nature?
—Ingersoll.