Philosophy and Religion | Page 6

Metaphysician may be all that is
necessary, or at least all that is possible for those who are not intending
to make a serious and elaborate study of Metaphysic. I have no
sympathy with the attempt to base Religion upon anything but honest
enquiry into truth: and yet the professed Philosophers are just those
who will most readily recognize that there are--if not what are
technically called degrees of truth--still different levels of thought,
different degrees of adequacy and systematic completeness, even
within the limits of thoroughly philosophical thinking. I shall assume
that you are not content to remain at the level of ordinary unreflecting
Common-sense or of merely traditional Religion--that you do want (so
far as time and opportunity serve) to get to the bottom of things, {5}
but that you will be content in such a course as the present if I can
suggest to you, or help you to form for yourselves, an outline--what
Plato would call the hypotypôsis of a theory of the Universe which may
still fall very far short of a finished and fully articulated metaphysical
system.
I suppose that to nearly everybody who sets himself down to think
seriously about the riddle of the Universe there very soon occurs the
question whether Materialism may not contain the solution of all
difficulties. I think, therefore, our present investigation had better begin
with an enquiry whether Materialism can possibly be true. I say 'can be
true' rather than 'is true,' because, though dogmatic Materialists are rare,
the typical Agnostic is one who is at least inclined to admit the
possibility of Materialism, even when he does not, at the bottom of his
mind, practically assume its truth. The man who is prepared to exclude

even this one theory of the Universe from the category of possible but
unprovable theories is not, properly speaking, an Agnostic. To know
that Materialism at least is not true is to know something, and
something very important, about the ultimate nature of things. I shall
not attempt here any very precise definition of what is meant by
Materialism. Strictly speaking, it ought to mean the view that nothing
really exists but matter. But the existence, in some sense or {6} other,
of our sensations and thoughts and emotions is so obvious to
Common-sense that such a creed can hardly be explicitly maintained: it
is a creed which is refuted in the very act of enunciating it. For practical
purposes, therefore, Materialism may be said to be the view that the
ultimate basis of all existence is matter; and that thought, feeling,
emotion--consciousness of every kind--is merely an effect, a
by-product or concomitant, of certain material processes.
Now if we are to hold that matter is the only thing which exists, or is
the ultimate source of all that exists, we ought to be able to say what
matter is. To the unreflecting mind matter seems to be the thing that we
are most certain of, the one thing that we know all about. Thought,
feeling, will, it may be suggested, are in some sense appearances which
(though we can't help having them) might, from the point of view of
superior insight, turn out to be mere delusions, or at best entirely
unimportant and inconsiderable entities. This attitude of mind has been
amusingly satirised by the title of one of Mr. Bradley's philosophical
essays--'on the supposed uselessness of the Soul.'[1] In this state of
mind matter presents itself as the one solid reality--as something
undeniable, something perfectly intelligible, something, too, which is
pre-eminently {7} important and respectable; while thinking and
feeling and willing, joy and sorrow, hope and aspiration, goodness and
badness, if they cannot exactly be got rid of altogether, are, as it were,
negligible quantities, which must not be allowed to disturb or interfere
with the serious business of the Universe.
From this point of view matter is supposed to be the one reality with
which we are in immediate contact, which we see and touch and taste
and handle every hour of our lives. It may, therefore, sound a rather
startling paradox to say that matter--matter in the sense of the

Materialist--is something which nobody has ever seen, touched, or
handled. Yet that is the literal and undeniable fact. Nobody has ever
seen or touched or otherwise come in contact with a piece of matter.
For in the experience which the plain man calls seeing or touching
there is always present another thing. Even if we suppose that he is
Justified in saying 'I touch matter,' there is always present the 'I' as well
as the matter.[2] It is always and inevitably matter + mind that he
knows. Nobody ever can get away from this 'I,' nobody can ever see or
feel what matter is like apart from the 'I'