logically irrefragable, but are as far removed from common sense as
they are in accord with logic; at any rate they have failed to
satisfy, and matter is no nearer being got rid of now than it was
when the discussion first began. Others, again, have tried
materialism, have declared the causative action of both thought and
feeling to be deceptive, and posit matter obeying fixed laws of
which thought and feeling must be admitted as concomitants, but with
which they have no causal connection. The same thing has happened
to these men as to their opponents; they made out an excellent case
on paper, but thought and feeling still remain the mainsprings of
action that they have been always held to be. We still say, "I gave
him 5 pounds because I felt pleased with him, and thought he would
like it;" or, "I knocked him down because I felt angry, and thought
I would teach him better manners." Omnipresent life and mind with
appearances of brute non-livingness--which appearances are
deceptive; this is one view. Omnipresent non-livingness or
mechanism with appearances as though the mechanism were guided and
controlled by thought--which appearances are deceptive; this is the
other. Between these two views the slaves of logic have oscillated
for centuries, and to all appearance will continue to oscillate for
centuries more.

People who think--as against those who feel and act--want hard and
fast lines--without which, indeed, they cannot think at all; these
lines are as it were steps cut on a slope of ice without which there
would be no descending it. When we have begun to travel the
downward path of thought, we ask ourselves questions about life and
death, ego and non ego, object and subject, necessity and free will,
and other kindred subjects. We want to know where we are, and in
the hope of simplifying matters, strip, as it were, each subject to