PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS.                447

must be noticed in any comprehensive view of the problem
of life. Let us note briefly these doctrines and their appli-
cations to the daily life of the individual.
  Materialism supposes that matter is the only substance,
and that matter and its motions constitute the universe.
"Philosophical Materialism holds that matter and the mo-
tions of matter make up the sum total of existence, and that
what we know as psychical phenomena in man and other
animals are to be interpreted in an ultimate analysis as sim-
ply the peculiar aspect which is assumed by certain enor-
mously complicated motions of matter."
  This may sound strange to the uninitiated but is a highly
reasonable position, and to some minds forms the most sat-
isfactory explanation of all phenomena. It is a sound deduc-
tion that a thing that never had a beginning will never have
an end, and conversely, that which has no end never had a
beginning. Now, matter is indestructible and force is per-
sistent. It is quite logical to believe that matter is eternal
and the whole of existence. But however logical this position
may be philosophically, it is not satisfying to believe we are
all only machines of varying complications. So we have the
antipodal philosophical position that matter exists only as
an expression of thought. This view is as old as human
thought and under the various forms of Spiritualism, Ideal-
ism, Hylo-Idealism, Transcendentalism etc., has served to
explain the universe and its phenomena to a large portion
of mankind.
  The Metaphysical doctrine that the real is of the nature of
thought--that all reality is in its nature psychical, is no
more comprehensible to the unlearned, nor any more logical
to the learned, than the opposite doctrine of Materialism. It
is, however, more satisfying to both. But neither of these
extreme positions is held by a majority of mankind. Dual-
ism or a union, as it were, of these two are accepted practic-
ally by the majority of mankind.




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911