Materiality

“ The remainder of the essay endeavors to meet the charge of materialism. The following is the conclusion:—"In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phaenomena of matter in terms of spirit; or the phaenomena of spirit in terms of matter: matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a property of matter—each statement has a certain relative truth. But with a view to the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in every way to be preferred. ”

“ The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals—a vain and foolish thing. Knowledge, like Wealth, is intended for Use. ”

“ It would be as if one should say, 'I do not know what is the principle of things.' What a luminous materialism this is!" But let us leave pure matter aside; although it touches and bounds us on every side, it does not seem to contain the peculiar secret of our origins and destinies. Let us go further and interrogate materialism regarding life and living beings, among which we are counted, and the study of which penetrates so deeply into our own life. ”

“ But of the nature of the thing itself I perceive no great commodity that it hath—I say of the nature of the thing itself, because it may by chance be some occasion of some commodity. For it may hap that for the good name the poor man hath, or for the honest estimation that a man of some possessions and substance standeth in among his neighbours, or for the honourable fame with which a great estate is renowned—it may hap, I say, that some man, bearing them the better, will therefore do them some good. ”

“ Does the man who collects the rents of a mountain-side, or the poet or painter to whom its cliffs and heather speak far-reaching thoughts, most truly possess it? The highest form of possession, even of things, is when they minister to our thought, to our emotion, to our moral and intellectual growth. ”

“ Material prosperity, say these ascetics,—plenty to eat and to drink, good clothing, commodious habitations, life–embellishing arts, and ministrations of all sorts to corporeal well–being, are not the proper objects of man here on this earth. ”

“ A man should prize events and possessions as the ore in which this fine mineral is found; and he can well afford to let events and possessions, and the breath of the body go, if their value has been added to him in the shape of power. ”

“ That is the sort of knowledge which, once obtained, is a lifelong possession. Other occupations may fill your minds—it may grow dim and seem to be forgotten—but there it is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which comes out when you warm it. ”

“ Nevertheless, several able men have, it would appear, been led to suppose that he countenances a kind of materialism (not using the word to imply any thing objectionable; for why not be materialists, if materialism be truth?) ”

“ A natural and obvious reply to such an inquiry is, that a Being of somewhat similar nature to their own, though larger and more powerful, took the materials of which the world is formed and moulded them, as a workman moulds the materials of his handicraft, into their present shape. ”

“ Looking backward we simply do not discern and cannot remember the visible and outward values or possessors of values at all. Where is the actual material wealth of earlier days, the flocks, the gold and silver, the palaces? ”

“ Material wealth is an abstraction. Its usual evidence is the possession of property, which may be money, land, goods or chattels, as the case may be. In final analysis this concrete evidence of wealth is not real. ”

“ Now that other substance is also before men. You have gold, silver, slaves, estates, trees, cattle, servants. These things are visible even to men. There is a certain “substance that is ever before Thee.” ”

“ For indeed we prize life not by the sum of our possessions, but only by the rate and steadiness of our growth. "Not the possession," says Lessing, "or fancied possession of the truth, but the endeavor after it, determines a man's value. ”

“ The fourth kind of property is that which bestows intellectual or emotional pleasure, consisting of land set apart for purposes of delight more than for agriculture, of books, works of art, and objects of natural history. ”

“ As men take a material substance—gold, silver, ivory, wood or stone—and use it as an image or symbol of the deity they worship, so we use words of a material sense to express, in some faint degree, the intellectual and moral ideas we desire to disclose. ”

“ I shall begin with observing, that this quality, which we shall call property, is like many of the imaginary qualities of the peripatetic philosophy, and vanishes upon a more accurate inspection into the subject, when considered a-part from our moral sentiments. It is evident property does not consist in any of the sensible qualities of the object. For these may continue invariably the same, while the property changes. Property, therefore, must consist in some relation of the object. ”

“ The subjects themselves embrace the whole arcana of the material universe, the mineral and vegetable products of the earth, their properties, manufacture, and varied convertibility to the service and uses of man. ”

“ This is a practice and a principle the world knows nothing of; but when this people deed over their property, they understand what they are about; they know that they will eventually be exalted to possess all that is desirable—the land, the houses, the vineyards, the cattle, the gold, the silver, and all the riches of the heavens and of the earth. ”

“ But the proper and direct train of argument in favour of materialism is, that every phenomenon from which the notion of a soul is deduced, is resolveable into some affection of the brain, perceived. That all thought, reflection, choice, judgment, memory, the passions and affections, &c. ”

“ He must show the practical relation of man to the world of matter, the basis of all our endeavours. Here he must set forth the duty of industry, of thrift, of temperance—the normal use of what Nature affords, or industry and thrift provides. ”

“ This thin matter is just as material as lead or brass. And such systems are purely materialistic. But they illustrate the extraordinary difficulty that the ordinary mind experiences in attempting to rise from sensuous to non-sensuous thinking. They illustrate the ingrained materialism of man. ”

“ One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT is still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for the present: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth, and distinctions of worth, which live, grow, propagate, and perish—and perhaps attempts to give a clear idea of the recurring and more common forms of these living crystallizations—as preparation for a THEORY OF TYPES of morality. ”

“ Let us ask you appraisers, who scientifically know the value of things, if any human creature is equivalent only to any of the trinkets that you wear, or at most, to any of the horses that you ride: or in other words, if you have ever considered the most costly things that you have valued, as equivalent to yourselves? ”

“ What is the best possession a human life can have? Judging from the efforts made to secure wealth, fame, and power, the answer would seem to be that they—wealth, fame, and power—are the best possessions any one can have. ”

“ The elements with which we are surrounded are as eternal as we are, and are loaded with supplies of every kind for the comfort and happiness of the human race. It is designed by the Great Architect of the universe that our bodily wants shall be supplied from the elements, and by judicious and well-directed labour and a reasonable amount of industry, the wealth of food, clothing and shelter can be obtained by all. ”

“ What property is to a man’s mind or soul that his body is also, only more so. The body is property carried to the bitter end, or property is the body carried to the bitter end, whichever the reader chooses ”

“ Let us, however, look a little more closely into materialism considered as a mode of philosophical belief.
What do we mean by matter? First of all, it is obvious that we mean something that is objective to the mind or thinking faculty—something the mind finds upon its path, as it were, and that is the source to it of certain definite impressions. All impressions made upon the mind do not, however, equally connect themselves with the idea of matter. ”

“ These,--hewers of wood, and drawers of water,--these, bent under burdens, or torn of scourges--these, that dig and weave--that plant and build; workers in wood, and in marble, and in iron--by whom all food, clothing, habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves, and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and worthy of honour, be they never so humble;--from these, surely, at least, we may receive some clear message of teaching ”

“ Others have vast earthly possessions, stores of science, palaces of art, knowledge without end—she has a tresor that makes baubles of these—she is the custodian of life, she has the eternal life power. ”

“ Used thus, with understanding of the relation which it bears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material wealth becomes one with them, and is no more to be shunned and feared than it is to be sought for its own sake. ”

“ They forget that, on the birth of materialism, when it stood out in the freshness of those glories which the great Architect of nature had impressed upon it, that the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. ”

“ But how tenderly he always speaks of materials! What a limitless reverence he has for the subtle reciprocity and correspondence between the human senses and what—so thrillingly, so dangerously, sometimes!—they apprehend. ”

“ The materialist, who tells us that consciousness, sensation, thought, and the spontaneous power of the will, so peculiar to man and to the higher animals, are altogether so many outcomes of certain conditions of matter and nothing else, makes at best merely a subjective statement. ”

“ But, in the first place, those most close to the tradition of materialism maintain that the most significant appearances, the primary qualities, are those which compose a purely quantitative and corporeal world. ”

“ Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence, I go on now to show that materialism has its moral lessons, and that these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating than the moral lessons of spiritualism. ”

“ This wondrous product of human skill,—as it were a new stone of rare value added to those which nature has given us,—will assuredly kindle in the hearts of its admirers a desire to learn something of its story. ”

“ Material belongings, relative wealth or poverty, physical environment—the things on which we are prone to set our hearts and anchor our aspirations, the things for which we sweat and strive, ofttimes at the sacrifice of happiness and to the forfeiture of real success—these after all are but externals, the worth of which in the reckoning to come shall be counted in terms of the use we have made of them. ”

“ And herein is seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by way of translation or metaphor. But in this translation we must only serve necessity (nam temerè nihil transfertur à prudenti) [111b] or commodity, which is a kind of necessity: that is, when we either absolutely want a word to express by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit a word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helps significance. ”

“ But is this the chief reason why we must not steal?—No, Sir, but because we ought to respect the property as well as the persons of others.—Very good. Property is an extension of human personality and must be respected as such. ”

“ The richer the materials in men’s possession, the less they were concerned to apply to them the higher gifts of the intellect, the more they wearied themselves in fruitless ingenuity, in infinite refinements of infinitesimal distinctions. ”

“ To understand the interlacings and the complexus in its inner connection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to the foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface; to analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the closest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the passions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote elements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art which the materialistic conception must realize. ”

“ All these possessions are, in short, regarded as of one standard of value, as chattels or instruments in which man still discovers evidence of his craftsmanship, his positive wealth and interest whereof he may be justly proud. ”

“ These two kinds of things, land and money, the one an essential, the other a condensed image, of all wealth, are the two most [Pg 246] natural objects of man’s desires, because, with the one or the other, he can procure all the rest. ”

“ If thy riches are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender, temperate and benign, and thy riches themselves may become the evidence at once of thy faith and of thy works. ”