and speak as materialists, though they have made up their minds to remain on the battle-ground of observed facts and have a holy horror of metaphysics. In a certain sense, it may be said that materialism is the metaphysics of those who refuse to be metaphysicians.
It is very evident that in the course of its long history, materialism has often changed its skin. Like all knowledge, it has been subject to the law of progress; and, certainly, it would not have been of a nature to satisfy the intellectual wants of contemporary scholars, had it not stripped itself of the rude form under which it first manifested itself in the mind of primitive man. Yet what has enabled the doctrine to keep its unity through all its changes is that it manifests a deeply human tendency to cling by preference to everything visible and tangible.
Whatever strikes the eyes, or can be felt by the hand, seems to us in the highest degree endowed with reality or existence. It is only much later, after an effort of refined thought, that we come to recognise an existence in everything that can be perceived in any way whatever, even in an idea. It is still later that we understand that existence is not only that which is perceived but also that which is linked logically with the rest of our knowledge. A good deal of progress has been necessary to reach this point.
