Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/13

We all know pretty well what is meant by Materialism. Its popular aspect is summed up in a phrase of James Hinton, which I quote from memory, and shall recur to below. "What a world is that which science pronounces real; dark, cold, and shaking like a jelly." Of course there is a sheer confusion in the statement; but perhaps it embodies popular materialism none the worse for that. The idea is, in general, that such characters as shape and motion are self-existent properties of things, while colour and sound for instance are effects produced in our minds through our sense-organs, and bear no resemblance to anything in the real external objects. Now I do not say that this theory need necessarily give us a narrow view of the world; but it very naturally did so, and I believe always will do so. The reason is, that it makes us think all the things we live with and care about most, faces, voices, music, light, taste, smell—all these things are, if not illusions, yet in a sort of way on a lower level of truth and reality than things