NATURE OF THOUGHT

The materialistic view, which rose to prominence in the middle of the nineteenth century, held, on the contrary, that the mind was merely an activity or property of matter—a function of matter similar to extension extension In philosophy, this refers to the property of a physical substance that allows it to occupy space. and motion. Thomas Henry Huxley, expressing this concept, said: "We have no knowledge of any thinking substance apart from a physical substance that occupies space. . . We shall, sooner or later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent of consciousness, just as we have arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat." But Huxley himself was afterwards forced to admit that: "How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of stimulating original: "irritating" nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the genie original: "jinnee" when Aladdin rubbed his lamp."

The leading authorities of the time tend toward the opinion that both matter and mind are different aspects of some one fundamental "Something." Or, as some of the most rigorous original: "closest" thinkers state it, both are probably two apparently differing manifestations or emanations emanations Something that flows out or originates from a specific source. of an Underlying Something which, as Herbert Spencer A prominent English philosopher and biologist (1820–1903) who applied evolutionary theory to philosophy and society. says: "transcends not only