How, indeed, does the program differ for us, according as we
consider that the facts of experience up to date are purposeless
configurations of blind atoms moving according to eternal laws, or
that on the other hand they are due to the providence of God? As far
as the past facts go, indeed there is no difference. Those facts are
in, are bagged, are captured; and the good that's in them is gained,
be the atoms or be the God their cause. There are accordingly many
materialists about us to-day who, ignoring altogether the future and
practical aspects of the question, seek to eliminate the odium
attaching to the word materialism, and even to eliminate the word
itself, by showing that, if matter could give birth to all these
gains, why then matter, functionally considered, is just as divine
an entity as God, in fact coalesces with God, is what you mean by
God. Cease, these persons advise us, to use either of these terms,
with their outgrown opposition. Use a term free of the clerical
connotations, on the one hand; of the suggestion of gross-ness,
coarseness, ignobility, on the other. Talk of the primal mystery, of
the unknowable energy, of the one and only power, instead of saying
either God or matter.
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