Spencer's extended doctrine of the Unknowable--it being only because the
latter doctrine presupposes the doctrine of Relativity that it is exclusive
of Materialism in the sense which has just been stated. So far, therefore,
Mr. Spencer's writings cannot be held to have any special bearing on the
doctrine of Materialism. Such a special bearing is only exerted by these
writings when they proceed to show that "it seems an imaginable possibility
that units of external force may be identical in nature with the units of
the force known as feeling." Let us then ascertain how far it is true that
the argument already quoted, and which leads to this conclusion, is utterly
destructive of Materialism.
In the first place, I may observe that this argument differs in several
instructive particulars from the anti-materialistic argument of Locke,
which we have already had occasion to consider. For while Locke erroneously
imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent value
_wherever_ it is applied, save only where it conflicts with preconceived
ideas on the subject of Theism (see Appendix A.), Spencer, of course, is
much too careful a thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it
is curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument of Spencer
the test of inconceivability is used in a manner the precise opposite of
that in which it is used in the anti-materialistic argument of Locke.
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