of an incongruous hue, jostling it
accidentally in a confused and amphibious mind. If you are in the habit
of believing in special providences, or of expecting to continue your
romantic adventures in a second life, materialism will dash your hopes
most unpleasantly, and you may think for a year or two that you have
nothing left to live for. But a thorough materialist, one born to the
faith and not half plunged into it by an unexpected christening in cold
water, will be like the superb Democritus, a laughing philosopher. His
delight in a mechanism that can fall into so many marvellous and
beautiful shapes, and can generate so many exciting passions, should be
of the same intellectual quality as that which the visitor feels in a
museum of natural history, where he views the myriad butterflies in
their cases, the flamingoes and shell-fish, the mammoths and gorillas.
Doubtless there were pangs in that incalculable life, but they were soon
over; and how splendid meantime was the pageant, how infinitely
interesting the universal interplay, and how foolish and inevitable
those absolute little passions. Somewhat of that sort might be the
sentiment that materialism would arouse in a vigorous mind, active,
joyful, impersonal, and in respect to private illusions not without a
touch of scorn.

To the genuine sufferings of living creatures the ethics that
accompanies materialism has never been insensible; on the contrary, like
other merciful systems, it has trembled too much at pain and tended to
withdraw the will ascetically, lest the will should be defeated.
Contempt for mortal sorrows is reserved for those who drive with
hosannas the Juggernaut car of absolute optimism. But against evils
born of pure vanity and self-deception, against the verbiage by which
man persuades himself that he is the goal and acme of the universe,
laughter is the proper defence. Laughter also has this subtle advantage,
that it need not remain without an overtone of sympathy and brotherly
understanding; as the laughter that greets Don Quixote's absurdities and
misadventures does not mock the hero's intent. His ardour was admirable,
but the world must be known before it can be reformed pertinently, and
happiness, to be attained, must be placed in reason.

[Sidenote: The material world not dead nor ugly,]

Oblivious of Democritus, the unwilling materialists of our day have
generally been awkwardly intellectual and quite incapable of laughter.
If they hav