CHAPTER IV.
THEORIES OF MATERIALISM.
The doctrine of Materialism stands equally related to the "mechanical" form of Atheism, and to the "hylozoic" form of Pantheism.

It is subsumed in both, and is the fundamental postulate on which they respectively depend.
It has no natural affinity with the more "ideal" or "spiritual" form of Pantheism.

We must not conclude, however, that it has no historical connection with it.

For it is instructive to mark, in tracing the history of philosophic speculation, that its course resembles not so much the uniform current of a stream, as the alternate flowing and ebbing of the tide; or, if we may change the figure, that its movement may be likened to the oscillation of a pendulum, which no sooner reaches its highest elevation on the one side, than it acquires a tendency to rush to the opposite extreme on the other.

There can be little doubt that the recent revival of speculative "Idealism" was the result, at least in part, of a strong reaction against the "sensational" philosophy, which had degenerated in the school of Priestley at home, and in that of Condillac abroad, into a system of gross and revolting Materialism.