MATTER AND CHANGE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Will
you kindly allow me to point out in your columns that the origin of the Theory of Matter and Change imputed to Bergson was really worked out about fifty years earlier by a man whose name is never heard of now ? I refer to James. Hinton, whose writings were deposited in the British Museum. In his book Philosophy and Religion on page 4, in discuss- ing the nature of matter, Hinton writes as follows : " This is my solution—We perceive God's spiritual action as motion, because we ourselves, by our own finite nature, impose a limit on it : namely God's action being in itself unlimited, having relation to neither time nor space, we, by virtue of our finitude perceive it in relation only to such boundaries : that is we see it as motion—the material universe."
James Hinton's was evidently a master-mind which was not appreciated. His book Philosophy and Religion is only a small one, but I have been studying it with increasing apprecia- tion for the last few years ! I fear the book is out of print now !—I am, Sir, &c., Bishop Cotton School, Bangalore, S. India. A. P. McKENzw...
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