44Q THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ress of science ; for, according to our present views, we do at least 

 come to a point where matter displays new properties under excess- 

 ively fine division, as in the cases of diffusions, chemical processes, 

 crystallization, and in organisms. It is remarkable that it never occur- 

 red to Leibnitz or Locke that it is by no means all the same whether 

 charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter lying together are in large lumps or 

 ground down in definite proportions to the fineness of gunpowder. 

 The mechanical performance of similar machines never bears a pro- 

 portionate relation to their size. If matter thus exhibits different 

 modes of action according to the degree of its division, why may it 

 not even think under a still finer division ? It will be best to put 

 away the explanations of these philosophers, and rest upon the simple 

 declaration that consciousness can not be explained as the result of any 

 arrangement or motion of the physical atoms of matter. 



I have to say, besides, that we can not at present go further with 

 Leibnitz. He concludes, from the incomprehensibility of conscious- 

 ness from a mechanical basis, that it is not produced through material 

 causes. We are satisfied with recognizing the incomprehensibility, 

 which we may illustrate by saying that it is of a similar character 

 with the impossibility of understanding why the twitching of the 

 trigeminal nerve provokes infernal pains, while the excitation of cer- 

 tain other nerves is pleasant. While Leibnitz rejected consciousness 

 in the soul-monads imparted to the body, and supposed a series of 

 dream-pictures correspondiug with the events of the body to pass 

 along in it under God's direction, we are accumulating the proofs that 

 consciousness is bound to material antecedents. 



I name not with full conviction as the sixth difficulty, intelligent 

 thought and the origin of language. An immense gap indeed exists 

 between an amoeba and a man between a new-born child and a man ; 

 but it may be filled to a certain extent by transitions. The theory of 

 knowledge apparently requires only memory and the power of gen- 

 eralization to make the way from simple sensation to the higher degrees 

 of mental activity. Great as is the leap still to be taken between the 

 faculties of the highest animal and those of the lowest man, the dif- 

 ference between them, consciousness being once given, is of quite 

 another kind from that which opposes the mechanical explanation of 

 consciousness. The latter problem and the former one are incommen- 

 surable. Therefore, to use Strauss's notation again, if problem B is 

 solved, problem C does not seem to me to be transcendent. Problem 

 C, however, is closely connected with another problem, the seventh 

 and last one in our series the question of the freedom of the will. 



It is natural that all the problems enumerated here should have 

 busied mankind as long as it has thought. The constitution of mat- 

 ter, the origin of life and language, have been subjects of disquisition 

 among all civilized peoples at all times. Yet only a few minds have 

 advanced to these questions, and the report of the discussions of them 



