156 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



them to. The truth is that the brain-changes which correspond to 

 mental states are unknown; we have not the least conception how the 

 brain-change of a man meditating a gift to a hospital and that of a 

 man planning to rob a bank differ from one another. Nor have we any 

 direct physical means of producing either. But we do know a good 

 deal about men's minds, and we know how to arouse in them ideas 

 which will — directly or indirectly, it does not matter which — result in 

 definite actions. 



The plain man is, then, quite right in explaining his day by a 

 reference to ideas. We have no other way of explaining it. There is 

 no reason for changing our usual modes of expression. The parallelist 

 who calls himself an automatist, or who talks of winding men up by the 

 administration of food harms his own cause gratuitously. There is 

 nothing in parallelism, properly understood, to cause apprehension ; and 

 there is nothing about the doctrine that is startling. 



It seems right that, having criticized that very clear and charming 

 writer, Clifford, I should close with a word in his defense. It is very 

 easy, when a doctrine is relatively new, and has not been subjected to 

 careful criticism, to misconceive its full significance. Were Clifford 

 alive to-day, I do not believe that he would call man an automaton at 

 all. He would see, I think, that it is misleading to speak so. But he 

 would still be a parallelist, and he would gain the more adherents to his 

 interesting scientific hypothesis, in that his utterances would be less 

 calculated to shock the common sense of his fellow men. 



