156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



steps by which the passage from molecular movement to states of con- 

 sciousness is effected. I entirely agree with the sense of the passage 

 from Dr. Tyndall." 



In view of the dissimilarity, the thorough dissimilarity, between 

 nerve-activities and consciousness-activities, we are not justified in 

 regarding the former as the sole cause of the latter. Chemists, after 

 a somewhat protracted examination of the substances found in nature, 

 announce the discovery of sixty-four different bodies, from which they 

 can not, by any means now at hand, separate simpler substances. This 

 does not intend to say that these sixty-four elements are absolutely 

 simple, but that " they are so as far as our knowledge extends." Now, 

 why are these sixty-four elements maintained to have a real existence ? 

 Why is aluminium believed in as a fact distinct from antimony, or 

 arsenic as a fact distinct from bromine, and so on throughout the list ? 

 Because, and simply because, the states of consciousness are persist- 

 ently distinct when dealing with these so-called elements. The chem- 

 ist is unable to experience resemblance between the actions i. e., the 

 manifestations of aluminium and antimony. Therefore, and there- 

 fore alone, he says, there are here different substances. 



This is the kind of reasoning, and no other, that we wish applied 

 to the subject of our examination. If the passage between brain- 

 activity and consciousness-activity be unthinkable, intellectually im- 

 passable, why is it so ? Not from any a priori or "high-priori " incon- 

 ceivability, but because these activities persistently fail to resemble one 

 another, i. e., to produce in us similar states of consciousness. They 

 can not be rationally called " diverse operations of energy mutually con- 

 vertible like light, heat, and the other physical forces." Such corre- 

 lation is opposed through and through to experience. Here is the 

 irrationality of physiological materialism. This materialism makes a 

 break in the physical continuity of Nature's workings; a break found 

 nowhere else ; a break, moreover, which is not found here by any exam- 

 ination of which we are capable. 



Correlation requires that motion should be transformed into some- 

 thing not motion, and then resume its course as motion. Motion set 

 up at the periphery of the body produces a definite and measurable 

 quantity of motion in the brain ; this is well called a mechanical prob- 

 lem out and out. We find no measurable consciousness, yet conscious- 

 ness is a reality ; we find no break in physical processes elsewhere, yet, 

 if correlation be true here, such a break there is. It will, I hope, be 

 clearly seen that this difficulty is nowise related to the old and worth- 

 less difficulty thought to be suggested by those who ask the material- 

 ist how motion is transformed into consciousness. As to the how of 

 things they have learned most who have learned that they know noth- 

 ing. The question is not how are brain-motions transformed into con- 

 sciousness, but the question is exactly this, What ground have we to 

 believe that such transformation exists ? 



