274 LIFE: ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 



view that mind, or spirit, or soul (the exact word is unimportant) 

 is also real and indestructible, even though we cannot define it, 

 plumb its depths, or understand the basis of its obvious interrela- 

 tions with matter. 



Sir Edwin A. Adrian (Nobel prize, 1932) has stated: "The nervous 

 system is a mass of living cells which has the extraordinary property 

 of appearing to influence, and to be influenced, by the mind ... It is 

 a material system somehow responsible for such non-material things 

 as emotions and thoughts. These are in a category outside the range 

 of mechanical explanation, and for this reason the working of the 

 nervous system will never be fully explainable in terms of physics and 

 chemistry." This parallels the view of Lord Balfour that "No man 

 can either perceive or imagine the mode in which physiological 

 changes give birth to psychical experiences." But the fact remains 

 that they do. 



The idealistic philosophy of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne 

 (1684-1753), was based on the psychological principle that, for all 

 sensible things, being in reality is identical with being perceived 

 (the esse of things is percipi). Though all material existences have 

 their reality only in some concious mind, human souls have been 

 endowed by God with a substantive existence. To save his system 

 from being entirely subjective, Berkeley added the view that the 

 material universe has a permanent being in the Divine mind. 

 There is a story that one day Bishop Berkeley found the following 

 limerick pinned on a tree in the University quadrangle: 



A young Oxford man remarked: "God 

 Must think it exceedingly odd 



That this sycamore tree 



Continues to be 

 When there's no one about in the Quad." 



On the following morning, the philosopher's reply was found 

 pinned below: 



Dear Sir: Your bewilderment's odd: 

 I'm always about in the Quad; 



So this sycamore tree 



Will continue to be 

 Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God. 



Somewhat different versions are given in "The Oxford Book of 

 Light Verse," and in the "Peter Pauper Book of Limericks." 



