226 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



understand that a man can observe himself as a moral agent, 

 because in that case he can watch himself under the action 

 of the passions which animate him, precisely because the 

 organs that are the seat of those passions are distinct from 

 those that are destined for the functions of observation. . . . 

 But it is manifestly impossible to observe intellectual phe- 

 nomena whilst they are being produced. The individual think- 

 ing cannot divide himself in two, so that one half may think 

 and the other watch the process. Since the organ observing 

 and the one to be observed are identical, there can be no 

 self-observation." ("Cours de philosophie posntive," liete 

 leQon.) But an argument is of no avail against a fact, and, as 

 a matter of fact, we do reflect. It is by introspection or 

 reflective thought that we discriminate between our present 

 and our past thoughts, and become conscious of our own con- 

 sciousness. Our intellect even reflects upon its own act of 

 reflection, and so on indefinitely, so that, unless we are pre- 

 pared to accept the absurd alternative of an infinite series 

 of thinkers, we have no choice but to identify the subject know- 

 ing with the subject known. That our intellect is conscious 

 of its own operations and attentive to its own thoughts, is an 

 evident fact of internal experience, and it is preposterous to 

 tilt against facts by means of syllogisms. When Zeno con- 

 cocted his aprioristic "proof" of the impossibility of trans- 

 latory movement, his sophism was refuted by the simple 

 process of walking — solvitur ambulando. In like manner, 

 the Comtean sophism concerning the impossibility of reflec- 

 tion is refuted by the simple act of mental reflection — solvitur 

 reflectendo. For the rest, we readily concede Comte's con- 

 tention that an organ is incapable of reflection or self-obser- 

 vation, but we deny his tacit assumption that our cognitive 

 powers are all of the organic type. Our intellect, which 

 attends to its own phenomena, thinks of its own thought and 

 reasons upon its own reasoning, cannot be bound to, or co- 

 extensive with, a material organ, but must be free from any 

 corporeal organ and rooted in a spiritual principle. In a 



