LIFE AS MECHANISM 



be changed back into mechanical work and that when 

 so doing, it will lift a pound weight just a distance of 

 778 feet. 



Now, Huxley says that a pound weight falling 

 through a foot on a man's hand gives rise to a definite 

 amount of feeling, or consciousness. By a definite 

 amount of feeling he must mean that it can be meas- 

 ured and that a knowledge of the amount of feeling 

 experienced can be communicated to others. I do not 

 know what Huxley could do, but no psychologist 

 at the present time has a quantitative measure of feel- 

 ing, or knows of any units in which to express it. 

 Again, if Huxley's analogy be true, if the weight 

 falls two feet, the man must experience twice the feel- 

 ing, and we can easily figure that if it fell through a 

 great distance and struck the man's hand (I wish he 

 had used the head as an example) there should be a 

 great deal of feeling and intense consciousness. This 

 may be a scientific truth, but, to the ordinary mind, 

 the man would be dead. If we adhere to the belief in 

 the conservation of energy we must find that a falling 

 weight would not heat a live man's hand as much as 

 a dead one's because part of the mechanical energy 

 must be used in the one case to produce feeling and 

 consciousness and not in the other. And lastly, since 

 we are dealing with physical law, the energy must be 

 mutually convertible; mechanical motion produces 

 heat, and heat can be changed to mechanical motion ; 

 every one knows that from experience. Therefore, in 



n265 3 



