MARTINEAU AND MATERIALISM. 139 



from one to the other. They appear together, but we do luot know 

 why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and 

 illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the 

 brain ; were we capable of following all their motions, all their group- 

 ings, all their electric discharges, if such there be ; and were we inti- 

 mately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feel- 

 ing, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 

 ' How are these physical processes connected with the facts of con- 

 sciousness ? ' The chasm between the two classes of phenomena 

 would still remain intellectually impassable." ' 



Compare this with the answer which Mr. Marti neau puts into the 

 mouth of Ms physicist, and with which I am generally credited by 

 Mr. Martineau's readers : " ' It (the problem of consciousness) does 

 not daunt me at all. Of course you understand that all along my 

 atoms have been affected by gravitation and polarity ; and now I 

 have only to insist with Fechner on a difference among molecules ; 

 there are the inorganic^ which can change only their j^/ace, like the 

 particles in an undulation ; and there are the organic^ which can 

 change their order, as in a globule that turns itself inside out. With 

 an adequate number of these, our problem will be manageable.' 

 'Likely enough,' we may say ['entirely unlikely,' say I], 'seeing 

 how careful you are to provide for all emergencies ; and if any hitch 

 should occur in the next step, where you will have to pass from 

 mere sentiency to thought and will, you can again look in upon your 

 atoms, and fling among them a handful of Leibnitz's monads, to serve 

 as souls in little, and be ready, in a latent form, with that Vorstellupgs- 

 fahigkeit which our picturesque interpreters of Nature so hiuch 

 prize.' " 



" But surely," continues Mr. Martineau, " you must observe that 

 this ' matter ' of yours alters its style with every change of service : 

 starting as a beggar, with scarce a rag of ' property ' to cover its 

 bones, it turns up as a prince when large undei'takings are wanted. 

 'We must radically change our notions of matter,' says Prof. Tyn- 

 dall ; and then, he ventures to believe, it will answer all demands, 

 carrying 'the promise and potency of all terrestrial life.' If the 

 measure of the required 'change in our notions' had been specified, 

 the proposition would have had a real meaning, and been susceptible 

 of a test. It is easy traveling through the stages of such an hypothe- 

 sis ; you deposit at your bank a round sum ere you start, and, draw- 

 ing on it piecemeal at every pause, complete your grand tour without 

 a debt." 



The last paragraph of this argument is forcibly and ably stated. 

 On it I am willing to try conclusions with Mr. Martineau. I may 

 say, in passing, that I share his contempt for the picturesque inter- 



* Bishop Butler's reply to the Lucretian in the Belfast Address is all in the same 

 strain. 



