50 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



conscious of your feelings, to recognise your consciousness 

 as a direct sense-impression ; let us say, for example, by 

 connecting the cortex of your brain with that of mine 

 through a suitable commissure of nerve-substance. The 

 possibility of this physical verification of other-conscious- 

 ness does not seem more remote than that of a journey 

 to a fixed star. Indeed, there are some who think that 

 without this hypothetical nerve-connection the processes 

 popularly termed " anticipating another person's wishes," 

 " reading his thoughts," etc., have in them the elements of 

 a sense-impression of other-consciousness, and are not 

 entirely indirect inferences from practical experience. 



Clifford has given the name eject to existences which, 

 like other-consciousness, are only inferred, and the name 

 is a convenient one. At the same time it seems to me 

 doubtful whether the distinction between object (what 

 might possibly come to my consciousness as a direct 

 sense-impression) and eject is so marked as he would have 

 us to believe. The complicated physical motions of 

 another person's brain, it is admitted, might possibly be 

 objective realities to me ; but, on the other hand, might 

 not the hypothetical brain commissure render me just as 

 certain of the workings of another person's consciousness 

 as I am of my own ? In this respect, therefore, it does 

 not seem necessary to assert that consciousness lies out- 

 side the field of science, or must perforce escape the 

 methods of physical experiment and research. We may 

 be far enough removed from knowledge at the present 

 time, but I see no logical hindrance to our asserting that 

 in the dim future we might possibly obtain objective 

 acquaintance with what at present appears merely as an 

 eject. We may say this indeed without any dogmatic 

 assumption that psychical effects can all be reduced to 

 physical motion. Psychical effects are without doubt 

 excited by and accompanied by physical action, and our 

 only assumption is the not unreasonable one, that a suit- 

 able physical link might transfer an appreciation of 

 psychical activity from one psychical centre to another. 



