MIND-STUFF 277 



we know it to be — or, rather, it knows itself to be. It 

 is the physical aspects of the world that we have to 

 explain, presumably by some such method as that set 

 forth in our discussion on world-building. Our bodies 

 are more mysterious than our minds — at least they 

 would be, only that we can set the mystery on one side 

 by the device of the cyclic scheme of physics, which 

 enables us to study their phenomenal behaviour without 

 ever coming to grips with the underlying mystery. 



The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time; these 

 are part of the cyclic scheme ultimately derived out of 

 it. But we must presume that in some other way or 

 aspect it can be differentiated into parts. Only here and 

 there does it rise to the level of consciousness, but from 

 such islands proceeds all knowledge. Besides the direct 

 knowledge contained in each self-knowing unit, there 

 is inferential knowledge. The latter includes our know- 

 ledge of the physical world. It is necessary to keep 

 reminding ourselves that all knowledge of our environ- 

 ment from which the world of physics is constructed, 

 has entered in the form of messages transmitted along 

 the nerves to the seat of consciousness. Obviously the 

 messages travel in code. When messages relating to a 

 table are travelling in the nerves, the nerve-disturbance 

 does not in the least resemble either the external table 

 that originates the mental impression or the conception 

 of the table that arises in consciousness.* In the central 

 clearing station the incoming messages are sorted and 

 decoded, partly by instinctive image-building inherited 



*I mean, resemble in intrinsic nature. It is true (as Bertrand Russell 

 has emphasised) that the symbolic description of structure will be iden- 

 tical for the t table in the external world and for the conception of the 

 table in consciousness if the conception is scientifically correct. If the 

 physicist does not attempt to penetrate beneath the structure he is in- 

 different as to which of the two we imagine ourselves to be discussing. 



