SCIENCE AND MORALS : A REPLY. 495 



cover in the pages of his article, and of which an orang-outang might 

 be just as acutely sensible. No, it lies in an appreciation of literary 

 form and logical structure by aesthetic and intellectual faculties which 

 are not senses, and which are not unfrequently sadly wanting where 

 the senses are in full vigor. My poor relation may beat me in the 

 matter of sensation ; but I am quite confident that, when style and 

 syllogisms are to be dealt with, he is nowhere. 



If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in it is 

 the universal validity of the law of causation ; but that universality 

 can not be proved by any amount of experience, let alone that which 

 comes to us through the senses. And, when an effort of volition 

 changes the current of my thoughts, or when an idea calls up another 

 associated idea, I have not the slightest doubt that the process to 

 which the first of the phenomena in each case is due, stands in the re- 

 lation of cause to the second. Yet the attempt to verify this belief by 

 sensation would be sheer lunacy. Now, I am quite sure that Mr. Lilly 

 does not doubt my sanity, and the only alternative seems to be the ad- 

 mission that his first proposition is erroneous. 



The second thesis charges me with putting aside " as unverifiable " 

 " everything beyond the bounds of physical science." Again, I say 

 No. Nobody, I imagine, will credit me with a desire to limit the 

 empire of physical science ; but I really feel bound to confess that a 

 great many very familiar and, at the same time, extremely important 

 phenomena lie quite beyond its legitimate limits. I can not conceive, 

 for example, how the phenomena of consciousness as such, and apart 

 from the physical process by which they are called into existence, are 

 to be brought within the bounds of physical science. Take the sim- 

 plest possible example, the feeling of redness. Physical science tells 

 us that it commonly arises as a consequence of molecular changes prop- 

 agated from the eye to a certain part of the substance of the brain, 

 when vibrations of the luminiferous ether of a certain character fall 

 upon the retina. Let us suppose the process of physical analysis 

 pushed so far that one could view the last link of this chain of mole- 

 cules, watch their movements as if they were billiard-balls, weigh 

 them, measure them, and know all that is physically knowable about 

 them. Well, even in that case we should be just as far from being 

 able to include the resulting phenomenon of consciousness, the feeling 

 of redness, within the bounds of physical science, as we are at pres- 

 ent. It would remain as unlike the phenomena we know under the 

 names of matter and motion as it is now. If there is any plain truth 

 upon which I have made it my business to insist over and over again 

 it is this ; and, whether it is a truth or not, my insistence upon it 

 leaves not a shadow of justification for Mr. Lilly's assertion. 



But I ask in this case, also, how is it conceivable that any man in 

 possession of all his natural faculties should hold such an opinion? I 

 do not suppose that I am exceptionally endowed because I have all my 



