1897.] BRINTOX — MEASUREMENT OF THOUGHT AS FUNCTION. 439 



and, indeed, a logical machine was invented by Jevons which could 

 carry out a proposition from major premise to conclusion. From 

 another aspect the late Dr. Post, of Bremen, used to maintain that 

 *'we do not think, but thinking goes on within us; " just like any 

 other involuntary function of our bodies. 



All such statements must be understood to apply only to certain 

 concomitant phenomena of thought ; but by no proper use of words 

 can such phenomena be taken as the measure of thought itself. This 

 measure eludes all chemical and physical research, and can in no 

 way be calculated by mechanical formulas. The worth of the 

 thought bears no relation whatever to the physical changes of tem- 

 perature and cell activity concerned in its production. Mental 

 force cannot be weighed and measured, nor is it convertible by any 

 means known to us into other forms of energy. 



The value of thought and the measure of mental force is, as has 

 already been intimated by our distinguished guest this evening, the 

 truth oi the thought, the verity of the proposition. To quote from 

 Shakespeare, *^A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

 signifying nothing," may cost that poor idiot's brain just as much 

 cell-destruction and increased temperature as did the composition of 

 Macbeth to the great dramatist. A false or a worthless thought in- 

 volves just as many changes as a true and valuable one. The brain of 

 the savage is often as active, functionally, as that of the devotee to 

 science ; but how different the value of the results ! As a physical 

 stimulus affecting the lives of organic beings, the truth of thought 

 is the only measure of the power of thought. 



A striking confirmation of the views I am urging is the undoubted 

 fact that the greatest conquests of thought, its most valuable pro- 

 ductions, arise when the functional activity of the brain is at a low 

 ebb. They are the fruits of what is called ''unconscious cerebra- 

 tion;" or by its more modern name, ''subliminal consciousness." 

 The greatest inventions, the solutions of the most difficult problems 

 in mathematics, the most marvelous inspirations of genius in art, 

 have reached their finders in such passive moments. How wide of 

 the mark, therefore, is it to expect to measure mind by units of 

 matter ! There is absolutely no common measure between them 

 and nothing in modern chemical or physical science weakens this 

 ancient doctrine. 



If what I have said is true as respects the facts of science, how 

 much less capable are material weights and measures of appraising 



