The President's Address. By L. S. Beale, F.B.8. 221 



with those who so terribly abuse the use of the language they em- 

 ploy. At every step one is puzzled to determine in what sense a 

 word is used. This word identity is ingeniously applied to things 

 which differ from one another toto coelo, by philosophers who seem 

 to be unconscious of, or at any rate do not hesitate to ignore, 

 any differences which are not to be made evident by chemical or 

 other mode of analysis. One might as well assert the identity of 

 reason and dogma because the difference cannot be expressed in 

 ounces or pounds. As we cannot distinguish the germ of a man 

 from that of a dog by microscopic observation or by chemical 

 analysis, we are told that the germs are identical, in face of the fact 

 that a man results from the one, and a dog from the other. In 

 spite of the obvious diversity as to form and variety of structure we 

 see around us, all living forms were at one time identical. Identity 

 produces diversity. This assumed identity results in extraordinary 

 diversity of property, structure, and the like. And when we inquire 

 how this comes about, we are assured that it is to be accounted for 

 by the laws of molecular change. 



Many who repudiate materialism really accept the so-called basis 

 upon which it rests, as if it were true. A considerable number of 

 intelligent persons go so far with the materialists as to argue that 

 the characteristic phenomena of living protoplasm may be due to 

 the physical properties of the matter which enters into its com- 

 position, but consciousness is, according to them, in another cate- 

 gory altogether. Polarity is the property of the magnet, irritability 

 the property of protoplasm, but the idea of consciousness being the 

 property of brain protoplasm not only shocks their tender con- 

 sciences, but outrages their traditional beliefs, so they discover that 

 the argument " breaks down," without, however, showing precisely 

 where, why, or how. 



The President of the British Association afl^ms that " the chasm 

 between unconscious life and thought is impassable," while he holds 

 that the chasm between unconscious life and the phenomena of non- 

 living matter has already been bridged over, and many scientific men 

 seem to have accepted the same idea. Life is a property of proto- 

 plasm, but consciousness is not a property of protoplasm. What 

 consciousness is wc are not told, but it is intimated that in the far- 

 off future perhaps some higher faculties may be evolved which may 

 enable our successors to understand what wo do not. But where 

 among living beings this consciousness abruptly begins, and when in 

 the development of man it is grafted upon or superadded to the life, 

 is not suggested. "Whence comes consciousness, and what is it 

 according to this hypothesis ? What category shall bo invented 

 for this wonderful property, consciousness ? 



Now, I should like to know how mystery and prophecy and the 

 speculations about the evolution of new faculties in a far-distant 



