424 Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



what that action, can be reconciled with the principle of conservation 

 of energy on the hypothesis that the mind is itself a form of energy." 

 "The interactionist who shrinks from making consciousness a form of 

 energy has, therefore, a single course left : to attack the universality 

 of the principle of conservation directly." Here it is to be feared ex- 

 ists an unhappy confusion between consciousness and the extrinsic 

 form of energy variously called '"soul" or even "experience" (Alex- 

 ander) though Professor Strong expressly says "the existence of 

 consciousness is our existence. The soul is a dark and mysterious 

 source from which consciousness in some unintelligible manner flows" 

 though "insensibly we are drawn to picture it by the aid of that ille- 

 gitimate notion of matter existing with all its materiality apart from 

 consciousness — in short, as a mind-atom." What then are we to do 

 with the whole infra-conscious part of life as well a.s the past unre- 

 membered stream of consciousness which we are wont to believe, 

 with more reason than any other fact whatever, accounts foi; and makes 

 intelligible the present consciousness ? Such exclusion shuts us out from 

 the teleology which alone accounts for our individuality upon the con- 

 fession of idealists themselves. The idealist indeed holds "that we 

 can have immediate knowledge only of our mental states ;" to which 

 the realist replies that this statement does violence to a fundamental 

 dictum of science that with action there must be reaction. A purely 

 spontaneous activity or energic manifestation is impossible in a created 

 universe (it would be a miracle and there are no miracle's in philosophy, 

 however it may be in theology). To say that my mind created reality 

 out of nothing as a spontaneous fiat is to misapprehend the nature of 

 reality. The fact that I experience a phenomenal universe demands 

 something other than the simple subject of experience. For, as we 

 like to say, reality is the affirmation of attribute and involves subject 

 and object, energy and limitation, action and reaction, and so is ij'sc 

 facto proof of extraneous somewhat. This reality does not necessarily 

 vindicate our interpretation of it as object but it implies something to 

 be interpreted. The author himself, however, provides a corrective 

 in various places and admits that "the need in question (i. e., of ex- 

 plaining perceived events by means of preceding events not perceived) 

 can only be met by some form of realism." "Though the objects 

 themselves we percive cannot continue to exist when we no longer 

 perceive them, it is consistent with idealism that they should have ex- 

 tramental causes which continue to exist and of which the perceived 

 objects are symbolic." Now if this be idealism it is idealism in terms 

 of realism — an idealism with the sting extracted so that it is harmless 



