No. 3.] ATOMS AND MOLECULES. 583 
in physical phenomena in any philosophical sense. There is 
matter and its motions, rectilinear, rotary, vibratory, and vorti- 
cal, each kind changeable into the other under proper mechanical 
conditions ; and there is no sense in speaking of one of them as 
being higher than another. Each one of them has mechanical 
possibilities that do not belong to the others, and no one of 
them can be treated as first in order. 
When it is ascertained that heat is a vibration, that light is 
an undulation, that electricity is a rotation, that is, that they are 
only conditions, it is seen that the questions what zs heat, what 
7s light, what ts electricity, are philosophically improper ques- 
tions, and the whole scheme of the universe mechanically con- 
sidered is on one plane, and there is nothing common or unclean 
in it. This is to meet the objections of those who think that 
matter and its phenomena are of a low grade. As a matter of 
fact, mind is in some way associated with matter, and depends 
for its development upon matter and its properties. As it is 
associated with a certain cell structure, there is at the outset a 
presumption that the mechanical relations are not so different 
as they seem to be, and the explanation is to be found sooner or 
later in entire accordance with all other physical phenomena. 
If one is to attempt an explanation, it must be in accordance 
with what we do know, and not in accordance with what we 
don’t know. 
Suppose, then, there be in the universe a mental field, no 
matter how that was produced. Wherever there should chance 
to be a collocation of matter, with a field upon which the first 
could react, the second would be mechanically endowed with 
the property that maintained the field; that is to say, mental 
phenomena would manifest themselves for precisely the same 
reason that other properties manifest themselves. The char- 
acter of the mental manifestations would in such a case depend 
upon the character and complexity of the material structure that 
was acted upon, giving scope for all the degrees of intelligence 
exhibited by the animal creation including man. 
Perhaps most persons would say I have now invoked the 
deity, to which I do not object; but as my purpose is to show 
how things can be so and so in accordance with mechanics, 
I have spoken of the mental field without regard to other than 
its mechanical relations to such matter as makes up the nervous 
