MONISM AND DUALISM 233 



and we cannot believe that the discovery of that 

 process was altogether accidental. 



6. Mind is to some extent lawless, that is, it has 

 the power of volition, even in the lowest living or- 

 ganisms. If it were not for this freedom of action 

 it could not oppose the physico-chemical energies 

 and would be destroyed. It has often imposed 

 pseudo-laws on itself, to make its action easier ; but 

 these laws are not like natural laws, they can on 

 occasion be disobeyed. This, indeed, is the distin- 

 guishing mark of mind. These pseudo-la\vs we call 

 reflex action, which is proved by experiments on 

 the tissues of animals which have been recently 

 killed or rendered unconscious. So long as the 

 tissues live, they respond to stimulus, although 

 bodily life may have gone. 



Scientific Monism. When Copernicus published 

 his opinion that the earth went round the sun, he 

 saw clearly that he must substantiate it with the best 

 evidence he could get ; because the opinion was both 

 novel and contrary to common sense. The scientific 

 monists are now in the same position. Their doc- 

 trine is novel and opposed to common sense, and it 

 behoves them to substantiate it. The burden of 

 proof lies with them, and not with the dualists, who 

 have been in possession of the field for so long. Let 

 us see what the monists have done in this direction. 



Professor Tyndall, in his presidential address to 

 the British Association at Belfast in 1874, compared a 

 grain of wheat to a crystal, and declared that he 

 could see no fundamental difference between them. 

 It is perhaps hardly necessary at the present day to 



