SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 85 



be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we, 

 must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule 

 of the body to its environment, its position in the body 

 might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty 

 is not with the quality of the problem, but with its 

 complexity ; and this difficulty might be met by the 

 simple expansion of the faculties we now possess. 

 Given this expansion, with the necessary molecular 

 data, and the chick might be deduced as rigorously and 

 as logically from the egg, as the existence of Neptune 

 from the disturbances of Uranus, or as conical refraction 

 from the undulatory theory of light. 



You see I am not mincing matters, but avowing 

 nakedly what many scientific thinkers more or less dis- 

 tinctly believe. The formation of a crystal, a plant, or 

 an animal, is, in their eyes, a purely mechanical pro- 

 blem, which differs from the problems of ordinary 

 mechanics, in the smallness of the masses, and the 

 complexity of the processes involved. Here you have 

 one half of our dual truth ; let us now glance at the 

 other half. Associated with this wonderful mechanism 

 of the animal body we have phenomena no less cer- 

 tain than those of physics, but between which and the 

 mechanism we discern no necessary connection. A 

 man, for example, can say * I feel,' ' I think,' ' I love ; ' 

 but how does consciousness infuse itself into the pro- 

 blem ? The human brain is said to be the organ of 

 thought and feeling : when we are hurt, the brain feels 

 it ; when we ponder, or when our passions or affections 

 are excited, it is through the instrumentality of the 

 brain. Let us endeavour to be a little more precise 

 here. I hardly imagine there exists a profound scien- 

 tific thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, 

 unwilling to admit the extreme probability of the hypo- 

 thesis, that for every fact of consciousness, whether in 



