296 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [xiv. 



pound weight falling through a foot on a man s hand gives rise 

 to a definite amount of feeling, which might with equal propriety 

 be said to be its equivalent in consciousness. 1 And as we already 

 know that there is a certain parity between the intensity of a 

 pain and the strength of one s desire to get rid of that pain ; and 

 secondly, that there is a certain correspondence between the 

 intensity of the heat, or mechanical violence, which gives rise to 

 the pain, and the pain itself; the possibility of the establishment 

 of a correlation between mechanical force and volition becomes 

 apparent. And the same conclusion is suggested by the fact 

 that, within certain limits, the intensity of the mechanical 

 force we exert is proportioned to the intensity of our desire to 

 exert it. 



Thus I am prepared to go with the Materialists wherever the 

 true pursuit of the path of Descartes may lead them ; and I am 

 glad, on all occasions, to declare my belief that their fearless 

 development of the materialistic aspect of these matters has had 

 an immense, and a most beneficial, influence upon physiology 

 and psychology. Nay more, when they go farther than I think 

 they are entitled to do when they introduce Calvinism into 

 science and declare that man is nothing but a machine, I do not 

 see any particular harm in their doctrines, so long as they admit 

 that which is a matter of experimental fact namely, that it is a 

 machine capable of adjusting itself within certain limits. 



I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me 

 always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of 

 being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning 

 before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. 

 The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right ; the 

 freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest 

 terms to any one who will take it of me. But when the Ma 

 terialists stray beyond the borders of their path and begin to 



- l For all the qualifications which need to be made here, I refer the reader 

 to the thorough discussion of the nature of the relation between nerve- 

 action and consciousness in Mr. Herbert Spencer s &quot;Principles of Psychology,&quot; 

 p. 115 et seq. 



