Ill SCIENCE AND MORALS 137 



the production of such phenomena for their 

 function), even if the spiritualistic hypothesis had 

 any foundation. For nobody hesitates to say that 

 an event A is the cause of an event Z, even if 

 there are as many intermediate terms, known and 

 unknown, in the chain of causation as there are 

 letters between A and Z. The man who pulls 

 the trigger of a loaded pistol placed close to 

 another's head certainly is the cause of that 

 other's death, though, in strictness, he " causes " 

 nothing but the movement of the finger upon the 

 trigger. And, in like manner, the molecular 

 change which is brought about in a certain 

 portion of the cerebral substance by the stimula 

 tion of a remote part of the body would be 

 properly said to be the cause of the consequent 

 feeling, whatever unknown terms were interposed 

 between the physical agent and the actual psychi 

 cal product. Therefore, unless Materialism has 

 the monopoly of the right use of language, I see 

 nothing materialistic in the phraseology which I 

 have employed. 



The only remaining justification which Mr. Lilly 

 offers for dubbing me a Materialist, malgrd moi, 

 arises out of a passage which he quotes, in which I 

 say that the progress of science means the exten 

 sion of the province of what we call matter and 

 force, and the concomitant gradual banishment 

 from all regions of human thought of what we call 

 spirit and spontaneity. I hold that opinion now, 



