92 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND MIND 



would not do so on physical grounds, and more of his 

 " brother physicists " would emphatically dissent (such as 

 Sir A. Riicker and Sir J. Dewar and others). It is not a 

 concern of physics at all. 



If, on the other hand, we do not press too hard the vague 

 closing words of the passage I have quoted, not only 

 physicists, but Haeckel and others, will admit it. This is 

 clear from the instances given, such as guiding a falling 

 rock so as to fire a detonator, guiding a pen so as to produce 

 intelligible characters, or pulling a hair-trigger or opening 

 the throttle-valve of an engine. Certainly here we have 

 guidance of energies with a definite purpose. But, as in 

 the case of most of Sir Oliver Lodge's " analogues," there is 

 no real analogy at all. In each case, he admits, a nerve- 

 process initiates the action, and this in turn is originated by 

 " some chemical process." He suggests that the latter was 

 set going by some immaterial power called will. This is 

 wholly gratuitous, and wholly unintelligible. Modern 

 psychology sees no spiritual initiation of volitions at all. 

 There is a constant current of ganglionic processes pouring 

 through the brain from the nerves that communicate with 

 the outer world, and these shape the desires or plans or 

 volitions. At all events, Sir Oliver Lodge is begging the 

 whole question when he assumes an immaterial starting- 

 point. We know only nerve-processes, with the psychic 

 reflection of them in consciousness. Sir Oliver Lodge can 

 give us no instance whatever of the guidance of inorganic 

 matter or energy by something that is clearly not material. 



Thus the difficulty remains in full force. To " guide " 



