SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 40? 
brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is incon- 
ceivable as a result of mechanics. Granted that a definite 
thought, and a definite molecular action in the brain, 
occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual 
organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which 
would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from 
the one to the other. They appear together, but we do 
not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, 
strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and 
feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of 
following all their motions, all their groupings, all their 
electric discharges, if such there be; and were we inti- 
mately acquainted with the correspond ing states of thought 
and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution 
of the problem, " How are these physical processes con- 
nected with the facts of consciousness?" The chasm 
between the two classes of phenomena would still remain 
intellectually impassable. Let the consciousness of love, 
for example, be associated with a right-handed spiral 
motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness 
of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then 
know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, 
and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but 
the " WHY?" would remain as unanswerable as before. 
In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, 
and that thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in 
the physics of the brain, I think the position of the 
" Materialist" is stated, as far as that position is a tenable 
one. I think the materialist will be able finally to main- 
tain this position against all attacks; but I do not think, 
in the present condition of the human mind, that he can 
pass beyond this position. I do not think he is entitled to 
say that his molecular groupings, and motions, explain 
everything. In reality they explain nothing. The utmost 
he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, 
of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. 
The problem of the connection of body and soul is as 
insoluble, in its modern form, as it was in the pre-scieutific 
ages. Phosphorus is known to enter into the composition 
of the human brain, and a trenchant German writer has 
exclaimed, "Oline Phosphor, kein Gedanke!" That may 
or may not be the case; but even if we knew it to be the 
case, the knowledge would not lighten our darkness. Oil 
