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THE PEL FAS? ADDH JS8& 465 
conclusion: and it certainly would be interesting, if not 
profitable, to us all, to hear what he would or could urge 
in opposition to the reasoning of the bishop. As a brief 
discussion of the point will enable us to see the bearings 
of an important question, I will here permit a disciple of 
Lucretius to try the strength of the bishop's position, and 
then allow the bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling 
back, if he can, the difficulty upon Lucretius. 
The argument might proceed in this fashion: 
" Subjected to the test of mental presentation ( Vorstel- 
lung), your views, most honored prelate, would offer to 
many minds a great, if not an insuperable difficulty. You 
speak of 'living powers/ 'percipient or perceiving 
powers/ and 'ourselves;' but can you form a mental 
picture of any of these, apart from the organism through 
which it is supposed to act? Test yourself honestly, and 
see whether you possess any faculty that would enable you 
to form such a conception. The true self has a local habi- 
tation in each of us; thus localized, must it not possess a 
form? If so, what form? Have you ever for a moment 
realized it? When a leg is amputated the body is divided 
into two parts; is the true self in both of them or in one? 
Thomas Aquinas might say in both; but not you, for you 
appeal to the consciousness associated with one of the two 
parts, to prove that the other is foreign matter. Is con- 
sciousness, then, a necessary element of the true self? If 
so, what do you say to the case of the whole body being 
deprived of consciousness? If not, then on what grounds 
do you deny any portion of the true self to the severed 
limb? It seems very singular that, from the beginning to 
the end of your admirable book (and no one admires its 
sober strength more than I do), you never once mention 
the brain or nervous system. You begin at one end of the 
body, and show that its parts may be removed without 
prejudice to the perceiving power. What if you begin at 
the other end, and remove, instead of the leg, the brain? 
The body, as before, is divided into two parts; but both 
are now in the same predicament, and neither can be 
appealed to to prove that the other is foreign matter. Or, 
instead of going so far as to remove the brain itself, let a 
certain portion of its bony covering be removed, and let a 
rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of pressure be 
applied to the soft substance. At every pressure ' the 
