PROFESSOR VJKUITOW ANT EVOLUTION. 653 
The 'reverse process of the production of motion by con- 
sciousness is equally unpresentable to the mind. We are 
here in fact on the boundary line of the intellect, where 
the ordinary canons of science fail to extricate us. If we 
are true to these canons, we must deny to subjective phe- 
nomena all influence on physical processes. The me- 
chanical philosopher, as such, will never place a state of 
consciousness and a group of molecules in the relation of 
mover and moved. Observation proves them to interact; 
but, in passing from the one to the other, we meet a blank 
which the logic of deduction is unable to fill. This, the 
reader will remember, is the conclusion at which I had 
arrived more than twenty years ago. I lay bare unspar- 
ingly the central difficulty of the materialist, and tell him 
that the facts of observation which he considers so simple 
are "almost as difficult to be seized mentally as the idea 
of a soul." I go further, and say, in effect, to those who 
wish to retain this idea, " If you abandon the interpreta- 
tions of grosser minds, who image the soul as a Psyche 
which could be thrown out of the window an entity 
which is usually occupied, we know not how, among the 
molecules of the brain, but which on due occasion, such as 
the intrusion of a bullet or the blow of a club, can fly away 
into other regions of space if, abandoning this heathen 
notion, you consent to approach the subject in the only way 
in which approach is possible if you consent to make 
your soul a poetic rendering of a phenomenon which, as 
I have taken more pains than anybody else to show you, 
refuses the yoke of ordinary physical laws then I, for 
one, would not object to this exercise of ideality." I 
say it strongly, but with good temper, that the theologian, 
or the defender of theology, who hacks and scourges me 
for putting the question in this light is guilty of black 
ingratitude. 
Notwithstanding the agreement thus far pointed out, 
there are certain points in Professor Virchow's lecture to 
which I should feel inclined to take exception. I think it 
was hardly necessary to associate the theory of evolution 
with socialism; it may be even questioned whether it was 
correct to do so. As Lange remarks, the aim of socialism, 
or of its extreme leaders, is to overthrow the existing 
systems of government, and anything that helps them to 
