PARADOXICAL PHILOSOPHY. 



lir hodr from a doid one is neither a material thing, nor that more refined 



M fcr of energy." There are methods, however, by which the applica- 



ioa of energy may be directed without interfering with its amount. Is the 



sool like the engine-driver, who does not draw the train himself, but, by means 



of certain ralves, direct* the course of the steam so as to drive the engine 



or backward, or to stop it? 



The dynamical theory of a conservative material system shews us, however, 

 I* general the present configuration and motion determine the whole course 

 of the system, exceptions to this rule occurring only at the instants when the 

 les through certain isolated and singular phases, at which a strictly 

 force may determine the course of the system to any one of a finite 

 of equally possible paths, as the pointsman at a railway junction directs 

 the train to one set of rails or another. Prof. B. Stewart has expounded a 

 theory of this kind in his book on The Conservation of Energy, and MM. de 

 8t Venant and Boussineeq have examined the corresponding phase of some 

 purely mathematical problems. 



The science which rejoices in the name of " Psychophysik " has made con- 

 siderable progress in the study of the phenomena which accompany our sensations 

 and voluntary motions. We are taught that many of the processes which we 

 nippoit entirely under the control of our own will are subject to the strictest 

 laws of succession, with which we have no power of interfering; and we are 

 shewn bow to verify the conclusions of the science by deducing from it methods 

 of physical and mental training for ourselves and others. 



Thus 'science strips off, one after the other, the more or less gross 

 materialisations by which we endeavour to form an objective image of the soul, 

 till men of science, speculating, in their non-scientific intervals, like other men 

 on what science may possibly lead to, have prophesied that we shall soon have 

 to confess that the soul is nothing else than a function of certain complex 

 . . - 



Men of science, however, are but men, and therefore occasionally contemplate 

 their souls from within. Those who, like Du Bois-Reymond, cannot admit that 

 sensation or consciousness can be a function of a material system, are led to 

 the conception of a double mind. 



On tfce one aide the acting, inventing, unconscious material mind, which puts the muscles 

 into motion, and determine* the world's history; this is nothing else but the mechanics of atoms, 

 and a nbpct to the caoail law, and on the other side the inactive, contemplative, remembering, 



