FIRST PRINCIPLES 23 



don't seem astonished, Mr. Brown, at the wonderful nar- 

 rations of Deacon Smith," said Widow Jones to one of two 

 Yankees who were lounging in front of her fire. * ' No, 

 ma'am, I'm a liar myself," was the laconic reply. One of the 

 first things which science recognises is that all men are liars. 

 We all inherit a tendency to believe in and, still more 

 strongly, to narrate the marvellous. It is the business of 

 the man of science to shake such narrations with simple 

 straightforward questions, to check them again and again 

 by pointing out gaps in evidence or barriers against evidence 

 which the narrator cannot cross. 



We have already insisted that consciousness can be inves- 

 tigated only by consciousness. The senses are the "win- 

 dows of the mind" which give upon the outside world. 

 Consciousness is not force. We cannot find a place for it in 

 the balance-sheet of the body. When we have audited its 

 accounts have debited the body with x + y units of poten- 

 tial energy received in food, and have placed to its credit 

 x units of muscular force and y units of heat ; when we 

 have debited it with a -f- )3 units of force received as vibra- 

 tions by the endings of nerves in the sense-organs, and have 

 credited it with a units of nerve force transmitted to the 

 muscles through the central reflex mechanism, and /3 units 

 consumed in effecting molecular rearrangement of nerve- 

 tissue; we still find no place for consciousness. We cannot 

 enter as ' ' concerned in the production of conscious ' ' 

 of the force received. And yet, although consciousness 

 cannot be identified with either matter or force, it is at least 

 as real as either. W r hen we think of the universe, these 

 three realities stand forth : matter, force, consciousness. 

 And as we know that matter is indestructible, it seems to 

 us impossible to escape the conclusion that consciousness 

 is indestructible also. We can no more conceive of it as 

 coming out of nothing or fading into nothingness than we 

 can conceive of matter or of force coming into existence 

 or ceasing to be. And as the portion of matter which con- 



