Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 121 



of directly affecting the motion of even the small- 

 est conceivable molecule of matter ? Is such a 

 thing even conceivable? If we answer these 

 questions in the negative, it follows that volition 

 may be a sign, but cannot be a cause, of bodily 

 motion. If we answer them in the affirmative, then 

 states of consciousness become undistinguishable 

 from material things ; for it is the essential nature 

 of matter to be the vehicle or substratum of 

 mechanical energy. 



There is nothing new in all this. I have 

 merely put into modern language the issue 

 raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago. 

 The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, 

 of Malebranche, of modern idealism and modern 

 materialism, have all grown out of the contro- 

 versies which Cartesianisrn evoked. Of all this 

 the pseudo-science of the present time appears to 

 be unconscious ; otherwise it would hardly content 

 itself with " making het again " the pseudo- science 

 of the past. 



In the course of these observations I have 

 already had occasion to express my appreciation 

 of the copious and perfervid eloquence which 

 enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am 

 almost ashamed that a constitutional insensibility 

 to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has permitted 

 me in wandering through these flowery meads, to 

 be attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare 

 places of fallacy and the stony grounds of deficient 



