NA TURE OF WILL. 1 5 7 



tides of the matter which were directed and changed by it 



may be directed and changed in new ways ; but it is absurd 



to think we can discover the directing, changing ego in the 



dead and disintegrated matter which remains after it has 



gone, and equally absurd to deny its existence because we 



cannot find it, or to affirm that it is mere force which has 



changed its mode or form. Certainly the dead matter we 



see and touch may in some sense be regarded as having 



once formed a part of the material framework of the living 



being, but it was then in a very different state, for that 



which gave it body and made it what it was has since gone. 



To assert that the material elements of the grey matter of 



the brain of a dead man are all that constituted the active 



living organ of the mind, would, indeed be strange. It is 



that which has escaped that alone acted through the living 



matter upon the mechanism which is subordinated to it. 



But the mechanism may work although in a different way 



if affected by other influences. A chance breath of air 



may throw the strings of the lyre into vibration and longing 



listeners may even think they hear the measured strains 



they know so well, but it is soon discovered how different 



are the accidental unmeaning notes from the harmonious 



cadences in which the successive undulations of the mind 



were wont to be expressed. Again, the instrument may 



be deranged, in which case not a conception of the most 



vivid imagination can make itself known. The learned 



declare that an instrument is hopelessly out of order, and 



consider that that is all that need be thought or said about 



the matter. 



If my conclusions tend towards the truth, it almost 

 follows that before we can be in a position to form an 



