SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 87 



the problem. But the passage from the physics of the 

 brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is 

 inconceivable as a result of mechanics. Granted that 

 a definite thought, and a definite molecular action in 

 the brain, occur simultaneously; we do not possess 

 the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of 

 the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process 

 of reasoning, from the one to the other. They appear 

 together, but we do not know why. Were our minds 

 and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, 

 as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the 

 brain; were we capable of following all their motions, 

 all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such 

 there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the 

 corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should 

 be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 

 ' How are these physical processes connected with the 

 facts of consciousness?* The chasm between the two 

 classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually 

 impassable. Let the consciousness of love, for ex- 

 ample, be associated with a right-handed spiral motion 

 of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of 

 hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should 

 then know, when we love, that the motion is in one 

 direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is in 

 the other; but the 'WHY?' would remain as unan- 

 swerable as before. 



In affirming that the growth of the body is me- 

 chanical, and that thought, as exercised by us, has 

 its correlative in the physics of the brain, I think the 

 position of the ' Materialist ' is stated, as far as that 

 position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will 

 be able finally to maintain this position against all 

 attacks; but I do not think, in the present condition 

 of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this posi- 



