168 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



balls? I am not all bereft of this Vorstellungs-Kraft 

 of which you speak, nor am I, like so many of my 

 brethren, a mere vacuum as regards scientific knowl- 

 edge. I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches 

 the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound 

 until their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, 

 and set the otoliths and Corti's fibres in motion; I can 

 also visualise the waves of ether as they cross the eye 

 and hit the retina. Nay more, I am able to pursue 

 to the central organ the motion thus imparted at the 

 periphery, and to see in idea the very molecules of the 

 brain thrown into tremors. My insight is not baffled 

 by these physical processes. What baffles and bewil- 

 ders me is the notion that from those physical tremors 

 things so utterly incongruous with them as sensation, 

 thought, and emotion can be derived. You may say, 

 or think, that this tissue of consciousness from the 

 clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the flash 

 of light from the union of oxygen and hydrogen. But 

 I beg to say that it is. For such incongruity as the 

 flash possesses is that which I now force upon your 

 attention. The ' flash ' is an affair of consciousness, 

 the objective counterpart of which is vibration. It is 

 a flash only by your interpretation. You are the cause 

 of the apparent incongruity; and you are the thing 

 that puzzles me. I need not remind you that the great 

 Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel; and that to 

 get rid of this monstrous deduction of life from death 

 he displaced your atoms by his monads, which were 

 more or less perfect mirrors of the universe, and out of 

 the summation and integration of which he supposed 

 all the phenomena of life sentient, intellectual, and 

 emotional to arise. 



' Your difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to 

 admit, is quite as great as mine. You cannot satisfy 



