SCIENCE AND MAN. 355 



self, which acts through the body as through a skilfully 

 constructed instrument? You picture the muscles as 

 hearkening to the commands sent through the motor 

 nerves, and you picture the sensor nerves as the vehicles 

 of incoming intelligence; are you not bound to supple- 

 ment this mechanism by the assumption of an entity 

 which uses it? In other words, are you not forced by 

 your own exposition into the hypothesis of a free human 

 soul? 



This is fair reasoning now, and at a certain stage of 

 the world's knowledge, it might well have been deemed 

 conclusive. Adequate reflection, however, shows that 

 instead of introducing light into our minds, this hypo- 

 thesis considered scientifically increases our darkness. 

 You do not in this case explain the unknown in terms 

 of the known, which, as stated above, is the method of 

 science, but you explain the unknown in terms of the 

 more unknown. Try to mentally visualise this soul as 

 an entity distinct from the body, and the difficulty im- 

 mediately appears. From the side of science all that 

 we are warranted in stating is that the terror, hope, 

 sensation, and calculation of Lange's merchant, are 

 psychical phenomena produced by, or associated with, 

 the molecular processes set up by waves of light in a 

 previously prepared brain. 



When facts present themselves let us dare to face 

 them, but let the man of science equally dare to con- 

 fess ignorance where it prevails. What then is the 

 causal connection, if any, between the objective and 

 subjective between molecular motions and states of 

 consciousness? My answer is: I do not see the con- 

 nection, nor have I as yet met anybody who does. It 

 is no explanation to say that the objective and sub- 

 jective effects are two sides of one and the same phe- 

 nomenon. Why should the phenomenon have two 



