THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 465 



conclusion: and it certainly would be interesting, if not 

 profitable, to us all, to hear what he would or could urge 

 in opposition to the reasoning of the bishop. As a brief 

 discussion of the point will enable us to see the bearings 

 of an important question, I will here permit a disciple of 

 Lucretius to try the strength of the bishop's position, and 

 then allow the bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling 

 back, if he can, the difficulty upon Lucretius. 

 The argument might proceed in this fashion: 

 " Subjected to the test of mental presentation ( Vorstel- 

 lung), your views,, most honored prelate, would offer to 

 many minds a great, if not an insuperable difficulty. You 

 speak of 'living powers/ 'percipient or perceiving- 

 powers/ and 'ourselves; 5 but can you form a mental 

 picture of any of these, apart from the organism through 

 which it is supposed to act? Test yourself honestly, and 

 see whether you possess any faculty that would enable you 

 to form such a conception. The true self has a local habi- 

 tation in each of us; thus localized, must it not possess a 

 form? If so, what form? Have you ever for a moment 

 realized it? When a leg is amputated the body is divided 

 into two parts; is the true self in both of them or in one? 

 Thomas Aquinas might say in both; but not you, for you 

 appeal to the consciousness associated with one of the two 

 parts, to prove that the other is foreign matter. Is con- 

 sciousness, then, a necessary element of the true self? If 

 so, what do you say to the case of the whole body being 

 deprived of consciousness? If not, then on what grounds 

 do you deny any portion of the true self to the severed 

 limb? It seems very singular that, from the beginning to 

 the end of your admirable book (and no one admires its 

 sober strength more than I do), you never once mention 

 the brain or nervous system. You begin at one end of the 

 body, and show that its parts may be removed without 

 prejudice to the perceiving power. What if you begin at 

 the other end, and remove, instead of the leg, the brain? 

 The body, as before, is divided into two parts; but both 

 are now in the same predicament, and neither can be 

 appealed to to prove that the other is foreign matter. Or, 

 instead of going so far as to remove the brain itself, let a 

 certain portion of its bony covering be remove 1, and let a 

 rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of pressure be 

 applied to the soft substance. At every pressure 



