248 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



[a metaphysical B], being homogeneous extended solids.' 

 'That is not enough,' his physicist replies; 'it might do 

 for Democritus and the mathematicians, but I must have 

 something more. The atoms must not only be in motion, 

 and of various shapes, but also of as many kinds as there 

 are chemical elements; for how could I ever get water if 

 I had only hydrogen elements to work with?' 'So be it,' 

 Mr. Martineau consents to answer, 'only this is a consid- 

 erable enlargement of your specified datum [where, and 

 by whom specified?] in fact, a conversion of it into sev- 

 eral; yet, even at the cost of its monism [put into it by 

 Mr. Martineau], your scheme seems hardly to gain its 

 end; for by what manipulation of your resources will 

 you, for example, educe Consciousness?' ' 



This reads like pleasantry, but it deals with serious 

 things. For the last seven years the question here pro- 

 posed by Mr. Martineau, and my answer to it, have been 

 accessible to all. The question, in my words, is briefly 

 this: "A man can say, 'I feel, I think, I love,' but how 

 does consciousness infuse itself into the problem?" And 

 here is my answer: "The passage from the physics of the 

 brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is un- 

 thinkable. 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 mole- 

 cules of the brain; were we capable of following all their 

 motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, 



