REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 249 



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. ' ' * 



Compare this with the answer which Mr. Martineau puts 

 into the mouth of his physicist, and with which I am gen- 

 erally credited by Mr. Martineau's readers, both in Eng- 

 land and America: u 'It [the problem of consciousness] 

 does not daunt me at all. Of course you understand that 

 all along my atoms have been affected by gravitation and 

 polarity; and now I have only to insist with Fechner on 

 a difference among molecules: there are the inorganic, 

 which can change only their place, like the particles in an 

 undulation; and there are the organic, which can change 

 their order, as in a globule that turns itself inside out. 

 With an adequate number of these our problem will be 

 manageable.' 'Likely enough,' we may say ['entirely un- 

 likely/ say I], 'seeing how careful you are to provide for 

 all emergencies; and if any hitch should occur in the next 

 step, where you will have to pass from mere sentiency to 

 thought and will, you can again look in upon your atoms, 

 and fling among them a handful of Leibnitz's monads, 

 to serve as souls in little, and be ready, in a latent form, 

 with that Vorstellungs-fahigkeit which our picturesque 

 interpreters of nature so much prize.' ' 



"But surely," continues Mr. Martineau, "you must 

 observe that this 'matter' of yours alters its style with 



1 Bishop Butler's reply to the Lucretian in the "Belfast Address" is all in 

 the same strain. 



