164 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



parts may be removed without prejudice to the per- 

 ceiving 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 removed, and 

 let a rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of 

 pressure be applied to the soft substance. At every 

 pressure "the faculties of perception and of action" 

 vanish ; at every relaxation of pressure they are restored. 

 Where, during the intervals of pressure, is the per- 

 ceiving power? I once had the discharge of a large 

 Ley den battery passed unexpectedly through me : I felt 

 nothing, but was simply blotted out of conscious ex- 

 istence for a sensible interval. Where was my true self 

 during that interval? Men who have recovered from 

 lightning- stroke have been much longer in the same 

 state ; and indeed in cases of ordinary concussion of 

 the brain, days may elapse during which no experience 

 is registered in consciousness. Where is the man 

 himself during the period of insensibility ? You may 

 say that I beg the question when I assume the man to 

 have been unconscious, that he was really conscious all 

 the time, and has simply forgotten what had occurred 

 to him. In reply to this, I can only say that no one 

 need shrink from the worst tortures that superstition 

 ever invented, if only so felt and so remembered. I do 

 not think your theory of instruments goes at all to the 

 bottom of the matter. A telegraph-operator has his 

 instruments, by means of which he converses with the 

 world ; our bodies possess a nervous system, which plays 

 a similar part between the perceiving power and external 

 things. Cut the wires of the operator, break his battery, 



