SCIENCE AND MAN. 355 



man. Who on what is it that sends and receives those 

 messages through the bodily organism ? Do not the 

 phenomena point to the existence of a self within the 

 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 imme- 

 diately 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 phe- 

 nomena 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. 



