150 THE SCOPE OF MIND. 



of origin of Feeling. Motions, whether molecular 01 other, 

 we know only by their effects upon us, that is, in terms of 

 Feeling. Who, therefore, is to declare that there can be 

 no kinship between that which is the cause of Feeling 

 and the molecular movements of certain nerve tissues, 

 when, as to the cause of Feeling, knowledge other than 

 that which comes from inference, is, from the very nature 

 of the problem, for us impossible, and when we con- 

 fessedly know nothing concerning molecular movements 

 other than what we can learn through Feeling. 



There seems, therefore, no real room or occasion, from 

 a scientific point of view, for the protests which some 

 will assuredly make against this necessary grouping of (a) 

 the conscious states and certain parent nerve actions, with 

 (b) other mere unconscious nerve actions, which are con- 

 tributory to, rather than directly associated with, conscious 

 states as the constituent phenomena Mind in its new 

 and altogether broader acceptation. That the two classes 

 of nerve actions referred to are in reality separated by no 

 arbitrary line, and that the more simple (6) are connected 

 by innumerable gradations with the more complex (a) is 

 an assumption favoured by all who believe in the philo : 

 sophy of Evolution.* Such persons will, therefore, more 

 easily see that ' mental phenomena,' as above defined, 

 correspond to a coherent rather than, as of old, to an 

 incoherent and non-consecutive assemblage of processes. 



Some such change is inevitable, and we of the present 

 generation must bear the discomfort and inconvenience 

 naturally arising from an altered meaning of the term 

 Mind, in order that those who follow may reap the benefit 

 which will after a time result from the rectification. 

 Knowledge is progressive, and, if old terms are to be 



* See Prof. Nageli's Address at Munich on " The Limits of 

 Natural Knowledge," as translated in "Nature," Oct. 25, 1877, p. 561. 



