The Science of the Mind 549 



vours to develop this view as regards mental phenomena. We 

 cannot sum up the problem better than another writer who says : 



Supposing we were able to understand all the phenomena- 

 chemical, physical, physiological of this intricate mechan- 

 ism, we would be no nearer a solution of the problem of the 

 connection between the objective and subjective impacts of 

 the phenomena. ... A philosophy which recognises both 

 sets of phenomena mental and physical mutually ad- 

 justed and ever interacting, recognises the facts of the case, 

 and does not delude the mind by offering a solution which 

 is in reality no solution at all. The difficulty is somewhat 

 lessened if we assume that behind all physical and mental 

 phenomena there is a metaphysical essence, conscious or un- 

 conscious, and that the phenomena we term physical and 

 mental are only different sides of the same kind. Such an 

 essence can never be known to science, and the discussion of 

 the possibility of its existence and of its properties belongs 

 to the province of philosophy. 



8 



Mental Processes 



Psychology is the science of the mind, or more strictly, let 

 us say, it is the science of the behaviour of living things ; it includes 

 the study of consciousness. 



In the sense that the brain receives all those nervous impulses 

 that result in consciousness, it would be true to say that the brain 

 is the seat of consciousness. But that does not provide a solution 

 of the problem of the origin of consciousness. 



No one doubts that consciousness has a material substratum, 

 but the problem of the relation between the mental state and 

 the molecular movements on nervous matter is as far from 

 solution as in the days when little was known of the physio- 

 logy of the nervous system. The old-fashioned method was 

 to assign to the mind certain so-called faculties perception, 

 conception, imagination, reason, will to explain the opera- 

 tions which they denote. The mind has not its will here, its 



