THE PROBLEM OF BODY AND MIND 245 



the day. The question is whether, with this regulative 

 principle in view, we can think of mind acting on body or 

 of body acting on mind ? 



Various answers have been given, and we shall take the 

 worst first. (1) It has been suggested that some physical 

 energy may rise into mental energy and some mental energy 

 may sink into physical energy. But mental energy is a 

 mere metaphor. On this theory it is supposed that, if the 

 physical energy is locally augmented by the influence of 

 mind, e.g., of a strong will, a corresponding amount of phys- 

 ical energy in another part of the system disappears, say 

 in engendering a feeling of self-approbation. When the 

 resources of the change-office till are augmented by a remark- 

 able operation in receiving cash they are automatically re- 

 duced to a corresponding amount by a remarkable operation 

 in disbursing the same. This seems more like art than 

 science and the preservation of the balance savours of the 

 miraculous. 



(2) We have already referred to Professor Poynting's sug- 

 gestion that the will may act as a guiding power changing 

 the direction of motion of the atoms and molecules of the 

 brain, and that the amount of energy will not be changed, 

 since a deflecting force does no work. ^^ But the interposi- 

 tion of the guiding power does affect the transformation of 

 energy; instead of the clash which the physicist would fore- 

 tell there would be a new configuration as the molecules 

 glided past each other in their new directions." This is an 

 interesting position, but the difficulty of thinking of mind 

 shunting material particles is surely hardly less than the dif- 

 ficulty of materialism that brain-motion causes consciousness. 

 It is almost certain that this attempt to square animism 

 and the doctrine of the conservation of energy is on quite 



