The Mini. 993 



immaterial body, since such body has no material molecules, nor can it 

 be that it is transferred back again as heat from the immaterial to the 

 material body, for that implies impact and resistance, which can occur 

 only between material bodies. 



Furthermore we have found that these sensations are links in a chain 

 of causation, and that they are not merely stub tracks that run out into 

 the wilderness of myste^ and stop there, having in this process, in 

 some unaccountable manner, in defiance of the laws of physics, made 

 away with and totally annihilated a quantity of energy. On the con- 

 trary these sensations act like other forms of physical energy, and on 

 disappearing ( often ) transfer the energy that constituted them to other 

 movements in the construction of a will, leading on to motor impulses 

 and muscle contraction. So that if it is supposed to be the motion of 

 an immaterial substance that constitutes mind, we incur the impossible 

 task of accounting for its physical impact upon the tissues that set up 

 the efferent current. 



It is probably true, as Prof. Huxley says, ' < that if we possessed no 

 sensations but those of smell and hearing, we should be unable to con- 

 ceive a material substance." But we would certainly be no better able 

 to conceive an immaterial one, than we are now. Sounds and odors do 

 not emanate from immaterial substances. All we can say is that those 

 two senses alone cannot give sensations from which adequate ideas of 

 anything can be formed. It is true, that with these two senses alone, 

 ' ' our whole knowledge would be limited to that of a shifting succession 

 of immaterial phenomena." But that is what our knowledge is limited 

 to anyhow, with all our senses in full blast. If lay "immaterial 

 phenomena " is to be understood the phenomena of immaterial things, 

 then I maintain that if the senses of smell and hearing, taken alone, 

 tend to give us an idea of immaterial things, they are simply deceiving 

 us, because odor and sound do not emanate from immaterial things, are 

 not reflected from such things, do not represent such things, and have 

 no connection with them in any manner or form. But it is purely an 

 assumption that these senses, acting alone, would produce such an idea, 

 and I deny it. An animal, having only these senses, would have no ab- 

 stract ideas at all, and very few concrete ones. If he got an idea that 

 there was any thing from which the sound or smell emanated, it would 

 be to him simply a thing, no question of materiality or immateriality 

 could possibly arise. Furthermore, I deny that an immaterial sub- 

 stance is at all conceivable. All conceptions are made up, ultimately, 

 from sensations, and every sensation is the result of the reflection of 

 energy from material bodies. It is not necessary to repeat the argu- 

 ments given elsewhere in proof of this. Every work of reason or im- 

 agination, every poem, every dream, every "sum" in mental arithmetic, 



