996 Dynamic Theory. 



gives us the sensation we call red, is so short that it takes about 37,000 

 of them to make an inch. This we can conceive of because if fine 

 steel were ruled as closety as that we could see the spaces by means of 

 a powerful microscope. But in order to give us the sensation of red it 

 must move, for when it is at rest it gives no sensation, that is, it is 

 black. There are 11,784,960,000 inches in 186,000 miles. This num- 

 ber multiplied by the wave length of red, gives 435 trillions, (or 435 

 millions of millions) as the number of undulations caused to take place 

 in this substance one after another, but all within one second of time, 

 by the energy of the molecular motion of some incandescent body. It 

 is eas} r to say 435 trillions, but we can not conceive of that number of 

 units within that time, nor within a lifetime. Our sensation of an im- 

 pact at this rapidit}^upon the retina is red, and conveys no idea of a 

 number of units. Neither sensation nor conception, except of the 

 most vague and inadequate sort, can be affected by such an agent, ex- 

 cept in the mass. The ra}^ of the extreme violet which is at the other 

 limit of our color octave, is produced by 871 trillions of vibrations per 

 second, or double those of the red ray. Here the susceptibilities of the 

 materials of our sight organ fails. The rays above the violet produce 

 no sensation in us, and conception of them totally fails. We know 

 that such ra} r s are there, and we learn through their action that delicate 

 as the molecular balance of our retina seems to be, there are chemical 

 adjustments in unorganized matter of a far more delicate nature, since 

 they can be disturbed by these ultra violet ra}^s which cannot affect our 

 sense organ. (See page 398.) For anything we know, the reactions 

 set up by the ultra violet rays in chemical compounds are of a more 

 subtile and delicate nature than those we call sensation. Certain it is 

 we do not need to climb outside of the domain of plrysics to find ma- 

 terial substance of an inconceivably refined constitution; and phenom- 

 ena strictty immaterial. 



I now quote again from the lecture on automatism : " I am utterly 

 incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in 

 which to picture that existence. " Since there is no contingency about 

 the fact that we do have a conception of the existence of matter, I 

 suppose the above declaration is equivalent to saying that this concep- 

 tion could only have an existence in connection with mind, and so is 

 proof of mind. The idea seems to be that the conception is a picture, 

 and the mind is the object or substance upon which it is drawn. As I 

 have defined mind, conception is mind, but as considered in the quota- 

 tion, conception becomes an act of the mind, for certainly the word 

 "picture " is not intended to imply a permanent impression or imprint 

 upon a mind substance like a photograph. If conception is understood 

 to be an act of the mind, it is motion of the mind, and since the con- 



