CH. IV.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 443 



never be done. Free as we were, a moment ngo, to aclmit 

 the boundless possibilities of scientific inquiry in one direc- 

 tion, we may here at once mark the bounds beyond which, 

 in another direction, scientific inquiry cannot advance. 



For m the last resort it is subjective psychology which 

 must render the decisive verdict as to the possibility of 

 identifying feeling with motion ; and to obtain this decisive 

 verdict there is but one legitimate way. By a physical 

 analysis we must ascertain what is the primordial element 

 in motion, and by a psychological analysis we must ascertain 

 what is the primordial element in feeling ; it must then be 

 left for consciousness to decide whether these two primordial 

 elements are or are not in such wise like each other that the 

 one may be substituted for the other indifferently ; and from 

 this verdict there can, in the nature of the case, be no appeal. 

 Now it would be very rash to suppose that we have as yet 

 arrived at a knowledge of the primordial unit, either of 

 motion or of feeling : still we have made an approximation 

 sufficient for the purposes of the present argument. Our 

 analysis has progressed so far as to enable us to foresee the 

 verdict, and to rest assured that further analysis will reiterate 

 and not reverse it. In the chapter on the Composition of 

 Mind, we saw that " the physical action which accompanies 

 psychical changes is an undulatory displacement of molecules, 

 resulting in myriads of little waves or pulses of movement." 

 We saw also that, " as a cognizable state of consciousness is 

 attended by the transmission of a number of little waves 

 •rom one nerve-cell to another, so the ultimate psychical 

 elements of each conscious state must correspond to the 

 passage of these little waves taken one by one." And we 

 were " led to infer, as the ultimate unit of which Mind is 

 composed, a simple psychical shock, answering to that simple 

 ^physical ^pulsation which is the ultimate unit of nervous 

 action."* Here, then, are our approximately-primordia? 



* See above, p. 131, 



