174 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



impressions from, or making use of for the common occa- 

 sions of life." This is the key of the Bishop's position: 

 *'our organized bodies are no more a part of ourselves 

 than any other matter around us." In proof of this he 

 calls attention to the use of glasses, which "prepare ob- 

 jects" for the "percipient power" exactly as the eye does. 

 The eye itself is no more percipient than the glass; is 

 quite as much the instrument of the true self, and also 

 as foreign to the true self, as the glass is. "And if we see 

 with our eyes only in the same manner as we do with 

 glasses, the like may justly be concluded from analogy 

 of all our senses." 



Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a precisely oppo- 

 site conclusion: and it certainly would be interesting, if 

 not profitable, to us all, to hear what he would or could 

 urge in opposition to the reasoning of the Bishop. As a 

 brief discussion of the point will enable us to see the bear- 

 ings of an important question, I will here permit a dis- 

 ciple of Lucretius to try the strength of the Bishop's posi- 

 tion, and then allow the Bishop to retaliate, with the view 

 of rolling back, if he can, the difficulty upon Lucretius. 

 The argument might proceed in this fashion: 

 "Subjected to the test of mental presentation {Yorstel- 

 lung), your views, most honored prelate, would offer to 

 many minds a great, if not an insuperable, difficulty. You 

 speak of 'living powers,' 'percipient or perceiving powers,' 

 and 'ourselves'; but can you form a mental picture of any 

 of these, apart from the organism through which it is sup- 

 posed to act? Test yourself honestly, and see whether you 

 possess any faculty that would enable you to form such 

 a conception. The true self has a local habitation in each 

 of us; thus localized, must it not possess a form? If so, 



