118 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



lecular force. And unless the existence of law in these 

 matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, 

 we must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule 

 of the body to its environment, its position in the body 

 might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty is not 

 with the quality of the problem, but with its complexity • 

 and this difficulty might be met by the simple expansion 

 of the faculties which we now possess. Given this expan- 

 sion, with the necessary molecular data, and the chick 

 might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from the 

 egg as the existence of Neptune from the disturbances of 

 Uranus, or as conical refraction from the undulatory theory 

 of light. 



You see I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly 

 what many scientific thinkers more or less distinctly be- 

 lieve. The formation of a crystal, a plant, or an animal, is 

 in their eyes a purely mechanical problem, which differs 

 from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the smallness 

 of the masses and the complexity of the processes involved. 

 Here you have one half of our dual truth ; let us now glance 

 at the other half. Associated with this wonderful mechan- 

 ism of the animal body we have phenomena no less certain 

 than those of physics, but between which and the mechan- 

 ism we discern no necessary connection. A man, for ex- 

 ample, can say, I feel, I think, I love / but how does 

 consciotisness infuse itself into the problem ? The human 

 brain is said to be the organ of thought and feeling ; when 

 we are hurt the brain feels it, when we ponder it is the 

 brain that thinks, when our passions or affections are ex- 

 cited it is through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us 

 endeavor to be a little more precise here. I hardly imagine 

 there exists a profound scientific thinker, who has reflected 

 upon the subject, unwilling to admit the extreme proba- 

 bility of the hypothesis that, for every fact of consciousness, 

 whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or of emotion, 



