Scientific Sophisms. 1 69 



sensation. 1 And Professor Huxley asks, " Is 

 our knowledge of anything we know or feel 

 more or less than a knowledge of states of 

 consciousness ? " " And," he adds, " our whole 

 life is made up of such states." 3 And again, 

 in the same connection, he tells us of that 

 " highest degree of certainty which is given by 

 immediate consciousness." 



But what then is this consciousness ? and 

 whence ? Professor Huxley's language on the 

 subject is particularly confident, although at 

 present it is merely prophetic. " I hold," he 

 says, "with the materialist, that the human body, 

 like all living bodies, is a machine, all the opera- 

 tions of which will sooner or later be ex- 

 plained upon physical principles." And again : 

 " I believe that we shall arrive at a mechanical 

 equivalent of consciousness, just as we have 

 arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat." 8 

 But the vaticinatory character of these opinions 

 is their least remarkable feature. Professor 

 Huxley " holds " that all living things are 

 machines, and " believes " that " thought is as 

 much a function of matter as motion is ;" 

 but, as Dr. Beale observes, "of evidence in 



1 Mill upon Hamilton, p. 212. 



t " J,ay Sermons : " Descartes, p. 359. 



' Macmillaiis Magazine, vol. xxii. p. 78. 



