EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



either in the gray matter of ganglia or in the 

 white matter of nerve-fibres. Whatever goes in 

 any way into the organism as physical force must 

 come out again as physical force, and every phase 

 of every transformation that it may undergo in 

 the mean time must be rigorously accounted for 

 in terms of physical force, or else the law of the 

 conservation of energy will not be satisfied. To 

 introduce consciousness or feeling anywhere in 

 the series, as either caused by or causing actions 

 in the brain or nerves, is " not to state what is 

 untrue, but is to talk nonsense," as Clifford 

 would say. These considerations which must 

 forever shut out sciolists like Biichner from in- 

 truding with their self-satisfied explanations into 

 the great primordial mystery of Nature, the re- 

 lationship of body and soul would seem to 

 have been clearly appreciated by Clifford ; and 

 he states the point in his psychological language 

 with elegant succinctness. "The word Cause, 

 TroXXa^o)? \cy6jjLevov and misleading as it is, 

 having no legitimate place in science or phi- 

 losophy [Chauncey Wright would have said a 

 hearty Amen to that ! ] , may yet be of some use in 

 conversation or literature, if it is kept to denote 

 a relation between objective facts, to describe cer- 

 tain parts of the phenomenal order. But only 

 confusion can arise, if it is used to express the 

 relation between certain objective facts in my 

 consciousness and the ejective facts which are 

 34 



