228 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



yond ^phenomena such a mind has no real concern : 

 noumena may be left as a playground for those who like 

 to waste their energy in those arrangements of words 

 which are dignified by the devotees of theological and 

 metaphysical jigsaw puzzles with the high-sounding name 

 of the " Philosophy of the Absolute." So far as the 

 problems of space and time are concerned they may be 

 dealt with by mathematicians, and what is said of them by 

 philosophers, with no knowledge of science, can be safely 

 ignored. Yet, owing to early influences, even men highly 

 endowed with the scientific spirit are apt in their haste 

 to give away to the enemy positions which afterwards 

 have to be recaptured at great cost. This has certainly 

 been the case with " the mystery of consciousness." 

 The many hundreds of years partially wasted in the 

 verbal gymnastics of the schoolmen and their modern 

 congeners and descendants have naturally left their 

 mark. That they were not wholly a waste may be ad- 

 mitted, since reasoning accurately even on empty major 

 premisses is a great mental exercise ; but so far as the 

 conclusions drawn became more than mere logical divi- 

 dends their effect has been harmful. To free the mind 

 from early impressions is never wholly possible, and the 

 assumptions of the nursery may partially determine the 

 mental action of the wisest, just as ancient instincts in a 

 race produce effects of which the cause may be totally 

 unknown. As a result it not unfrequently happens that 

 consciousness is admitted to be an ultimate mystery, 

 although every reaction of the brain points clearly to 

 the fact that it is but a definite, though highly delicate, 

 response to the internal and external environment. 

 Huxley himself, being then, no doubt, under the influence 

 of theories of mental and physical parallelism, incautiously 



