366 The F/ii/nsnj,/ii/ of Kroliitlon. 



as to see the brains of otluT men think. I should like to have him 

 cxi>lain liow this can he (h)ne. To nic, as to Sponcer, Huxley, and 

 other ovolutionists, the i)assa<ie from the physics of the brain to 

 the plu-nomeua of thou<iht is somethins inconceivable. 



^[i;. Nichols: — 



Dr. Janes'.s jjosition seems to be fruitless and unsatisfactory, 

 because he never gets to anything ultimate. He must go on and 

 on, always questioning and never getting an answer, instead of 

 being satisfied to begin somewhere. It is useless to start on such 

 a quest. We can know notliing of the ultimate nature of conscious- 

 ness. [Dh. Jaxks: It seems that you are at last getting to the 

 Unknowable yourself.] Mr. Nichols : Your Unknowable. What 

 I meant to say was that consciousness is truly known just as other 

 thino-s are, when its internal feeling is criticised and corrected by 

 external observation and generalized upon both. Then it seems 

 to appear that thought as observed in others than ourselves is 

 simply a motion of the brain, as digestion is a motion of the 

 stomach. Tlic Spencerians (and Dr. Eccles will pardon my saying 

 it) are in a hopeless state of confusion over the Unknowable, and 

 their philosophy of knowledge is built on an assumption of igno- 

 ranee. The position that there is such a thing as mind independ- 

 ent of brain is an unverifiable one. Dr. Eccles said that one 

 ought to be a physician to thoroughly grasp the truth of Evolution 

 — and come out where he does. Well, there is Dr. Maudsley; he 

 has some reputation as a doctor, and he is a materialist. What I 

 meant in regard to evolution in other worlds, was that the method 

 of evolution is the same throughout the universe, though the ma- 

 terials and special forms may be different. If we are willing to ac- 

 cept the ultimates as they present themselves to us, we need not 

 chase the infimte. Those ultimates we know if we can know any- 

 thing, but if we do not know them then we can know nothing and 

 there is no use in thinking. When we step beyond those ultimates 

 we land in "chaos and old night," where is nothing but dreams 

 and an aimless metaphysical whirl. 



