Mind is subject to ordinary laws. 95 



shew this however in a more satisfactory manner 

 would require a large treatise to be written upon the 

 subject. 



The human brain and mind are evidently subject 

 to the ordinary laws of matter and energy. Recep- 

 tivity and retentiveness of impression is not only a 



S property of brain, but of all solid matter without ex- 

 ception. Moser's pictures, and Chinese mirrors, the 



/ impressions on each being reproducible by warm 

 breath, are examples of this. And as these two pro- 

 perties are fundamental elements of mind, they must 

 be present in and essential to, every mental action. 

 . All phenomena require time and all matter occupies 

 space ; thought and brain are no exception to this. 

 Whilst all persons say " I must have time to think," 

 many believe that thought is instantaneous. Time is 

 a necessary condition of all thought, and therefore of 

 all comparison, inference, imagination, and mental 

 analysis ; it takes time even to form an idea, or draw 

 an inference from it, and the two cannot be formed 

 simultaneously. Professor Bonders, of Utrecht, has 

 invented what he terms a Noematachograph for 

 registering the amount of time occupied in mental 

 processes , and by the aid of that instrument has 

 ascertained that the time required by a man of 

 / middle age to perform a single act of simple thought 

 is about one twenty-fifth part of a second. It has 

 also been ascertained that the time required is longer 

 in some persons than in others ; and longer if the 



