260 METAPHYSICS 



of which the idealist would be right in denying. In Biology we have abandoned 

 obscurantist methods, and no longer attribute the distinctive vital functions of 

 growth and reproduction to a vital force or vital substance, but solely to the 

 peculiar configuration of the material elements of a cell. Why may we not in 

 psychology with equal propriety attribute the distinctively psychical functions 

 of subjectivity or consciousness, not to the action of a hyper-psychical soul-sub- 

 stance, nor to the presence of a transcendental ego, but simply to that peculiar 

 configuration of sensorv elements which constitutes a what we call psychosis? " 



