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LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS.* 

 By Prof. Henri Bergs on. 



Generally speaking, when a lecture is dedi- 

 cated, as this is, to a thinker or scientist whose 

 name it bears, the lecturer has to make an effort, 

 at times an effort of some difficulty, to maintain 

 himself, by the choice of his subject, in the sphere 

 of interests of this thinker or scientist. But, for 

 a lecture associated with the great name of 

 Huxley, no such effort is necessary. Rather, in- 

 deed, we may ask what scientific question, what 

 philosophic problem, is there which did not 

 interest that luminous intellect one of the 

 broadest and most comprehensive that nine- 

 teenth-century England produced, fertile in great 

 intellects as it was? 



It has seemed to me, however, that the ques- 

 tion of consciousness in general of its relations 

 with nature and life corresponds fairly well with 

 one of the main lines of Huxley's thought, with 

 one of his chief pre-occupations. And as I per- 

 sonally know none more important nor more 

 crucial in the whole range of philosophy, that is 

 the subject I have chosen. 



* The " Huxley Lecture," delivered at the University of 

 Birmingham, May 29, 1911, with some additions. 



