A FINAL WORD 283 



passes through certain motions simultaneously, with 

 every psychical phenomenon. This phenomenon is so 

 closely connected with the motion of the nerve tissue, 

 as not to be distinguished, as a separate existence. 

 The complexity of the matter is perfectly parallel, with 

 the complexity of the phenomenon. The effect of the 

 molecular motion or the releasing of potential energy, 

 of the living nerve tissue, is the mentality, and with- 

 out this motion it is not apparent to the senses. In 

 fact, we do not perceive anything in the operation, 

 except some material facts, i.e., the movements, of the 

 material body in thinking, in articulating, or writing 

 words, or in muscular motion. The whole perceptible 

 operation of reasoning is the production of images, 

 and the fusing of them in the brain cortex. These 

 images are produced by objective things, the sensations 

 of which are carried by molecular motion, or a move- 

 ment of nerve elements, similar thereto, to the brain. 



So, it is of the utmost importance, that the phenomen- 

 ism of consciousness, be largely considered in its rela- 

 tion to its substrate of neural structure, and in its con- 

 formity to the natural laws of evolution. For, if it 

 is a function of neural structure, and, in its more com- 

 plex and obscure form, is never manifested, except in 

 connection with a like complex and obscure physical 

 structure, well known to brain anatomists, as the cere- 

 brum, then it must be deemed as much a product of 

 natural evolution as the cerebrum is. Here science 

 finds, as in the physical realm, only phenomena, and 

 postulates only a reign of natural law. Not only the 

 normal workings of the psychical life, but the abnormal 

 phenomena, such as illusions, hallucinations, hypnotic 

 states, somnambulism, etc., are shown, by the experi- 

 ments of the psychologists, to be explainable by natural 



