FltAUMtiNTS OF SCIENCE. 







" freely " translates, and quotes against me. The act is 

 due to misapprehension. Evidence is at hand to prove 

 that I employed similar language twenty years ago. It is 

 to be found in the Saturday Review for 1860; but a 

 sufficient illustration of the agreement between my friend 

 Du Bois-Reymoud and myself is furnished by the discourse 

 on " Scientific Materialism," delivered in 1868, then 

 widely circulated, and reprinted here. The reader who 

 compares the two discourses will see that the same line of 

 thought is pursued in both, and that perfect agreement 

 reigns between my friend and me. In the very address he 

 criticises, Mr. Martiueau might have seen that precisely 

 the same position is maintained. A quotation will prove 

 this: "Thus far," I say, "our way is clear, but now 

 comes my difficulty. Your atoms are individually without 

 sensation, much more are they without intelligence. May 

 I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this problem? 

 Take your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, 

 your dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms, your 

 dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as 

 grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. Imagine 

 them separate and sensationless; observe them running 

 together and forming all imaginable combinations. This, 

 as a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. 

 But can you see, or dream, or in any way imagine, how 

 oiU of that mechanical act, and from these individually 

 dead atoms, sensation, thought, and emotion are to rise? 

 Are you likely to extract Homer out of the rattling of dice, 

 or the Differential Calculus out of the clash of billiard 

 balls? ... I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches 

 the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound until 

 their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the 

 otoliths and Corti's fibers in motion; I can also visualize 

 the waves of ether as they cross the eye and hit the retina. 

 Nay, more, I am able to pursue to the central organ the 

 motion thus imparted at the periphery, and to see in idea 

 the very molecules of the brain thrown into tremors. My 

 insight is not baffled by these physical processes. What 

 baffles and bewilders me is the notion that from these phys- 

 ical tremors things so utterly incongruous with them as 

 sensation, thought, and emotion can be derived." It is 

 only a complete misapprehension of our true relationship 

 that could induce Mr. Martineau to represent Du Bois- 

 Reymond and myself as opposed to each other. 



