Tin-: u /; r. ./. i .v>;.s ./. i /; TINKA u. 510 



physicist: "'Good/ he says; -take as many atoms as 



you please. s -'c that they have all that is requisite to body 

 [a metaphysical lij. being homogeneous extended solids.' 

 * That ls not enough/ his physicist replies: 'it might do 

 for Democritus and the mathematicians, but 1 must have 



hing more. The atoms mu.-t not only he in motion, 

 and of various shapes, but also of as many kinds as theiv 

 ant chemical elements; for how could I ever get water if 1 

 had only hydrogen elements t<. work with?' * So be it.' 

 Mr. Martineau consents to answer, 'only this is a con- 

 siderable enlargement of your specified datum [where, and 

 by whom specified I' ]-- in fact, a conversion of it into 

 se\eral; yet, e\en at the cst .f its monism [put into it by 

 Mi. Martineau]. your scheme seems hardly to gain it 

 for by what manipulation of your resources will you, for 

 example, educe ( onsciousn* 



This reads like pleasantry, but it deals with serious 

 things. F>r the last seven years the question here pro- 

 posed by Mr. Martineau, and my answer to it, have been 

 accessible to all. The question, in my words, is briefly 

 this: " A man can say, ' I feel, I think, I love/ but how 

 does consciousness infuse itself into the problem?" And 

 here is my answer: The passage from the physics of the 

 brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthink- 

 able, (iranted that a definite thought and a definite molec- 

 ular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not, 

 possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudi- 

 ment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a 



-s of reasoning, from the one to the other. They 

 appear together, but we do not know why. Were our 

 minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illumi- 

 nated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of 

 the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, 

 all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such 

 there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the cor- 



:nling states of thought and feeling, we should boas 

 far as ev -r from the solution of the problem, " How arc 



physical processes connected with the facts of con- 

 :MICSS?" The chasm between the two chlSSi 



would still remain intellectually impassable."* 



utii-r'-> rrpl\ t<>tli- l.unvtiun io the "Belfast Addreau " ia 

 all in ' train. 



