MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ally achieved. Let us suppose physical inquiry 

 to have reached its uttermost conceivable limit, 

 having reduced the whole problem of motion, 

 in all its myriad manifestations, in both inor- 

 ganic and organic nature, to a purely algebraic 

 problem, for the solution of which the requisite 

 algebraic devices are at hand ; and let us con- 

 sider what we have thus achieved. Have we 

 made the first step toward the resolution of 

 psychical phenomena into modes of motion ? 

 Obviously we have not. The closed circuit of 

 motion, motion, motion, remains just what it 

 was before. No conceivable advance in physi- 

 cal discovery can get us out of this closed cir- 

 cuit, and into this circuit psychical phenomena 

 do not enter. Psychical phenomena stand out- 

 side this Qircmty parallel with that brief segment 

 of it which is made up of molecular motions in 

 nerve tissue. However strict the parallelism 

 may be, within the limits of our experience, be- 

 tween the phenomena of mind and this segment 

 of the circuit of motions, the task of transcend- 

 ing or abolishing the radical antithesis between 

 the phenomena of mind and the phenomena of 

 motions of matter must always remain an im- 

 practicable task. For in order to transcend or 

 abolish this radical antithesis, we must be pre- 

 pared to show how a given quantity of molecu- 

 lar motion in nerve tissue can become trans- 

 formed into a definable amount of ideation or 

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