MATTER AND SPIRIT 



accompanies psychical changes is an undulatory 

 displacement of molecules, resulting in myriads 

 of little waves or pulses of movement." We 

 saw also that, " as a cognizable state of con- 

 sciousness is attended by the transmission of a 

 number of little waves from one nerve cell to 

 another, so the ultimate psychical elements of 

 each conscious state must correspond to the 

 passage of these little waves taken one by one." 

 And we were " led to infer, as the ultimate unit 

 of which Mind is composed, a simple />jryr^/V^/ 

 shocks answering to that simple physical pul- 

 sation which is the ultimate unit of nervous 

 action." ^ Here, then, are our approximately 

 primordial elements ; on the one hand a psy- 

 chical shock as the basis of all consciousness, 

 on the other hand a physical pulsation as the 

 basis of all that molecular motion of which 

 nervous action is a species. It is now for con- 

 sciousness to decide, upon direct inspection, 

 whether a psychical shock is so much like a phy- 

 sical pulsation that in a given series of proposi- 

 tions the one term might be substituted for the 

 other. " Can we, then, think of the subjective 

 and objective activities as the same ? Can the 

 oscillation of a molecule be represented in con- 

 sciousness side by side with a [psychical] shock, 

 and the two be recognized as one ? No effort 

 enables us to assimilate them. That a unit of 

 ^ See above, vol. iii. pp, 190, 191. 

 279 



