'240 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT. 



like but none the less parts of the great series of 

 causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, 

 composes that which is, and has been, and shall be 

 the sum of existence. 



As to the logical consequences of this conviction 

 of mine, I may be permitted to remark that logical 

 consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the 

 beacons of wise men. The only question which any 

 wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man 

 will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false. 

 Consequences will take care of themselves ; at most 

 their importance can only justify us in testing with 

 extra care the reasoning process from which they 

 result. 



So that if the view I have taken did really and 

 logically lead to fatalism, materialism, and atheism, 

 I should profess myself a fatalist, materialist, and 

 atheist; and I should look upon those who, while 

 they believed in my honesty of purpose and intel- 

 lectual competency, should raise a hue and cry against 

 me, as people who by their own admission preferred 

 lying to truth, and whose opinions therefore were 

 unworthy of the smallest attention. 



But, as I have endeavoured to explain on other 

 occasions, I really have no claim to rank myself 

 among fatalistic, materialistic, or atheistic philoso- 

 phers. Not among fatalists, for I take the conception 

 of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical 

 foundation ; not among materialists, for I am utterly 

 incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there 

 is no mind in which to picture that existence ; not 



