244 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 



holds equally good of men ; and, therefore, that 

 all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are 

 immediately caused by molecular changes of the 

 brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as 

 in brutes, there is no proof that any state of con- 

 sciousness is the cause of change in the motion of 

 the matter of the organism. If these positions 

 are well based, it follows that our mental condi- 

 tions are simply the symbols in consciousness of 

 the changes which takes place automatically in 

 the organism ; and that, to take an extreme 

 illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the 

 cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that 

 state of the brain which is the immediate cause of 

 that act. We are conscious automata, endowed 

 with free will in the only intelligible sense of that 

 much-abused term inasmuch as in many respects 

 we are able to do as we 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 doc- 

 trine is true or false. Consequences will take care 

 of themselves ; at most their importance can only 



