THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



unconscious atomic changes said to cause them, which 

 we do not know and cannot hope to reach ; since, as Mill 

 on this subject argues, of the two corresponding series 

 we take the clear and the better known for purposes of 

 further explanation, rather than the obscure or worse 

 known ; then, it would seem that, as regards our present 

 question of man's moral freedom, neither the theory of 

 man's automatism nor any other theory which professes 

 to explain mental phenomena solely by physiological or 

 physical causes need be here considered at any great 

 length.* 



We do not argue against the undoubted influence of 

 the body over the mind ; nor dispute that there is a 

 certain amount of truth in the theory of the mechanical 

 causation of all our mental states, including our volitions. 

 It must be freely granted to the materialists that the 

 mind is powerfully influenced by the states of the body, 

 or by what are called states of the body, though what 

 subtle and mysterious elements are here at work none 

 can say. At all events, we are all well aware from expe- 

 rience, if science had not placed the matter beyond the 

 reach of doubt, that what is called the mind is healthy 

 or diseased according to the condition of the brain and 

 nerves, according even to the general health of the body. 

 The total contents of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, 

 and volitions, rise or fall in quantity and quality with 

 the general bodily tone. Even the moral character may 

 become affected, the perception of beauty and truth may 

 become dull or perverted, from some cause connected 

 with possibly only a slight disturbance in the general 



* The theory of man's automatism is maintained by Huxley ; by 

 Nageli (see Report of the Munich Congress of the German Association : 

 Nature, October 4, 1877) ; by Lange, History of Materialism. The theory 

 is in its essentials the same as that advanced more than a century ago in 

 La Mettrie's L'Homme Machine. 



