520 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



of eminence, Huxley and Clifford/ have made the theory 

 accessible to the popular understanding, without, however, 

 taking a comprehensive view of the study of mental 

 phenomena, inasmuch as they approached the subject 

 from the side of natural science — the former more from 

 that of physiology, the latter from that of the mechanical 

 sciences. Prof. Wundt treats the subject exhaustively 

 in many passages of his works, notably in the last 

 chapter of his great w^ork on ' Physiological Psychology,' 

 in which he broadly defines " the psycho-physical view 

 as that view which starts from the empirically well- 

 established thesis, that nothing takes place in our con- 

 sciovisness which does not find its foundation in definite 

 physical processes. The simple sensation, the connection 



^ Although neither Huxley nor 

 Clifford added anything new to the 

 conception of parallelism as con- 

 tained in the writings of many ear- 

 lier Continental philosophers, the 

 fact that they were driven from 

 their purely scientific positions to 

 discuss the subject, and were not 

 psychologists and metaphysicians 

 by profession, gave their exposi- 

 tions, which are otherwise as fresh 

 as they are immature, a peculiar 

 charm. Being both masters in 

 style, they at once enriched the 

 vocabulary with new terms which 

 have since become classic. The 

 word "epi-phenomenon," an equiv- 

 alent for tlie German ' Begleit- 

 erscheinung,' which is of independ- 

 ent origin but expresses Huxley's 

 view, is a real enrichment of 

 thought. It is also the direct 

 way to bring home the absurdity 

 of the whole theory. The things 

 of nature being first considered 

 as "phenomena" — i.e., as "ap- 

 pearing" to some one, — the some 

 one is next looked upon as a 

 secondary phenomenon, an epi- 



phenomenon. Clifford actually in 

 liis psychological atomism goes the 

 length of saying, " Reason, in- 

 telligence, and volition are pro- 

 l^erties of a complex which is made 

 up of elements, themselves not 

 rational, not intelligent, not con- 

 scious " fsee ' Mind,' vol. iii. p. 67). 

 In the physical theory of atoms it 

 has been truly said that you cannot 

 get anything out of the atoms that 

 you have not, to begin witli, put into 

 them. Clifford's dictum reminds 

 one of Carlyle's definition of the 

 object of political economy, which 

 has to solve the problem, " Given 

 a community consisting of fools and 

 knaves, how to produce efficiency 

 and honesty by their comliined 

 action ?" Clifford's solution of the 

 psychological deadlock is the " Mind- 

 stuff" theory, the theory that all 

 matter is the phenomenal correlate 

 of the elements of mind. Clif- 

 ford's essay " On the Nature of 

 Things in themselves" is reprinted 

 in ' Lectures and Essays ' (1879), 

 vol. ii. p. 71 sqq. 



