ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 



volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the sym- 

 bol 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 con- 

 sequences 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 reason- 

 ing process from which they result. 



So that if the view I have taken did really and logic- 

 ally 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 intellectual 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 occa- 

 sions, I really have no claim to rank myself among fatal- 



