BUT AN INCIDENTAL PHENOMENON. 233 



depending on involuntary motion and organic sym- 

 pathy, fully account for all the matter and force, 

 entering in as pabulum, stimuli, and conditions, in the 

 form of results (granting, of course, that the mere 

 fashion of molecular arrangement can account for 

 properties so different from common chemical ones), 

 without any consciousness of perception. Even when 

 we rise to the reflex actions closely connected with 

 sensation, the central nerve cells of the spinal cord 

 may be so organized that harmonized groups of mus- 

 cular movements may be performed on the application 

 of a stimulus without any consciousness. And beyond 

 that even, as above said, certain processes of thought 

 may take place without consciousness. In all these 

 cases the transformation of force as work done in dis- 

 charge of nerve force, in nutrition and secretion, in 

 growth of new protoplasm, and in forcing atoms into 

 new positions in the molecular organization of existing 

 protoplasm, is an essential and integral link in every 

 process. But now we come upon a totally new 

 phenomenon. In the most highly-organized matter, 

 viz., the gray matter of the sensorium, not only do the 

 stimuli cause the same metabolic, or vito-chemical 

 molecular changes as in other nerve protoplasm, but 

 now, for the first time in the long history of the deve- 

 lopment of new properties by the complexity of mole- 

 cular constitution, we meet with that of conscious 

 perception of those very molecular reactions. It is, 

 therefore, not a link in the chain of material trans- 

 formations, but an incidental phenomenon manifested 

 in certain changes, whose causes and results are other- 

 wise fully accounted for. It seems to be a property 



