234 CONSCIOUSNESS IS PASSIVE. 



only perceptibly manifested when a certain degree of 

 activity of metabolic change is going on in its peculiar 

 kind of nerve protoplasm, which, like all other, is 

 liable to a plus and minus of degrees of activity, 

 according to the degree of stimulation, and in propor- 

 tion to these it appears susceptible of exhaustion and 

 fatigue from action and regeneration during rest. The 

 phenomenon of Consciousness may be likened to a 

 loud sound, or a brilliant light accompanying the 

 working of a steam-engine, but for which no deduction 

 is to be made from work done. To carry out the 

 analogy, however, the sound and light would need to 

 be inaudible and invisible, except to the machine 

 itself, and then we see that no force can be expended 

 on it. So with consciousness : it is a purely passive 

 phenomenon, and has no power of making its existence 

 known except through transformation of pre-existing 

 force residing in the protoplasm and pabulum, of whose 

 reaction it is itself an incidental phenomenon. It is, 

 therefore, not work, and does not consist in transforma- 

 tion of force, and cannot be said in any sense to have 

 u mechanical equivalent, inasmuch as it is not con- 

 vertible into any mode of force.* Consciousness thus 



* It may be likened to the action of a mirror in reflecting the rays 

 of light, or to a pillar supporting a statue, or to a vessel inclosing a 

 gas at a higher pressure than without. In all these the inexhaustible 

 properties of matter are alone in play, but if the light were absorbed, 

 or the pillar yielded, or the vessel burst, expenditure of force would 

 take place, and work be done. If, therefore, any disappearance of 

 force took place during consciousness, unaccounted for by the heat, 

 work, and products of cerebral action, and reappeared again as heat, or 

 other force on its cessation, then we might speak of consciousness in 

 connection witk the word work. As it is, no such, consumption of 

 force is proved to take place, and therefore consciousness must belong 

 to the properties of matter, not to force, although it can only be mani- 

 fested during a certain extremely complex series of metabolic changes, 

 for which, however, force is essential as a subordinate factor. 



