244 LEWES ON CONSCIOUSNESS. 



called the nerve force ; and this nerve force is a member 

 of the group of correlated forces." And again, that 

 force maintains " nervous power," or a certain flow of 

 influence circulating through the nerves, which circula- 

 tion of influence besides ..." has for its distinguishing 

 concomitant the Mind" Again, " The extension of the 

 correlation of force to mind, if at all competent, must 

 be made through the nerve force, a genuine member of 

 the correlated group."* It is difficult to guard our- 

 selves against the idea that these expressions mean 

 that mind is dependent on a mere physical vibration 

 of matter ; also the expression, made alive by any 

 force, is inadmissible. The same ambiguity is to be 

 found in the latest expressions of Mr. Lewes, with the 

 additional difficulty that we cannot tell whether the 

 author puts them forward as an explanation or a mere 

 analogy. 



" The great problem of psychology, as a section of biology, 

 is, in pursuance of this conception, to develop all the psychical 

 phenomena from one fundamental process in one vital tissue. 



" The tissue is the nervous : the process is a grouping of 

 neural units." 



" A neural unit is a tremor. Several units are grouped into 

 & higher unity, or. neural process, which is a fusion of tremors, 

 as a sound is a fusion of aerial pulses ; and each process may 

 in turn be grouped with others, and thus, from this grouping of 

 groups, all the varieties emerge. What on the physiological 

 side is simply a neural process, is on the psychological side a 

 sentient process. We may liken Sentience to Combustion, and 

 then the neural units will stand for the oscillating molecules. 

 Sentience may manifest itself under the form of consciousness, 

 or under that of sub-consciousness which may be compared 



* Bain on " Correlation of Force Bearing on Mind." Cf Macnaillan's 

 Magazine," vol. xvi., p. 372. 



