28 



LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



forming all imaginable combinations. 

 This, as a purely mechanical process, is 

 seeable by the mind. But can you see, or 

 dream, or in any way imagine, how out 

 of that mechanical act, and from these 

 individually dead atoms, sensation, 

 thought, and emotion are to rise ? Are 

 you likely to extract Homer out of the 

 rattling of dice, or the Differential Cal- 

 culus out of the clash of billiard-balls ? 

 I am not all bereft of this Vorstel lungs- 

 Kraft of which you speak, nor am I, like 

 so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum 

 a<= regards scientific knowledge. I can 

 follow a particle of musk until it reaches 

 the olfactory nerve ; I can follow the 

 waves of sound until their tremors reach 

 the water of the labyrinth, and set the 

 otoliths and Cord's fibres in motion ; I 

 can also visualise the waves of ether as 

 they cross the eye and hit the retina. 

 Nay more, I am able to pursue to the 

 central organ the motion thus imparted 

 at the periphery, and to see in idea the 

 very molecules of the brain thrown into 

 tremors. My insight is not baffled by 

 these physical processes. What baffles 

 and bewilders me is the notion that from 

 those physical tremors things so utterly 

 incongruous with them as sensation, 

 thought, and emotion can be derived. 

 You may say, or think, that this issue of 

 consciousness from the clash of atoms is 

 not more incongruous than the flash of 

 light from the union of oxygen and 

 hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is. 

 For such incongruity as the flash possesses 

 is that which I now force upon your 

 attention. The ' flash ' is an afiair of 

 consciousness, the objective counterpart 

 of which is a vibration. It is a flash 

 only by your interpretation. You are 

 the cause of the apparent incongruity ; 

 and you are the thing that puzzles me. 

 I need not remind you that the great 

 Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel ; 

 and that to get rid of this monstrous 

 deduction of life from death he displaced 

 your atoms by his monads, which were 

 more or less perfect mirrors of the 

 universe, and out of the summation and 

 integration of which he supposed all the 



phenomena of life sentient, intellectual, 

 and emotional to arise. 



"Your difficulty then, as I see you 

 are ready to admit, is quite as great as 

 mine. You cannot satisfy the human 

 understanding in its demand for logical 

 continuity between molecular processes 

 and the phenomena of consciousness. 

 This is a rock on which Materialism 

 must inevitably split whenever it pre- 

 tends to be a complete philosophy of life. 

 What is the moral, my Lucretian ? You 

 and I are not likely to indulge in ill- 

 temper in the discussion of these great 

 topics, where we see so much room for 

 honest differences of opinion. But there 

 are people of less wit or more bigotry (I 

 say it with humility), on both sides, who 

 are ever ready to mingle anger and vitu- 

 peration with such discussions. There 

 are, for example, writers of note and in- 

 fluence at the present day who are not 

 ashamed publicly to assume the ' deep 

 personal sin ' of a great logician to be 

 the cause of his unbelief in a theologic 

 dogma. 1 And there are others who hold 

 that we, who cherish our noble Bible, 

 wrought as it has been into the constitu- 

 tion of our forefathers, and by inherit- 

 ance into us, must necessarily be hypo- 

 critical and insincere. Let us disavow 

 and discountenace such people, cherish- 

 ing the unswerving faith that what is 

 good and true in both our arguments 

 will be preserved for the benefit of 

 humanity, while all that is bad or false 

 will disappear." 



I hold the Bishop's reasoning to be 

 unanswerable, and his liberality to be 

 worthy of imitation. 



It is worth remarking that in one re- 

 spect the Bishop was a product of his 

 age. Long previous to his day the nature 



1 This is the aspect under which the late 

 Editor of the Dublin Review presented to his 

 readers the memory of John Stuart Mill. I can 

 only say that I would as soon take my chance in 

 the other world, in the company of the "un- 

 believer," as in that of his Jesuit detractor. In 

 Dr. Ward we have an example of a wholesome 

 and vigorous nature soured and perverted by a 

 poisonous creed. 



