142 ALFEED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., M.E.C.S., ETC., ON 



our life we preserve the consciousness of the same personaHt y. 

 This cannot be through the medium of the body, which is not 

 the same, but must be through an independent mind. The 

 mind does not produce physical energy, but it guides and 

 directs it, like a man on a horse. Dr. Carpenter says, " 1 he 

 influence of a great idea, conceived by a thinker in his closet 

 in controlling the action of an entire nation, is utterly dis- 

 proportionate to any conceivable play of molecular forces 

 that can be exerted by the- physical agency of the thinker 

 putting his idea into speech or writing." There may be 

 automatic thinkers, in whom the will is absent or undeveloped, 

 but though the dominant power is absent, even such have 

 mind as well as body. The existence of mind therefore and 

 the freedom of the will may be said to be axiomatic truths. 



And now to return to Dr. Clifford as to the relation of this 

 mind with matter. Professor Ladd, in his Physiological 

 Psychology, says : " The human brain is a vast collection of 

 material molecules, whose constitution and arrangement is 

 such as to connect them with certain forms of external 

 physical energy. 



" But they are also capable of standing in a yet more sur- 

 prising and unique relation to a being of a ditferent nature 

 from their own, i.e., the mind. These latter relations involve 

 a causal connection, as truly as do the relations of the 

 natural physical forces. That material molecules and a 

 being of the kind called mind can be causally connected is 

 indeed a mysterious fact ; but because of its mystery it is 

 not less to be acknowledged as a fact. The assumption that 

 the mind is a real being which can be acted on by the brain, 

 and which can act on the body through the brain, is the only 

 one compatible with all facts of experience." 



Neuroses, or nerve actions, produce psychoses, or mind 

 actions ; thus a prick produces pain. The light on the eye is a 

 physical action, the impression on the sight centre a physio- 

 logical one, the perception of it a psychical one. 



The ordinary condition of the nervous system is that of a 

 moderately charged battery that can be chscharged by the 

 completion of the circuit and re-charged by the blood. The 

 Avill can complete this charged circuit. Mental causes can, 

 as we have said, produce physical effects, and physical causes 

 can produce mental effects. " We have every reason to 

 believe," says Professor Bain, " that with all our mental 

 processes there is an unbroken natural succession." 



We must notice however, carefully, as to automatic 



