°990 REV. H. J. CLARKE 
to prove an embarrassing possession. But it does not fall 
within the scope of this dissertation that the hypothesis under 
notice should be thoroughly sifted, and the arduous task of 
balancing the arguments for and against it performed with 
such care and delicacy as to do it justice, or rather that a 
point of view should be sought whence all the seemingly 
conflicting facts it has brought under notice may be seen to 
harmonise. Philosophy may rest content to leave it for the 
present, if not for an indefinite time, sub judice, insisting only 
that, if an immediate verdict be delivered, it shall be ‘‘ Not 
proven.” 
19. Yet, let us suppose it has been established that, simply 
in virtue of properties inherent in matter, certain molecular 
combinations, which, in the maintenance of a moving equi- 
librium, had previously constituted non-sentient organisms, 
underwent, in consequence of some change in external con- 
ditions, such a modification as the transition to sentient life 
involves, can we allow it to be conceivable that the mere 
physiological alteration which thus took place gave rise to 
sensation? Assuredly, such an origin for such an affection is 
absolutely unthinkable. Whether or not a space-occupying 
atom may be conceived capable of feeling is a question which, 
although there might be a difficulty in making it more edifying 
than amusing, I would, if necessary, discuss. But there is no 
necessity. The question is, can the subject of sensation be 
an arrangement in respect to positions and motions? Or, let 
us ask—to put the question in a more comprehensive form— 
can it be a set of relations and nothing more? In short, can 
it be a nonentity ? Has it come to this, that if ] am to think 
scientifically I must begin by giving my consciousness of 
sensation the le—must say within myself (namely, what I 
have hitherto fondly imagined to be myself) that it has been 
deceiving me, or rather, that something which, under the 
notion that I am, I call my consciousness, has all along been 
uttering a falsehood, which, did I exist, would have deceived 
me, but has not afterall, inasmuch as I, who seem to myself to 
have been deceived, am absolutely nothing ? Is se/f—I leave 
out of view for the moment all such knowledge of it as 
presupposes further internal witness than sensation—to be 
accounted simply a moving molecular counterpoise of a par- 
ticular kind ? According to the doctrine of Evolution, as 
commonly taught and understood, things are felt but nothing 
feels. The experience is recognised ; not so one of the 
obviously essential conditions of its possibility. Of this, 
through some strange inadvertency, or for reasons yet to be 
divulged, no account is taken. 
