ORDINARY MEETING. 
D. Howarp, Esq, D.L., F.C.S., IN THE CHAI. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed :— 
The following Paper was then read by the Author. 
ON 7ZHE REALITY OF THE SELF. By W. L. 
CourtNEY, M.A., LL.D. 
HE common language and the formal literature of all 
nations are full of such terms as “mind,” “goul,” 
“spirit,” the peculiar possession and the peculiar privilege 
of man as standing at the head of the animal world. 
What is this mind? Where is it? Is it a reality, in 
and by itself, as we ordinarily assume? If so what is 
its precise relation to the physical organism which is un- 
doubtedly common to other animals besides men? Is man 
right in thinking and calling himself “a living soul,” or is 
this the self-deception and the conceit of one who is himself the 
prophet and interpreter of the world in which he is placed, 
and who therefore naturally gives himself the pride of place ? 
Is man, as an animal has so often been declared to be, an 
automaton, a superior sort of machine, wound up, set a-gomg 
and kept im order in a fashion, which of course to the machine 
itself is mexplicable ? These are large questions which can 
only be partially answered: the solutions of such problems 
involve long chains of argument, the conclusions of which in 
the time allowed me I must often dogmatically assume. 
Of the two questions—where is the mind? what is the 
mind? the first can be answered, and the second cannot be 
answered in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. If it be 
assumed that there is such a thing us mind, science will only 
TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. P 
