Stoney — Natural Science and Ontology . 503 



large flat screen placed perpendicularly to the direction in which 

 the light comes, it will assume the form which gives most informa- 

 tion : that in which the outline of each part of the shadow is most 

 simply related to the form of the part of the machine by which it is 

 cast, and that in which the motions apparent among the shadows 

 are most intelligibly related to the real motions of the machine. 

 But if the shadow is formed upon a screen crumpled up into hills 

 and hollows there will be no such intimate connection. The forms 

 and motions visible in the shadow will, no doubt, still possess some 

 reference to what exists and is going on in the object which cast 

 the shadow, but it will be obscure ; and to get at the simple relations 

 the irregularities introduced into the shadow by the ruggedness of 

 the surface must be allowed for. 



Now, the telegraphic messages sent to me through my organs 

 of sense by the auta of the sense- compelling universe are such 

 complex shadows. But in me, a modern man, a great part of this 

 message is worked up with other materials and transformed. The 

 crude materials as they originally reached my ancestors appear to 

 have consisted of sensations and acts of will — the sensations pro- 

 duced by the sense- compelling auto, a multitude of other slight 

 sensations from the muscles directing and adjusting the organs of 

 sense, and, in addition to these, acts of will setting these muscles 

 in action. Along with these, there probably appeared in my 

 remote ancestors memories of similar sensations and acts of will 

 previously experienced, and the reflections to which all these sen- 

 sations, acts of will, and memories would give rise in their minds : 

 issuing on subsequent occasions in the further guidance which these 

 thoughts would more and more exercise over their acts of will. 

 By a law, the existence of which is known to us by experience, 

 though the cause is unknown, the very frequent repetition of such 

 a process would cause it to be more and more carried on outside 

 their consciousness, in the synergos, i. e. by operations in the onto- 

 brain of which they were not conscious, the general result only 

 appearing within their consciousness. Thus seems to have slowly 

 evolved that most remarkable instinct, which I as a modern man 

 possess, viz. the instinctive judgments of space relations, which in 

 me take the place of a multitude of obscure sensations. These dim 

 sensations I can now perceive as sensations only by close attention, 

 and then but partially ; by, as it were, dragging them out of that 



