Stoney — Appreciation of Ultra- Visible Quantities. 543 



ever, be borne in mind that it is upon these fundamental events 

 that the whole superstructure rests ; and that stream effects are in 

 relation to them of the nature of very small outstanding residual 

 events which remain over, when the rest — the great bulk of the 

 events that are actually happening — are such as balance one 

 another.^ 



It is evident that it is among protracted events such as those 

 spoken of in the last paragraph that we must search for the 

 physical event in the brain with which human thought is associated. 

 It is also evident that it is with but a very small selection out of 

 the vast number of such events occurring in the brain during life, 

 that the thoughts of which man is conscious can be directly asso- 

 ciated. All the rest of the innumerable stream events, and all the 

 underlying fundamental events within and between the individual 

 molecules, go on besides. 



Now, what happens in the brain is an index to us of what is 

 going on in that portion of the Autic Universe" which is most 

 closely connected with human thought. For what goes on in^the 

 phenomenal world (to which the brain belongs) is an index to us 

 of what is going on in the Autic Universe (to which our thoughts 

 belong), in the same sense in which a weather-cock is an index to 

 us of the direction of the wind ; since what occurs in the pheno- 

 menal world is dependent upon and determined by what occurs in 

 the Autic Universe [see passim a paper by the Author, " On the 

 relation between Natural Science and Ontology, " Scientific Pro- 

 ceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, vol. vi., p. 475]. Hence 

 in the Autic Universe there are events as closely related to the 

 thoughts which exist in my mind at any time, as are the other 

 physical events going on in my brain at that time to those few 

 which are directly associated with my thoughts. The autic events 

 here spoken of probably more or less distantly resemble the events 

 within my own mind of which I am conscious, inasmuch as all the 

 physical events in the brain in a certain degree resemble one 



^ "Wind is such, a residual event. It arises whenever there is a small preponderance 

 in one direction of the very much swifter velocities with which the individual mole- 

 cules of air are at all times darting ahout in all directions. So also the current in a 

 river is a similar residual event. 



2 Auta, actual existences (of which the thoughts that are in my mind are a sample 

 directly known to me). The Autic Universe, the totality of all really existing things,. 

 of all auta. 



