522 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 42. 



virtue of its structure even if it were uncon- 

 scious. ' ' 



I have much respect for Professor Brooks' 

 abilities and work as a biologist, but in the 

 above sentences he commits the common error 

 of confounding volition with consciousness in a 

 way which will surprise any student of mental 

 phenomena. I am not aware that any well- 

 read person in modern times has proposed the 

 hypothesis that ' volition,' or doing ' as it likes,' 

 is a property of the vast majority of proto- 

 plasms, while every naturalist knows that con- 

 sciousness is a property of protoplasm, though 

 not of all protoplasm so far as our means of 

 observation permit us to judge. Students of 

 cells and tissues are very frequently not stu- 

 dents of consciousness, and I 'nail therefore add 

 another commonplace of psychology, and that 

 is that the responses of conscious protoplasm to 

 stimuli are as strictly regulated by necessity as 

 the responses of unconscious protoplasm, though 

 the necessity is of a different kind. 



The proposition that a muscular contraction 

 is influenced, i. e. , directed by a conscious state, 

 may be a matter of mere opinion, or it may be 

 a working hypothesis, or it may represent a 

 fact. Mankind generally, including many scien- 

 tific men, hold it to be a fact. Lord Kelvin, ac- 

 cording to Prof. Gage, is of this number, though 

 he calls it a ' miracle. ' However, Prof. Brooks 

 will probably allow that it is a permissible 

 working hypothesis, although he does not say 

 so directly. If we grant that it is true of man, 

 which most of us do, no oue has yet shown 

 where the line is to be drawn, as we descend 

 the scale of animal life, at which sensation ends. 

 In fact, centers of special sense are alleged to 

 exist in many Protozoa, and if special sensation 

 exists it is probable that general sensation exists 

 still lower down in the scale. 



As tO' whether such sensation, if it exists, has 

 any effect on structure, the reasons for thinking 

 that this occurs through the medium of move- 

 ments have been stated so often that it is not 

 necessary to repeat them here. I only refer for 

 a resumd of some of the evidence to a book by 

 myself which will probably be issued by the 

 Open Court Publishing Co. by the beginning of 

 next month. 



A common source of obscure thinking among 



naturalists is the assumption that reflex and 

 automatic acts disprove the agency of conscious 

 states in the direction of movements. Evolu- 

 tionists, however, look for the origin of things, 

 and some of them find consciousness, as a 

 cause of the direction of new movements now, 

 to be an equally supposable cause of new move- 

 ments at former periods of the earth's history. 

 Here we have again a legitimate working hy- 

 pothesis ; although it is not necessary to account 

 for all the movements of organic matter. 



Of course, the opposing view to the hypothe- 

 ses above mentioned involves the assumption of 

 their falsity. To give the opppsite position the 

 standing in covirt adopted by Professor Brooks, 

 I quote him with variations, as follows : "If the 

 learned bodies which give their allegiance to 

 the utterances I have quoted will publish the 

 evidence that consciousness and volition can " 

 influence Professor ■ Brooks when he "writes a 

 learned article, or makes an address on a bio- 

 logical subject, "they will not only demonstrate 

 their own scientific eminence, but by settling a 

 question which has never ceased to vex the 

 mind of man they will make the closing years 

 of the nineteenth century memorable for all 

 time," etc. Thinkers will adopt one or the 

 other of these hypotheses as they see fit, but 

 when they touch the metaphysical side of the 

 question they must give to it that attention 

 which it deserves. 



Professor Brooks' plea for suspense of judg- 

 ment is wise. But the formulation of a hypothe- 

 sis need not alarm him. Builders generally 

 know the difference between the scaffolding and 

 the building. And a builder will value the in- 

 dication of faults in his scaffolding rather than 

 general disquisitions on the uselessness of scaf- 

 folds in general. E. D. Cope. 



P. S. I hope to make shortly some comments 

 in the pages of the American Naturalist on pre- 

 vious articles in Science by Profs. Baldwin and 

 Cattell. 



ABSORPTION OF TEEEESTEIAL RADIATIONS BY 

 THE ATMOSPHERE. 



I AM certainly glad that Prof Davis (Science 

 p. 485, Oct. 11, 1895) objected to the extreme 

 terms which I used in referring to the blanket- 

 ing effect of our atmosphere. I object to them 



