446 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 377. 



able,' between the facts of embryology and 

 the facts of consciousness, is self-con- 

 demned, because it denies the possibility 

 of a science of embryology. Any method 

 of embryological research which leads to 

 the conclusion that the phenomena of con- 

 sciousness are not phenomena at all, but 

 ' epiphenomena, ' and the mere empty and 

 meaningless accompaniment, or by-prod- 

 uct, of phenomena, is self-condemned; be- 

 cause the phenomena of loiowledge— of em- 

 bryology, and of everything else— are 

 phenomena of consciousness. 



4. Many eminent authorities tell us an 

 embryological account of human minds is 

 impossiile. 



It is well known that many writers, who 

 claim to speak of the meaning of modern 

 science with authority, have been led to 

 believe that the facts of consciousness can 

 never be brought back into the system of 

 science. 



Thus', for example, TyndaJl tells us: 

 "The passage from the physics of the 

 brain to the corresponding facts of con- 

 sciousness is unthinkable. Granted that 

 a definite thought and a definite molecular 

 action in the brain occur simultaneously, 

 we do not possess the intellectual organ, 

 nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, 

 which would enable us to pass by a process 

 of reasoning from the one phenomenon to 

 the other. They appear together, but we 

 do not know why. Were our minds and 

 senses so expanded, strengthened and 

 illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel 

 the very molecules of the brain; were we 

 capable of following all their motions, all 

 their groupings, all their electrical dis- 

 charges if such there be; and were we in- 

 timately acquainted with the correspond- 

 ing states of thought and feeling, we 

 should be as far as ever from the solution 

 of the problem. How are these physical 

 processes connected with the facts of con- 

 sciousness? The chasm between the two 



classes of phenomena would still remain 

 intellectually impassable. ' ' 



If for brain we put egg which gives 

 rise to a brain, this statement must mean 

 one of two things : Either there is a chasm, 

 which is intellectually impassable, between 

 the facts of embryology and the facts of 

 consciousness ; or else there are two sets of 

 embryological facts— physical and psy- 

 chical-separated by the impassable 

 chasm; and, therefore, two equally inde- 

 pendent and distinct sciences of embryol- 

 ogy. Tyndall cannot admit that the facts 

 of physics may have their being in a know- 

 ing mind, for, in this case, there would not 

 be any chasm. 



Professor James, who is also a believer 

 in the chasm, tells us there is a ' link ' or 

 bridge, but as he also tells us ' we do not 

 know, and most authorities believe we nev- 

 er shall know, and never can know,' what 

 the link is, or where the bridge is, neither 

 link nor bridge is of much practical use to 

 embryologists. 



According to the system of scientific phi- 

 losophy which finds expression in these 

 extracts, the embryologist may hope to 

 pass from the physics of atoms and mole- 

 cules and organic matter, to physical eggs 

 and physical men; and, if there be any 

 psychical atoms and molecules and com- 

 pounds, he may hope to pass from them 

 to psychical eggs and psychical men; but 

 the chasm between the sort of eggs we 

 Imow and the sort of men we know is in- 

 tellectually impassable. 



Herbert Spencer, who is held to be the 

 philosophical spokesman of modern sci- 

 ence, is also a believer in the chasm; and 

 he tells us that mind is 'something with- 

 out any kinship with other tilings; and 

 from the sciences which discover, by intro- 

 spection, the laws of this something there 

 is no passage by transitional steps to the 

 sciences which discover the laws of these 

 other things.' 



