Maech 21, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



447 



We may pass, by a process of reasoning, 

 from a physical candle to a physical burn, 

 and, if this system of philosophy is to be 

 trusted, we might, if Ave knew a psychical 

 candle, pass from it to a psychical pain, 

 but we can never pass from a physical 

 candle to a psychical pain by any intel- 

 lectual process, nor know a burn hurts in 

 the way we know a flame burns. 



5. The chasm is not an easy thing to un- 

 derstand. 



Many questions are too hard for us, for 

 we are very ignorant, and we have only 

 feeble and incomplete command of the sci- 

 entific method of finding out things; but 

 these familiar truths are not what TjTidall 

 and Spencer have tried to express in the 

 passages I have quoted. These passages 

 are no humble confession of ignorance. 

 They are very positive assertions that 

 something — an intellectual grand canyon 

 —is very definitely known. We are told 

 that we know— Imow with certainty — 

 that the method which is used in physical 

 discovery is fundamentally and utterly in- 

 adequate for dealing with the relation be- 

 tween bodies and minds— utterly inade- 

 quate for dealing with the relation between 

 eggs and the thinking men who come out 

 of eggs. The grand canyon is not merely 

 difficult. It is utterly impassable. 



6. We are told that there is a chasm, he- 

 cause I cannot knoiv the minds of other 

 men in the way I knoiv my own mind. 



Among the reasons which are given for 

 belief in the chasm, the simplest is my al- 

 leged inability to know the minds of other 

 men in the way I know vaj own mind. 

 But I can never know my oaati body in the 

 way I know the bodies of other men. I 

 can have no more immediate perception 

 that there is in my head a sphenoid bone 

 which has arisen, during my younger 

 stages, through the union of a pre- 

 sphenoid, a basi-sphenoid, two ali-sphe- 

 noids, two orbito-sphenoids, and two ptery- 



goids, than I can have immediate percep- 

 tion that there is in Timbuctoo a man 

 with a mind as much like my mind as my 

 body is like his body. My conviction that 

 I have passed through embryonic stages 

 like those described in the text-books is 

 even more remotely inferential than my 

 conviction that my own familiar friend 

 has a mind like mine. 



The chasm between my embryonic his- 

 tory and that of other human beings is 

 utterly impassable, yet its impassability is 

 practical and not intellectual. I find no 

 more logical difficulty in believing that I 

 could perceive the resemblance between my 

 brain, or my embryonic history, and those 

 of other men, if I were in the proper place 

 at the right time with suitable means of 

 observation, than I find in the belief that 

 I could thus perceive the other side of the 

 moon. 



If there is a grand canyon, it must be 

 of a different sort from the chasm between 

 my body and those of other men, for this 

 is not intellectual, but practical. 



7. There is a chasm, we are told, hecause 

 I knoiv my oivn mind by introspection. 



It is, unquestionably, through introspec- 

 tion that I know my own mind and this is 

 the reason why we are told that there is 

 an impassable chasm between mind, on the 

 one side, and brains and all other material 

 things, on the other. 



A moment's reflection is enough to show 

 that it is through introspection— through 

 comparison of my sensations, and recollec- 

 tions, and expectations, and other mental 

 facts, and through reflection upon them — 

 that I find out anything. If I neither felt 

 nor reflected, I should not know anything. 

 It is through reflection upon my thoughts 

 and feelings that I make scientific discov- 

 eries about my mind, and about the minds 

 of other men, and about everything that- 1 

 know. As I have only tliis one way to 

 find out anything, it is hard to imagine 



