486 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 378. 



we must not confine our thoughts within 

 the surface of any body, but look a great 

 deal farther, to comprehend perfectly those 

 qualities that are in it." 



9. The being of things is real, hut is it 

 in themselves, or in their interrelations? 



Is it as a self-contained and self-suffi- 

 cient being, or as part of the universe, that 

 the stone illustrates the laAv of gravitation ? 



AVhen Sir Isaac Newton made his 

 speech about the child and the pebble : 

 ' ' Did he mean, ' ' asks Dr. Holmes, ' ' to 

 speak slightingly of a pebble ? Of a spher- 

 ical solid which stood sentinel over its 

 compartment of space before the stone that 

 became the pyramids had grown solid, and 

 has watched it until now! A body which 

 knows all the currents of force that trav- 

 erse the globe; which holds by invisible 

 threads to the ring of Satura and the belt 

 of Orion! A body from the contempla- 

 tion of which an archangel could infer the 

 entire inorganic universe as the simplest 

 of corollaries ! A throne of the all-pervad- 

 ing Deity, who has guided its every atom 

 since the rosary of heaven was strung vnth 

 beaded stars! 



' ' The divinity student honored himself 

 by the way in which he received tliis. He 

 did not swallow it at once, nor did he 

 reject it; but he took it as the pickerel 

 takes the bait, and carried it off with him 

 to his hole (in the fourth story) to deal 

 with at his leisure." 



10. May not the notion that our minds 

 are in our heads he due to the fallacy of 

 the undistributed middle? 



Our welfare and our existence depend 

 upon the soundness and safety of our 

 brains, and knowledge of real brains and 

 their functions is of the utmost value and 

 importance, but would it have any value if, 

 knowing only the appearance of brains in 

 our minds, we were altogether put off with 

 false appearances, and could never know 

 brains as they are in themselves? 



If the being of a living brain is not in 

 itself, but in its interrelations with nature, 

 we do know brains as they really are when 

 we discover these interrelations ; but if the 

 being of a brain is not absolute and inde- 

 pendent, but dependent and relative, what 

 are we to think of the notion that our 

 minds are shut up inside our heads 1 May 

 not this also be an illustration of the fal- 

 lacy of the undistributed middle? My 

 mind to me a kingdom is, but I find no 

 reason to think this kingdom is a micro- 

 cosm—a little world set over against the 

 great kingdom of nature. My kingdom is 

 the great universe itself, the starry heav- 

 ens, and the geological history of the earth, 

 and everything else I know, and my mind 

 grows as more and more of nature becomes 

 mine by right of discovery. So far as I 

 know the Ichthyosaurus and the rings of 

 Saturn, these things are in my mind; and 

 if the things I know were really shut up 

 in my skull, these things would be inside 

 my skull; but there is no room there for 

 real whales and real megatheriums, so phi- 

 losophers tell me I can never know any- 

 thing as it reaUy is, because the only uni- 

 verse I can think of or consider is the one 

 I know. 



Stone walls do not a prison make, nor 

 iron bars a cage. May we not owe to the 

 fallacy of the undistributed middle— to 

 our useful ability to fix our attention upon 

 a part of nature, and to temporarily 

 neglect that which does not for the time 

 interest us nor seem to concern us, and to 

 the carelessness which permits us to thinir 

 that Avhat we have considered by itself for 

 our own purposes is really self-contained 

 and self-sufficient— may it not be to this 

 that we owe the notion of a mind shut up 

 in a head, and knoAving nothing but the 

 dissected and distorted shadows which the 

 unknown and unknowable real world casts 

 on the walls of its prison through its nar- 

 row and grated windows? 



