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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 978 



actions are determined by outside causes 

 and that you are not responsible — or that 

 a body can not move out of its place, or 

 that Achilles can not catch a tortoise — 

 then in all those cases appeal must be made 

 to twelve average men, unsophisticated by 

 special studies. There is always a danger 

 of error in interpreting experience, or in 

 drawing inferences from it; but in a mat- 

 ter of bare fact, based on our own first- 

 hand experience, we are able to give a 

 verdict. "We may be mistaken as to the 

 nature of what we see. Stars may look to 

 us like bright specks in a dome, but the 

 fact that we see them admits of no doubt. 

 So also consciousness and will are realities 

 of which we are directly aware, just as 

 directly as we are of motion and force, just 

 as clearly as we apprehend the philoso- 

 phizing utterances of an agnostic. The 

 process of seeing, the plain man does not 

 understand; he does not recognize that it 

 is a method of ethereal telegraphy; he 

 knows nothing of the ether and its ripples, 

 nor of the retina and its rods and cones, 

 nor of nerve and brain processes; but he 

 sees and he hears and he touches, and he 

 wills and he thinks and is conscious. This 

 is not an appeal to the mob as against the 

 philosopher, it is appeal to the experience 

 of untold ages as against the studies of a 

 generation. 



How consciousness became associated 

 with matter, how life exerts guidance over 

 chemical and physical forces, how mechan- 

 ical motions are translated into sensations 

 — all these things are puzzling and demand 

 long study. But the fact that these things 

 are so admits of no doubt ; and difSculty of 

 explanation is no argument against them. 

 The blind man restored to sight had no 

 opinion as to how he was healed, nor could 

 he vouch for the moral character of the 

 Healer, but he plainly knew that whereas 

 he was blind now he saw. About that fact 



he was the best possible judge. So it is 

 also with "this main miracle that thou art 

 thou, with power on thine own act and on 

 the world." 



But although life and mind may be ex- 

 cluded from physiology, they are not ex- 

 cluded from science. Of course not. It is 

 not reasonable to say that things neces- 

 sarily eltide investigation merely because 

 we do not knock against them. Yet the 

 mistake is sometimes made. The ether 

 makes no appeal to sense, therefore some 

 are beginning to say that it does not exist. 

 Mind is occasionally put into the same pre- 

 dicament. Life is not detected in the labo- 

 ratory, save in its physical and chemical 

 manifestations; but we may have to admit 

 that it guides processes, nevertheless. It 

 may be called a catalytic agent. 



To understand the action of life itself, 

 the simplest plan is not to think of a micro- 

 scopic organism, or any unfamiliar animal, 

 but to make use of our own experience as 

 living beings. Any positive instance serves 

 to stem a comprehensive denial; and if the 

 reality of mind and guidance and plan is 

 denied because they make no appeal to 

 sense, then think how the world would ap- 

 pear to an observer to whom the existence 

 of men was unknown and undiscoverable, 

 while yet all the laws and activities of na- 

 ture went on as they do now. 



Suppose, then, that man made no appeal 

 to the senses of an observer of this planet. 

 Suppose an outside observer could see all 

 the events occurring in the world, save 

 only that he could not see animals or men. 

 He would describe what he saw much as 

 we have to describe the activities initiated 

 by life. 



If he looked at the Firth of Forth, for 

 instance, he would see piers arising in the 

 water, beginning to sprout, reaching across 

 in strange manner till they actually join 

 or are joined by pieces attracted up from 



