SIR OLIVER LODGE 257 



has found so successful; or even as treachery to the 

 pioneers and architects who have erected the splendid 

 structure of modern science. What wonder if the at- 

 tempt is made to explain every mental process as a 

 chemical action in the cells of the brain, to explain 

 every action of live things as the activity of physio- 

 logical mechanism, and to hold that when the physio- 

 logical process is interrupted, or the machinery de- 

 stroyed, all vitality necessarily ceases; in other words, 

 that life and mind are the working of an organism, 

 and that when the organism ceases to function, they 

 completely perish. 



And yet many biologists have themselves, when they 

 began to philosophise, encountered a real difficulty. 

 The mechanism was complete as far as it went: the 

 physical processes of every action could be traced, 

 either in fact or In imagination: but there was an out- 

 standing difficulty about consciousness, which could not 

 be explained by mechanism. Their own awareness of 

 the processes going on was Itself something more 

 than the mere processes. There were things In human 

 nature which escaped their ken, which seemed to be 

 of a different order, something which made use of 

 mechanism, but which transcended it, something to- 

 wards which mechanical science gives no clue. The 

 sense of beauty, for Instance. What piece of mech- 

 anism could contemplate Its own beauty? What me- 

 chanical device could understand Its own working? 

 How could human beings plan and contrive and de- 

 sign, and form theories, and seek to apprehend the 

 universe, If they were nothing more than mechanical 

 structures? The only way consistent with philosophic 

 materialism was to suppose that consciousness was a 



