154 



PSYCHOLOGY. 



nsrSUFFICIENCY OF THESE PROOFS. 



Convincing as this argument of Mr. Spencer's may 

 appear on a tirst reading, it is singular Low weak it really 

 is.* We do, it is true, when Ave study the connection be- 

 tween a musical note and its outward cause, find the note 

 simple and continuous while the cause is multiple and dis- 

 crete. Somewhere, then, there is a transformation, reduc- 

 tion, or fusion. The question is, Where ? — in the nerve- 



A- 



X 



V 



One second of time. 



Fig. 25. 



world or in the mind- world ? Eeally we have no experi- 

 mental proof by which to decide ; and if decide we must, 



* Oddly enough, Mr. Spencer seems quite unaware of the general innc- 

 tion of the tlieory of elementary units of mind-stuff in the evolutionary 

 philosophy. We have seen it to be absolutely indispensable, if that phi- 

 losophy is to work, to postulate consciousness in the nebula, — the simplest 

 way being, of course, to suppose every atom animated. Mr. Spencer, how- 

 ever, will have it (eg. First Principles, § 71) that consciousness is only the 

 occasional result of the ' transformation ' of a certain amount of ' physical 

 force ' to which it is ' equivalent.' Presumably a brain must already be there 

 before any such 'transformation' can take place; and .so the argument 

 quoted in the text stands as a mere local detail, without general bearings. 



