TEE MIND-STUFF THEORY. Ill 



deafness and blindness, of auditory and optical aphasia, 

 show us that the whole brain must act together if certain 

 thoughts are to occur. The consciousness, which is itself 

 an integral thing not made of parts, * corresponds ' to the 

 entire activity of the brain, whatever that may be, at the 

 moment. This is a way of expressing the relation of mind 

 and brain from which I shall not depart during the re- 

 mainder of the book, because it expresses the bare 

 phenomenal fact with no hypothesis, and is exposed to no 

 such logical objections as we have found to cling to the 

 theory of ideas in combination. 



Nevertheless, this formula which is so unobjectionable 

 if taken vaguely, positivistically, or scientifically, as a 

 mere empirical law of concomitance between our thoughts 

 and our brain, tumbles to pieces entirely if we assume 

 to represent anything more intimate or ultimate by it. 

 The ultimate of ultimate problems, of course, in the 

 study of the relations of thought and brain, is to under- 

 stand why and how such disparate things are connected 

 at all. But before that problem is solved (if it ever is 

 solved) there is a less ultimate problem which must first 

 be settled. Before the connection of thought and brain 

 can be explained, it must at least be stated in an elementary 

 form ; and there are great difiiculties about so stating it. 

 To state it in elementary form one must reduce it to its 

 lowest terms and know which mental fact and which cerebral 

 fact are, so to speak, in immediate juxtaposition. We must 

 find the minimal mental fact Avhose being reposes directly 

 on a brain-fact ; and we must similarly find the minimal 

 brain-event which will h&ve a mental counterpart at all. 

 Between the mental and the physical minima thus found 

 there will be an immediate relation, the expression of 

 which, if we had it, would be the elementary psycho-physic 

 law. 



Our ow^n formula escapes the unintelligibility of psychic 

 atoms by taking the entire thought (even of a complex 

 object) as the minimum ivith luhich it deals on the mental 

 side. But in taking the entire brain-process as its mini- 

 mal fact on the material side it confronts other difiiculties 

 almost as bad. 



