182 PSYCHOLOGT. 



If it does not strictly explain anything, it is at any rate 

 less positively objectionable than either mind-stuff or a 

 material-monad creed. The bare phenomenon, however, tlve 

 IMMEDIATELY KNOWN thing ivhich ou the mental side is in appo- 

 sition ivith the entire brain-process is the state of consciousness 

 and not the soul itself. Many of the stanchest believers in 

 the soul admit that we kno w it only as an inference from 

 experiencing its states. In Chapter X, accordingly, we must 

 return to its consideration again, and ask ourselves ivhether, 

 after all, the ascertainment of a blank unmediated correspond- 

 ence, term for term, of the succession of states of con^iousness 

 ivith the successio7i of total brain-processes, be not the simplest 

 psycho-physic formula, and the last word of a psychology 

 ivhich contents itself with verifable laws, and seeks only to 

 be clear, and to avoid unsafe hypotheses. Such a mere ad- 

 mission of the empirical parallelism will there appear the 

 wisest course. By keeping to it, our psychology will re- 

 main positivistic and non-metaphysical ; and although this 

 is certainly only a provisional halting-place, and things 

 must some day be more thoroughly thought out, we shall 

 abide there in this book, and just as we have rejected mind- 

 dust, we shall take no account of the soul. The spiritualis- 

 tic reader may nevertheless believe in the soul if he will ; 

 whilst the positivistic one who wishes to give a tinge of 

 mystery to the expression of his positivism can continue to 

 say that nature in her unfathomable designs has mixed us 

 of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things 

 hang indubitably together and determine each other's being, 

 but how or why, no mortal may ever know. 



