454 PSYCUOLOGY. 



the advocate of the mechanical theory that it may be one, 

 so he must grant to us that it may not. And the result is 

 two coDceptions of possibility face to face with no facts 

 definitely enough known to stand as arbiter between them. 

 Under these circumstances, one can leave the question 

 open whilst waiting for light, or cme can do what most spec- 

 ulative minds do, that is, look to one's general philosophy 

 to incline the beam. The believers in mechanism do so 

 without hesitation, and they ought not to refuse a similar 

 privilege to the believers in a spiritual force. I count my- 

 self among the latter, but as my reasons are ethical they 

 are hardly suited for introduction into a psychological 

 work.* The last word of j^sychology here is ignorance, for 

 the ' forces ' engaged are certainly too delicate and numerous 

 to be followed in detail. Meanwhile, in view of the strange 

 arrogance with which the wildest materialistic speculations 

 persist in calling themselves ' science,' it is well to recall 

 just what the reasoning is, by which the effect-theory of 

 attention is confirmed. It is an argument from analogy, 

 drawn from rivers, reflex actions and other material phe- 

 nomena where no consciousness appears to exist at all, and 

 extended to cases wdiere consciousness seems the phenom- 

 enon's essential feature. The consciousness doesn't count, 

 these reasoners say; it doesn't exist for science, it is nil; 

 you mustn't think about it at all. The intensely reckless 

 character of all this needs no comment. It is making the me- 

 chanical theory true per fas aid nefas. For the sake of that 

 theory we make inductions from phenomena to others that 

 are startlingly ?mlike them ; and we assume that a compli- 

 cation which Nature has introduced (the presence of feeling 

 and of effort, namely) is not worthy of scientific recognition 

 at all. Such conduct may conceivably be urise, though I 

 doubt it ; but scientific, as contrasted with metaphysical, 

 it cannot seriously be called, t 



* More -will be said of the matter when we come to the chapter on the 



Will. 



f See. for a defence of the notion of iuward activity, Mr. James Ward's 

 searching articles in ' Mind,' xii. 45 and 564. 



