992 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 
demonstrably the physical eonsequents of physical antecedents. The chain 
of physical causation is complete in itself. 
There is yet another defect, as it seems to me, which ought to be pointed 
out in Mr. Frankland’s theory. It will not fit the case in which cerebral 
phenomena must be regarded as antecedents of mental; as in the instance 
of diseases and lesions of the brain, idiocy, and old age. If we suppose 
that, in the case of the voluntary exercise of intellectual power, mind may 
detect itself in action upon matter, it is equally true in the cases above 
suggested that the relation is reversed, and matter is found in action upon 
The causal nexus must be affirmed in all cases, or rejected in all. 
In any view of it, I prefer Mr. Frankland’s theory to the naked ma- 
terialism of Professor Huxley's essay on the “ Physical Basis of Life." It 
is better, I mean more philosophical, to regard the motions of a man's brain 
as physical effects of his mind or will, than to reverse the supposed order 
of causation, and affirm, with Huxley, that mind is * the expression of 
molecular changes" in the protoplasm of the cerebral cells. I reject both 
opinions ; but, in so doing, must not be thought to deny the obvious truth 
that the human mind is made manifest in and by a material organism. It 
is only through such an organism that we can communicate with each 
other. We need not seek, in the obscure, involuntary, and to us inexpres- 
sive, motions of the brain, for proofs of exact correspondence between the 
mind and the physical organism. In the face, voice, and eye of man, we 
have the familiar exponents of his intellect and soul. Cerebral anatomy, 
with its dark lantern, will never add a perceptible ray to the broad day- 
light of conviction in which we live upon this subject. As regards our 
undoubted command over these well-known indicia of thought and feeling, 
it is psychical, not physical; as I have already tried to explain in the case 
. of voluntary movement of the limbs. Behind (so to speak), and beyond, 
the innermost nerve-centres, sits the Will, apart from the material appa- 
ratus; and its mandates are transmitted, we know not how, we know not 
why, by ways inscrutable to science, never to be laid bare by scalpel or 
dissecting-needle, to the corporeal agents. It is in vain, as Professor Bain 
points out, that we ‘‘insist on some kind of local or space-relationship 
between the extended and unextended." ‘A certain mystery," he admits, 
** has attached to the union of mind and body." The mystery, thus spoken 
of in the past tense, remains a mystery, and I believe will ever do so. Our 
minds are manifested in material phenomena, but are not themselves the 
eauses of these phenomena; neither are they the effects; nor can any 
mental be identified with any physical event. 
... But, again, I must not be supposed to deny that mind, or, as I prefer to 
say, a mind, is the true ultimate cause alike of the human intellect and of 
