'210 Transactions. — MisceUaneouS. 



Professor Wundt, the eminent German physiologist, and perhaps by others, 

 we may claim as much originality as any of the exponents of the doctrine, 

 and priority over most. 



I now tmni to some of the problems which are suggested by the general 

 theory of things we have been considering. 



First : In what relation does the doctrine of Omnisentiency or Mind- 

 Stuff stand to the various theories which have been propounded for 

 explaining, on the principles of rational mechanics, the phenomena of the 

 physical universe ? In what relation does it stand to the theories of atoms, 

 ether, ultramundane corpuscles, ring- vortices, and the hke ? Now, in the 

 first place, it does not either exclude or supersede them. There is nothing 

 in the doctrine of Mind- Stuff incompatible with any of these mechanical 

 theories. The theories in question are one and all of them statements of 

 quantitative relations among possibilities of feeling, and are not in any way 

 concerned with the noumenal realities on which these possibilities depend. 

 The universe of matter is a complex of possibilities of feelmg, and these 

 possibilities are found to stand in certain quantitative relations to one 

 another. These relations are of two orders, — relations of sequence and 

 relations of co-existence. The former are beheved to depend, without 

 exception, on causal relations — relations spoken of as the laws of nature; — 

 the latter are space-relations, and may be described as facts of structure. 

 All the mechanical theories I have alluded to, therefore, and indeed all 

 mechanical theories that can be framed, are affirmations either of mechanical 

 laws or facts of structure, or both. Setting out from the relations of 

 sequence and facts of structure which we observe to exist among the 

 possibilities of sensation which constitute the material world, the physical 

 investigator does one of two things. He either infers, by a complete induc- 

 tion, the existence of such and such causal relations, and then deduces 

 facts of structure which are not capable of being observed; or, he assumes 

 the existence of certain facts of structure, and perhaps also of certain 

 causal relations, and shows that by knoion causal relations these will lead 

 to the observed facts of structure. In the former case, his process is one 

 of scientific demonstration, in the latter he constructs a scientific hypothesis. 

 To the former category belongs the reasoning by which we infer that matter 

 consists of molecules (in other words, that its structure is discontinuous), and 

 that there is an ether ; to the latter, belong such hypotheses as those of ring- 

 vortices and ultra-mundane corpuscles. But now, observe, we are throughout 

 dealing with quantitative relations among abstract possibilities. The whole 

 of mechanical science deals with such relations. It is in no way concerned 

 with the inner qualitative natm-e of the real existences on which these 

 possibihties depend. These real existences are aggregations of Mind-Stuff. 



