1 62 LUCK, OR CUNNING ? 



he proved from the side of mind by considerations 

 derivable from automatic and unconscious action where 

 mind gx hypothesi was not, but where action went on 

 as well or better without it than with it ; it would be 

 proved from the side of body by what they would 

 doubtless call the "most careful and exhaustive" 

 examination of the body itself by the aid of appliances 

 more ample than had ever before been within the 

 reach of man. 



This was all very well, but for its success one thing 

 was a sine qud non — I mean the dislodgment must 

 be thorough ; the key must be got clean of even the 

 smallest trace of blood, for unless this could be done 

 all the argument went to the profit not of the me- 

 chanism, with which, for some reason or other, they 

 were so much enamoured, but of the soul and design, 

 the ideas which of all others were most distasteful to 

 them. They shut their eyes to this for a long time, 

 but in the end appear to have seen that if they were 

 in search of an absolute living and absolute non-living, 

 the path along which they were travelling would never 

 lead them to it. They were driving life up into a 

 corner, but they were not eliminating it, and, moreover, 

 at the very moment of their thinking they had hedged 

 it in and could throw their salt upon it, it flew mock- 

 ingly over their heads and perched upon the place of 

 all others where they were most scandalised to see it 

 — I mean upon machines in use. So they retired 

 sulkily to their tents baffled but not ashamed. 



