UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
contradictory, as we postulate ourselves as still 
being witnesses of the existence of matter and en- 
ergy. Blot out life and mind, and, so far as we are 
concerned, there is nothing left. We cannot get rid 
of ourselves without turning the universe topsy- 
turvy, and even then we are on hand to bear witness 
that it is topsy-turvy. In my youth I once heard an 
old Methodist preacher say that we could not con- 
ceive of annihilation without thinking of our unan- 
nihilated selves as looking on. 
The modern, rigidly scientific mind, in consider- 
ing this question of life, gets right down to the 
ground and denies everything we call spirit, mind, 
soul, creative energy, and the like. Man is a ma- 
chine and only a machine, it says, run by the phys- 
icochemical forces. His brain is only a photochemi- 
eal mirror, his thoughts only molecular activities. 
Mind, or our mental states, is only a name for 
complex physicochemical processes in the brain- 
substance. But what is it that understands and 
names these processes? Can a_ physicochemical 
process write a poem, or paint a picture, or weigh 
the stars? 
Modern biophysics sees no more evidence of 
mind in living processes than in non-living. Intelli- 
gence is only a sequence of physical states caused 
by physical stimuli. The brain is no more creative 
than is the prism when it divides a ray of light into 
the component colors of the spectrum. The division 
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