226 Editors' Table. [March, 



Thus the force that applies light to the fuse is little comparable to 

 the explosion of the blast. The force required to raise the sluice 

 is small compared with that which runs the mill. Still less is 

 the relation of the force expended in planning a campaign to that 

 required in executing it ; or, of that used in directing a body of 

 laborers to that expended by the laborers themselves. This is 

 easily understood, but it is not so generally perceived by some of 

 the correlators, that a process of exactly the same kind takes 

 place in the mechanism of the acts which transpire within the 

 animal organism. The amount of the primitive force may be 

 very minute, for several releases may separate the thought from 

 the ultimate result. 



In the cases above mentioned the mind only serves as a release 

 to the muscles which act, before the latter in turn release still 

 mightier forces. But these facts do not permit the supposition 

 that the original conscious state is not an equivalent of forces 

 both antecedent and subsequent. For without the decomposition 

 of arterial blood and the oxygenation of tissue, consciousness 

 could not exist, and the beginning would not begin. 



A third self-evident proposition is this: Movements determined 

 by sensations cannot be compared to those which are not so de- 

 termined. The former move towards the locality of pleasure, and 

 away from the locality of pain. The latter move in the direct 

 ratio of the product of the masses, and in the inverse ratio of the 

 square of the distance. In the former case there is no equivalency 

 between the force of the originating stimulus and the resulting 

 act, and energy is generally gained in the process; in the second 

 case the correlation is exact, and if there be any difference be- 

 tween the energy of the cause and that of the effect, that which 

 has been dissipated by the way can be accounted for by proper 

 search. But the biologist has much to do with a large class of 

 designed movements, or acts, which are not performed in con- 

 sciousness, and it is these which are likely to produce a confusion 

 in the mind in regard to the relation between the movements o. 

 living and non-living masses. Thus a class of writers compare 

 the hunger of the lowest animals to the affinities of chemical sub- 

 stances, etc., a supposition clearly inadmissable on physical 

 grounds alone. The easiest solution of the problem lies in the 

 well known ease with which conscious acts become automatic 

 and unconscious, so soon as the structural lines which give direc- 

 tion to the force have become organized. Consciousness thus 

 appears as the creator of designed movements, and the resulting 



