1885. ] The Relations of Mind and Matter. 853 
how such pulsations, even if their continued local existence were 
possible,.are to be thus restrained and confined. They are capa- 
ble at intervals of flowing out upon the fibers of the motor 
nerves. What hinders them from immediately flowing out? By 
what power are they retained, so as to be let off at arbitrary and 
far separated intervals? And when once such vibratory energies 
are set free upon the motor nerves how can they still exist in the 
brain? Thought is persistent, yet on this theory it could only 
be persistent if it never produced any effect. Motion cannot be 
increased or diminished at will. It cannot be discharged and yet 
retained. It cannot become an outflowing radiation while still 
existing with undiminished vigor as an organizing agent. 
The problem of consciousness comes into the question here. 
If thought be a persistent motor affection of the nerve fibrils, and 
if consciousness is an accompaniment of all active thought, why 
then are we not steadily conscious of all our thoughts? Are we 
to look upon consciousness as a separate traveling agency, which 
moves irregularly from part to part of the brain, and adds a new 
increment of activity to every thought with which it momentarily 
combines? We can in no other way explain the vagaries of con- 
sciousness on the brain-mind hypothesis. 
Again, if the brain is the organ of the mind, one of two things 
must be true. Either every brain cell must contain a special por- 
tion of the mental energies, or, if the thought vibrations can 
make their way everywhere through the brain, every cell must be 
a miniature copy of the whole mind. The localization’ of the 
powers of the brain is an argument for the former. The close 
interrelation of thought seems to necessitate the latter. The 
dilemma of the brain-mind theorists has its two horns of diffi- 
culty, and it becomes incumbent upon them to harmonize these 
opposed conditions. Another difficulty connects itself with the 
preceding, This is, that the cerebral cells are not permanently 
in existence. Every action is attended by cell waste. The old 
cells die and new ones take their place.’ Or new ones arise by. 
the process of cell division. If the cells are reservoirs of special 
motor forces, what becomes of these? Are they transmitted 
hereditarily to the new cells? This can hardly be, since the 
death of the old cell is often a consequence of the transmission 
of its special energy to motor nerves. It cannot, therefore, trans- 
mit more than its general organizing energy to new cells, The 
