Bs 
974 . On Catagenesis. [October, 
classify consciousness with heat, light, sound, &¢., does violence 
to my sense of fitness and to all proper definitions. This is well 
shown by Professor Clifford in the following passage: “It will 
be found excellent practice in the mental operations required by 
this doctrine, to imagine a train the forepart of which is an engine 
and three carriages linked with iron couplings, and the hind part 
three other catriagés linked with iron couplings; the bond be- 
tween the two parts being made out of the sentiments of amily 
subsisting between the stoker and the guard.”? This satire, 
whether intentionally or not on the part of its learned author, 
expresses at once the distinctive character of consciousness in esse 
and the impossibility of dissociating it from energy im posse. Pot 
it is sufficiently clear that while the conscious feelings of the 
Stoker and the guard could by themselves do nothing for the trait, 
stich a state is essential to the energy displayed by them when 
they are at work for its benefit. We all understand the absurdity 
of such expressions as the equivalency of force and matter, or 
the conversion of matter into force. They are not, however, 
more absurd than the corresponding proposition more frequently 
heard, that consciousness can be converted into energy, and k? 
versa, 
The energetic side of consciousness, however; may be readily 
perceived by a little attention to its operations. Acts performed 
in consciousness involve a greater expenditure of energy than the 
Same acts unconsciously performed. The difficulty of a given pon 
of labor is in direct proportion to its novelty ; that is, is 19 direct 
proportion to the amount of endeavor we use in its performance: 
This is another way of saying that the labor is directly as the 
consciousness involved. Another evidence of the dynamic char 
acter of consciousness is its exclusive and therefore complemen 
tary character. Two opposite emotions cannot occupy the mi 
at the same moment of time. An emotion excludes all high 1n- 
tellectual work, and.vice versa, 
But there is no fact with which we are more familiar than that 
consciousness in some way determines the direction of the a 
which it characterizes: The stimuli which affect the movements h 
animals at first only produce their results by transmission throug 
: ae ; edt 
the intermediation of consciousness. Without consciousness, €f i 
cation, habits, and designed movements, would be impossible: is 
* Scientific Basis of Morals, Humboldt Library Ed., p. 21. 
