HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY. 



23 



But we agreed that it is true, so Professor Bain is wrong. As 

 Professor Tyndall truly says, "It is no explanation to say that 

 the objective and subjective e:ffects are two sides of one and the 

 same phenomenon. Why should the phenomenon have two 

 sides ? This is the very core of the difficulty. There are plenty 

 of molecular motions which do not exhibit this two-sidedness. 

 Does water think or feel when it forms into frost-ferns on a window- 

 pane ? If not, why should the molecular motion of the brain 

 be yoked to this mysterious companion — consciousness ? " 



The doctrine of materialism, namely automatism, claims for 

 " the growing province of matter and causation " that it will 

 carry " the concomitant gradual banishment from all the regions 

 of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity." 

 Leibnitz taught that the chain of physical causation is not 

 influenced by the human mind ; that the chain of mental causa- 

 tion is equally unaffected by matter : and that the two chains 

 are mutually independent although in correspondence — ^the 

 two parallel series are like two unconnected clocks so constructed 

 that when one points to the hour the other strikes it — but that 

 this harmony is one pre-established by the Creator. Thus 

 Malebranche, with his " We see all things in God," says : "It 

 is He who retains together the objective and subjective worlds, 

 which, in themselves, are separate and apart." The materialist 

 agrees in their separation but holds that whilst the material series 

 is independent the mental is dependent, and drops the notion of a 

 pre-established harmony. Man is a conscious automaton. 



Not so the Realist, at least so I venture to think. Brought 

 face to face with the hieroglyphical inscriptions of Egypt and 

 the cuneiform ones of Assyria the mind of man was long baffled 

 in its attempts to read their meaning, but succeeded. Matter 

 spoke to Mind. Here we have two substances face to face, matter 

 and spirit. The phenomena presented by the former are molecular 

 motions caused by the pressure of that pin, or by the etheric 

 vibrations caused by these lights, or the waves in the air caused by 

 my voice. The attributes of the latter are feeling,' ^villing, knowing. 



Consequently because of its nature it feels the vibrations and 

 knows the pain as it wills to do. Interference with the willing 

 (as by hypnotism) breaks the chain between feeling and knowing : 

 to put facts immaterial into language belonging to the material. 

 Granted that mind is of an independent substance possessing 

 these attributes, then to me the phenomenon known as telepathy is 

 simple to understand. For instance, my son and I on a winter's 



