121 



for example, transformed inta sound by the firing of a gun, it 

 enters my brain, performs a mathematical demonstration, passes 

 on, and is next heard of as the striking of a lucifer-match ! 

 Yet notwithstanding these assumptions whicli directly negative 

 personality, he argues strongly in favour of personality (p. 64) 

 against the sceptic who denies it. But it seems impossible to 

 hold at one and the same time this belief, and that of sensa- 

 tion, emotion, and thought being not the functions of a person, 

 but mere transitory modes of motion. 



42. But, if emotion be indeed a mode of motion, although the 

 modes vary, the amount must be always the same, especially when 

 the emotion can be re-transferred back into its original state. 

 That such is a fact may be assumed, but can never be proved 

 till some instrument be constructed capable of measuring the 

 velocity of thought. It has been done by Joule, as we have seen, 

 in reference to motion and heat ; but who shall do it in reference 

 to emotion and affection ? Apart, however, from measurement, 

 are we in tlie least justified in assuming that the amounts are 

 equal, speaking from Mr. Spencer's point of view ? He says, 

 " No idea or feehng arises save as the result of some physical 

 force expended in producing it.^' But take a case by which to 

 test this. Let us suppose that of a widowed mother hear- 

 ing of the death of her only son at sea. She looks at certain 

 black strokes on paper : the only physical force expended is the 

 slight wave motion that passes from the paper to her eye ; but 

 the mental emotion is something terrible — something that con- 

 vulses the whole frame, and whose effects are felt for years 

 afterwards. To speak of this great heart sorrow, that silvers 

 the hair and bows the head, as the mere change of a mode of 

 motion, is wholly futile. It, indeed, originates motion in the 

 brain and whole system, but is not itself originated by motion. 

 The same is seen still more clearly, if possible, as Dr. McCosh 

 points out, where no physical force is expended at all, as when 

 we begin to reflect on the actions of the past, and are, if they 

 have been wrong, scourged by the agonies of remorse, till, as 

 before, the whole frame quivers beneath the lash. 



43. Professor Parker, of Yale College, tells us, as proof of the 

 conversion of motion into mentation, that ^' experiments have 

 shown that ideas which affect the emotions produce most heat 

 in their reception ; "a few minutes' recitation to one's self of 

 emotional poetry producing more effect than several hours of 

 deep thought.'' But tliis does not prove his point : it only shows 

 that we are more affected by emotional poetry than by reflective 

 thought,- and consequently the mind acts more energetically on 

 the br^iin ; but, as before, the heat follows the emotion, and 

 does not precede it, as required by the theory. That there is 



VOL. VII. IT 



