122 



a very close connection between mind and brain all allow : a 

 certain condition of one may be always accompanied by a cer- 

 tain condition of the other. Nay^ more : a particular state of 

 brain may condition a certain state of mind, or the reverse ; 

 but that is all we can acknowledge. How this conditioning 

 is accomplished we know not, any more than we know how 

 any one phenomenon conditions any other. All here is mystery, 

 and can only be referred to the will of Him who said, " Let 

 there be light ; and there was light/^ 



44. The theory would also give to matter a power denied both 

 to man and God. Man, we are told, cannot guide the forces of 

 nature; neither can God, and therefore prayer to Him is 

 asserted to be a folly ; but matter is perfectly competent for 

 the task. We need not stay to show that this is an inference 

 from the doctrine of which we have been speaking ; it is directly 

 asserted by Professor Huxley in his " Introduction to the 

 Classification of Animals.^^ ^^This particle of jelly,^^ he says, 

 ^^is capable of guiding physical forces,^^ so as to give rise to the 

 wondrous structures of the animal world. Jelly guides — oh, 

 wondrous jelly ! — that transcends the power of the highest intel- 

 lect ! We would, if we dared, ask him for an explanation ; but 

 as Dr. Beale well observes, " He speaks so authoritatively about 

 fact and law, that one scarcely dares to venture to beg for an 

 explanation of anything Mr. Huxley has affirmed.^^ In reply 

 to Professor Huxley^s assertion, I cannot do better than again 

 quote from the same well-known author, whose words on this 

 subject must have far more weight than mine: — ^^1. Living 

 matter is not jelly ; 3. Neither jelly nor matter is capable of 

 guiding or directing forces of any kind ; 3. The capacity of jelly 

 to guide forces, which Professor Huxley says is a/t«c/ofthe 

 profoundest significance to him, is not 2ifact at all, but merely 

 an assertion.^^* 



45. The strongest argument, however, against the theory is, 

 that it is directly opposed to every utterance of conscious- 

 ness. If consciousness assert one thing more definitely 

 than another, it is the existence of self ; it is that we are not 

 modes of motion, or of any force whatever ; that we are not feel- 

 ings, sensations, thoughts, but persons who feel, and think, and 

 will. This is felt by our opponents, and consequently Mr. Bray 

 does his best to dethrone the veracity of consciousness from its 

 regal position in the mind.f I need scarcely say he does not 

 succeed, and the very necessity of attempting to do it renders 

 his system ah initio false, and unworthy of refutation.^^ 



* " Protoplasm," by Lionel S. Beale, M.B., F.K.S., p. 72. 

 t " Force and its Correlates," p. 27. 



