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touched upon at the end of Mr. Howard’s paper : I refer to the supposed 
discussion between a Lucretian and Bishop Butler. The Bishop, it is well 
known, maintained what is called the theory of living agents,— that the body 
is but an instrument of the soul. The supposed Lucretian brings forward ob- 
jections to that view which are a characteristic specimen of Professor Tyndall’s 
reasoning. “ The true self,” he argues, “ has a local habitation in each of us, 
and therefore must possess a form.” Is this correct ? Has the true self a local 
habitation ? And even if it were localized, would it necessarily possess a 
form ? Then the Professor goes on, “ When a limb is amputated, the body 
is divided into two parts ; is the true self in both or in one ? You say, in 
the one which retains consciousness. What do you make of the case where 
the whole body loses consciousness ? Is the true self lost ?” Now Butler’s 
argument is this : “ Why should we suppose that the soul perishes when the 
body is destroyed ? We may lose large portions of matter without losing 
any portion of the soul ; legs or arms may be removed, but still the self 
remains intact ; why should we suppose the dissolution of all the body to be 
the destruction of the soul ! ” He lays down that where consciousness is, the 
self must be, but not, as Tyndall assumes, the converse, that where the self 
is there consciousness must be ; he does not endeavour to show that con- 
sciousness is necessary to the existence of the soul, but only that where con- 
sciousness is there the whole self is, and that there is none in the amputated 
limb. “ But,” says the Professor, ‘‘ you never mention the brain or nervous 
system. The brain cannot be removed without prejudice to the perceiving 
power.” What of that ? Butler's argument is that a portion of the body 
may be removed, and consciousness yet remain ; that is not touched by say- 
ing that there are parts which cannot be removed without loss of conscious- 
ness. The Professor proceeds to draw a distinction between the nervous 
system and the instruments of a telegraph operator. “ Destroy these,” he 
says, “ and you sever his connection with the w r orld, but the man still sur* 
vives, and knows that he survives. What is there that answers to this 
consciousness, when the battery of the brain is disturbed so as to produce in- 
sensibility, or destroyed altogether ? ” The illustration seems rather to tell 
on Butler’s side ; the Professor begs the whole question. What is there to 
prove that the man does not exist after the body is destroyed ? Can any one 
say he does not ? Butler himself might have used the illustration, had the 
electric telegraph been known in his day. The only evidence of the existence 
of the operator to the people to whom the message is sent is that they get 
it, and when the machine is broken they have no proof that the operator 
survives. Just so when the body is destroyed the evidence to the outside 
world of the man’s existence is at an end ; but. it does not follow that he 
ceases to exist. * There is much that is amusing in the way in which the 
Professor compliments himself through the medium of the two interlocutors; 
but I will only trouble you with a word or two on the -whole scope of his 
address. Its object is to show that philosophy has been all along working 
towards the point at which he imagines himself and all scientific people 
