61 
reality underlying them as their substratum ; but against such 
a notion the following passage seems to me conclusive. 
He has arrived at the point where he sums up the general 
results arrived at by the whole Science of Psychology, and he 
supposes an objector to say, Thus, then, we are brought face 
to face with unmistakable Materialism.^^ This objection he 
repels with all his power of plain, straightforward statement, 
and solid argument. He fairly ridicules the idea that Mind 
can be explained by material forces ; he says as plainly that 
it is not reducible into Motion ; and, after some further argu- 
ment, the object of which is to show that Mind and Matter 
are very far apart, he thus states the final result we reach 
concerning them : — 
See, then, our predicament. We can think of Matter only 
in terms of Mind. We can think of Mind only in terms of 
Matter. When we have pushed our explorations of the ‘first 
to the uttermost limit we are referred to the second for a final 
answer ; and when we have got the final answer of the second 
we are referred back to the first for an interpretation of it. 
We find the value of x in terms of y ; then we find the value 
of y in terms of Xj and so on we may continue for ever 
without coming nearer to a solution. The antithesis of sub- 
ject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness 
lasts, renders impossible all knowledge of that ultimate reality 
in which subject and object are united.^^* 
It seems to me that no honest interpretation can be given 
to this passage unless we hold it to state that Mind and 
Matter are both real existences, — are as far as the poles asunder, 
the link uniting them being unrepresentable in thought, — are 
all that we know of two unknown things represented by 
factors like x and y, neither of which can be expressed in 
terms of the other. 
The following passages are still more conclusive on the 
point: — Though accumulated observations and experiments 
have led us by a very indirect series of inferences to the 
belief that mind and nervous action are the subjective and 
objective faces of the same thing, we remain utterly incapable 
of seeing, and even of imagining, how the two are related. 
Mind still continues to us a something without any kinship to 
other things ; and from the Science which discovers by intro- 
spection the laws of this something, there is no passage by 
transitional steps to the Sciences which discover the laws of 
those other things.^^t 
Prmciples of Psychology^ vol. i. p. 627. t Ibid., p. 140, 
