Energy and Feeling . 
187 
1878O 
mere physical or material well-being ? Has not the ethical 
basis of the “ happiness of mankind ” been approved of by 
the highest scientific authorities as the best principle of 
moral aCtion ? Why, then, should mere physical energy 
aim at subjective results unless it can cause them ? 
But Science replies, “ The dodtrine of conservation of 
energy and the fundamental difference between energy and 
feeling exclude the intermixture or alternation of these two 
affedtions of matter.” If any theory involved the rejedtion 
of the dodtrine of conservation of energy, it would of course 
condemn itself, for nothing in Science is more satisfactorily 
established than that dodtrine. But this objection could 
not apply to a theory which described energy and feeling as 
alternate and mutually convertible affections of matter ; for 
if energy merged in feeling, and feeling in energy, no energy 
would be lost, and no new force imported into the realm of 
Nature. Spontaneous origination of energy or feeling would 
be both alike unknown. The objection that energy and 
feeling are fundamentally different is at first an apparent 
obstacle to the acceptance of a theory of alternation. But 
this objection is only valid if both aspects of matter are 
viewed from different standpoints, the one objectively, the 
other subjectively. View both from the same standpoint, 
and the difficulty vanishes. 
I, a part of matter, experience that alternation of feeling 
and action as if my actions proceeded from my feelings and 
my feelings from my being acted upon ; why may it not be so 
with every other part of matter, as well as that I call “me” ? 
To feel and to energise seem both to be very much akin, if 
we regard matter as a living substance, and exclude from it 
the old notion that it requires something immaterial to 
move it and something immaterial to feel its motion. But 
it is also objected that the moment a part of matter is 
moved by a neighbouring part, the former moves and feels 
simultaneously; that No. 2 movement is the true conse- 
quent of No. 1 movement ; and that feeling is merely 
concomitant in time, and never intervenes between move- 
ments 1 and 2. Now, is this objection sound ? Does not 
the swiftest known force take time for its passage ? If so, 
we have but to divide the whole time by the number of 
parts taking share in a vibration, when we have the mathe- 
matical equivalent in time which elapses between the re- 
ceiving and the discharging of an impulse by an elementary 
part, and we may still farther divide this time into the parts 
required for the duration of feeling and adting respectively 
by the elementary part. Now receiving energy takes 
