ABSTRACT OF THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
9 
only to amount to saying that we cannot know all their relations, 
actions, and reactions, which may or may not be true. 
Now we know that matter exists by the sensations it produces 
in us, which is one of its relationships ; and we also know that its 
actions must differ relatively, as there are relative differences in 
these sensations. For instance, the sound in our ear may be said 
to be unlike the blow of the hammer on the anvil, yet in the same 
relation as those blows fall will be the sounds in our ears; as 
they are heavy or light, slow or quick, so will the sounds be 
in our ears. So that I think we may still say correctly that 
we are absolutely certain we heard the blows, although we 
certainly do not know all the relations, actions, and reactions 
set agoing by those blows. 
The argument for the materialist therefore lies something 
like this : It is not a good argument to say that the mind is 
not a quality of the body because it does not feel a bit like 
the body looks; as that is merely saying that it does not feel, 
when you are in it yourself, like it appears to the organs of sight 
when in another person, or like certain portions of the anatomy 
appear when dead. 
It seems to me that so far the materialist has the best of 
the argument, and that we shall have to shift the field of battle 
to the primordial cell from which all life comes ; for if it can 
be shown that of two cells originally precisely the same, as far as 
material qualities are concerned, one proceeds to become a Tomtit 
and the other a Turkey, it will go hard with the materialist 
to deny something within that cell beyond its material qualities. 
CONVERSAZIONE. 
(6th October, 1887.) 
An account of the proceedings will be found in the 
Report of the Secretaries. 
