counted for by the mental antecedents. Between the two there is no interaction. But in that case, how account for their parallelism and co-existence? Neither accounts for the other, and we seem able to save knowledge only by a theory of preestablished harmony. We gain no relief by calling them opposite faces of the same thing, for then in logic we should make the opposite faces inseparable, so that mentality should be as universal as materiality; and even this expensive solution would not help us. For neither face, as face, explains or affects the other. The opposite faces still go along by themselves in mutual indifference. Nor would it avail to take the extreme positions of identifying the opposite faces, and say that all being is at once material and ideal according to our standpoint; for being, as thought, would be determined by the laws and norms of logic, while being, as material, would be determined by the laws of motion. The two views would not unite. If now we hold to physical continuity, we must either allow that the mental series is independent and has its cause and ground outside of the physical realm, or we must affirm that the mental series is merely a powerless attendant upon the physical processes, and is determined by them in every respect. Psychosis is merely the shadow of neurosis, and, like all shadows, is unsubstantial and powerless. The shadows come and go as the nervous states change, but they have no bond of connection among themselves. The bond which binds them is the nervous mechanism; but this bond appears among the shadows as a rational connection. This notion is admirably expressed in the following passages from Professor Huxley's lecture "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata: "

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body, simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modify ing that working as the steam whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes. * **

*

It is quite true that to the best of my judgment the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men, and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of any change in the moFOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXII.-29

tion of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism, and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of brain which is the immediate cause of that act.

Similarly Mr. Spencer, in the division entitled, "Special Synthesis," ("Principles of Pychology, vol. i,”) teaches that instinct, memory, reason, feeling, and will, are but subjective symbols of nervous processes, which processes go on by themselves. Reason is explained as follows:

For though when the confusion of a complex impression with some allied one causes a confusion among the nascent motor excitations, there is entailed a certain hesitation, and though this hesitation continues as long as those nascent motor excitations or ideas of the correlative actions go on superseding one another; yet, ultimately, some one set of motor excitations will prevail over the rest. As the groups of antagonistic tendencies aroused will scarcely ever be exactly balanced, the strongest group will at length pass into action, and as this sequence will usually be the one that has recurred oftenest in experience, the action will on the average of cases be the one best adapted to the circumstances. But an action thus produced is nothing else than a rational action.-Vol. i, p. 455.

On page 496 he describes volition in the same way as a conflict of nascent motor excitations ending at last in the victory of the strongest. It is not ideas as ideas which conflict, but ideas as nascent motor excitations, that is, as "nascent excitations of the nerves concerned." The premises do not determine the conclusion, and reason does not determiue the will; but underlying all is a mechanism of nervous states subject only to the laws of physical motion, whose resultant appears in consciousness as reasoning and volition. In the strictest sense of the phrase, the physical series goes along by itself without interference from the mental side. Doubtless many passages could be found in Mr. Spencer's works which conflict with this view, but a "mazy mingling of inconsistent views" is a prominent feature of his writings. We are sure that no competent and candid critic can interpret his system so far as it is a system, other than we have done. Neurosis is the independent fact, and psychosis is its unsubstantial shadow.

We have made this lengthy preamble for the sake of show

ing the relations of "advanced science" to materialism, and also to give an insight into a new species of fatalism. It is well that the laity in science and philosophy should know the grounds for charging advanced science with materialism, and also the grounds and meaning of the denial.

It follows immediately from the admission that mental states produce no physical changes, but only accompany them, that there is no warrant whatever for affirming consciousness in any beings but one's own self. It is a commonplace of psychology that the existence of conscious beings external to ourselves is only an inference based upon their action. All that we can see in connection with them is a series of physical changes, and since these are independent of consciousness, it follows that' they are no proofs of consciousness. They are indifferent to both its presence and its absence. Belief in other minds is a gigantic act of faith without any ground whatever. We seek in vain to help ourselves by appealing to our own experience, for if we have mastered our faith we see that even our own motions are no marks of consciousness, for they are in every case the outcome of nervous action without any interference from our purposes or volitions. Human history embraces at great series of physical changes. Homes and cities have been built; battles have been fought, and empires have arisen and decayed; commerce has covered the continents with its roads, and the sea with its fleets; and heroes and martyrs, too, have battled and died for truth and righteousness. We leave to the imagination to picture the manifold activities which center in the family and the fireside. And we have thought that in all this the human mind was manifesting itself, its loves and ambitions, its manifold purposes, and above all its power. But we are mistaken. There is no reason for believing that consciousness can produce any physical change, and hence all these things have gone on without any control from the mental side. Human history reduces to a vast product of automatism into which neither thought nor feeling has entered. A man leaving his house on a raw and gusty day puts on his hat and overcoat and takes an umbrella. The common and crude conception of the matter is that he takes these things because he foresees a need, and, foreseeing, makes provision. Nothing of the kind is true. The fact is that the environment and the nascent

motor excitations at the time were such, that a complicated set of physical changes was inaugurated which resulted in clapping the hat on the man's head, in drawing the overcoat on his back, in carrying him through the door, in raising the umbrella, and, finally, in marching off with him down the street. The entire affair, we may believe, was accompanied by the idea of the end, and by the purpose of securing it, but neither contributed any thing to the result. In truth, it is an act of pure faith to admit that they were present at all. Probably Mr. Spencer himself in uncritical moments yields to the fancy that in writing his system of philosophy his purposes and other mental states counted for something, but by his own showing he is mistaken. Considered psychically, Mr. Spencer is only an aggregate of mental states held together and produced by a certain nervous system; considered physically he is, for the looker on, a set of "nervous plexuses," which set is "the permanent internal nexus," for those mental states which constitute Mr. Spencer as a mental self. The truth is that the physical face of the unknowable, better known as matter and motion, had been passing "from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations and integrations," until at last particular sets of nervous plexuses in particular relations to the environment were organized. Divers waves of molecular motion along lines of least resistance coursed through the plexuses, resulting in the conflict of manifold nascent motor excitations, and the total outcome of the whole was that books were written, printed, read, criticised, accepted and rejected, yet without any intervention of thought whatever. Some features of the system are not inharmonious with this view, but in general it seems almost extravagant. Still it must be allowed that on Mr. Spencer's own system there is not the slightest reason for believing that he ever thought a thought, or even for believing that the series of mental states which composes his psychical self has any existence whatever. We accept Mr. Spencer only by faith. The physical face goes along by itself, and the physical face is all we can perceive. If mind were present, modifying and controlling the physical series to any extent, the case would be otherwise; but this hypothesis is sternly excluded as unscientific.

We can very vividly imagine that any Spencerian among our

readers has by this time lost all patience, and may well be in a high state of indignation at what he will call our unjust caricature; that is, the nervous plexuses and the nascent motor excitations are in that violent state of activity which appears subjectively as indignation. But we reply that our statements are no caricature, they are only an unfolding of the plainest implications of the doctrine. If the theory be true, these and many other equally startling propositions are true. Of course, we do not imagine that Mr. Spencer actually holds these views; neither sanity nor insanity could do that. But with Mr. Spencer's personal beliefs and inconsistencies the critic has nothing to do. The critic's function is to expound the nature and logical implications of an impersonal system, and he cannot but resent the charge that his exposition is an attack on the personal character of the author of the system he criticises. Further, he equally resents the attempt to make "indignant repudiation" and charges of caricature break the force of logic. A system stands or falls by its logic. The authors of systems may be as illogical as they choose, but a system is responsible for all that is contained in it, and if it cannot square with the facts it is doomed as a system. A strange illusion seems to have mastered our advanced scientists at this point. Having always made a strong point of logic, they suddenly begin to show contempt for it. Consistent reasoners are termed consequence-makers," and logical consequences are called "the scare-crows of fools." When this does not suffice, they next "indignantly repudiate" the conclusions drawn from their premises. It may be well to point out here that "consequence-making" is the universal and only method of testing theories. We used to have an emission theory of light, but some "consequence-makers" pointed out that the theory had certain "logical consequences" which facts did not recognize. That theory perished from "logical consequences." We had also an electro-chemical theory of chemical action, but the consequence-makers" got after that, and it, too, died of "logical consequences." Imagine the scorn of the scientific world if the defenders of these and other exploded theories had responded with the bravado that "logical consequences are the scare-crows of fools." But it has become a recognized part of the tactics of the advanced scientists, when the logical implica