displayed by Bishop Butler in rolling back a difficulty on his opponent; and they even imagine that it is the bishop's own argument that is there employed. Instructed by self-knowledge, they can hardly credit me with the wish to state both sides of the question at issue, and to show, by a logic stronger than Butler ever used, the overthrow which awaits any doctrine of materialism which is based upon the definitions of matter habitually received. But the raising of a new difficulty does not abolish—does not even lessen—the old one, and the argument of the Lucretian remains untouched by any thing the bishop has said or can say.
And here it may be permitted me to add a word to an important controversy now going on. In an article on "Physics and Metaphysics," published in the Saturday Review more than fourteen years ago, I ventured to state thus the relation between physics and consciousness: "The philosophy of the future will assuredly take more account than that of the past of the relation of thought and feeling to physical processes; and it may be that the qualities of Mind will be studied through the organism as we now study the character of Force through the affections of ordinary matter. We believe that every thought and every feeling has its definite mechanical correlative in the nervous system—that it is accompanied by a certain separation and remarshaling of the atoms of the brain.
"This latter process is purely physical; and were the faculties we now possess sufficiently strengthened, without the creation of any new faculty, it would doubtless be within the range of our augmented powers to infer from the molecular state of the brain the character of the thought acting upon it, and, conversely, to infer from the thought the exact corresponding molecular condition of the brain. We do not say—and this, as will be seen, is all-important—that the inference here referred to would be an a priori one. What we say is, that by observing, with the faculties we assume, the state of the brain, and the associated mental affections, both might be so tabulated side by side, that if one were given, a mere reference to the table would declare the other.
"Given the masses of the planets and their distances asunder, and we can infer the perturbations consequent on their mutual attractions. Given the nature of a disturbance in water, air, or ether, and from the physical properties of the medium we can infer how its particles will be affected. The mind runs along the line of thought which connects the phenomena, and, from beginning to end, finds no break in the chain. But, when we endeavor to pass by a similar process from the phenomena of physics to those of thought, we meet a problem which transcends any conceivable expansion of the powers we now possess. We may think over the subject again and again—it eludes all intellectual presentation—we stand, at length, face to face with the Incomprehensible."
The discussion above referred to turns on the question: Do states
