having regard to _its_
effects in the world of mind, and this we cannot do except by having
regard to its qualitative character. Many a man, for instance, must have
consumed more than a thousand times the brain-substance and brain-energy
that Shelley expended over his 'Ode to a Skylark,' and yet as a result
have produced an utterly worthless poem. Now, in what way are we to
estimate the 'work done' in two such cases, except by looking to the
relative effects produced in the only region where they are produced,
viz. in the region of mind? Yet, when we do so estimate them, what
becomes of the evidence of equivalency between the physical causes and
the psychical effects?

Now if thus, whether or not we try to form an estimate, it is impossible
to show any semblance of equivalency between the supposed causes and the
alleged effects, how can any one be found to say that the evidence of
causation is here as valid as it is in any other case? The truth rather
is that the alleged effects stand out of every relation to the supposed
causes, with the exception only of being associated in time.

There still remains one other enormous difficulty in the way of the
theory of Materialism; it necessarily embodies the theory of _conscious
automatism_, and is therefore called upon to explain why consciousness
and thought have ever appeared upon the scene of things at all. That
this is the necessary position of Materialism is easily proved as
follows. We have already seen that Materialism would commit suicide by
supposing that energy could be transmuted into thought, for this would
amount to nothing short of supposing the destruction of energy as such;
and to suppose energy thus destructible would be to open wide the door
of spiritualism. Materialism, therefore, is logically bound to argue in
this way: We cannot conceive of a conscious idea, or mental change, as
in any way affecting the course of a cerebral reflex, or material
change; while, on the other hand, our knowledge of the conservation of
energy teaches us as an axiom that the cerebral changes must determine
each other in their sequence as in a continuous series. Nowhere can we
suppose the physical process to be interrupted or diverted by the
psychical process; and therefore we must conclude that thought and
volition really play no part whatever in determining action. Thoughts
and feelings are but indices which show in the mirror of the mind
certain changes that are proceeding in