e raising of
a new difficulty does not abolish--does not even lessen--the old one,
and the argument of the Lucretian remains untouched by anything 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: and which turns on the question: Do states
of consciousness enter as links into the chain of antecedence and
sequence, which give rise to bodily actions, and to other states of
consciousness; or are they merely by-products, which are not essential
to the physical processes going on in the brain? Speaking for myself,
it is certain that I have no power of imagining states of
consciousness, interposed between the molecules of the brain, and
influencing the transference of motion among the molecules. The
thought 'eludes all mental presentation;' and hence the logic seems
of iron strength which claims for the brain an automatic action,
uninfluenced by states of consciousness. But it is, I believe,
admitted by those who hold the automaton-theory, that states of
consciousness are produced by the marshalling of the molecules of the
brain: and this production of consciousness by molecular motion is to
me quite as inconceivable on mechanical principles as the production
of molecular motion by consciousness. If, therefore, I reject one
result, I must reject both. I, however, reject neither, and thus
stand in the presence of two Incomprehensibles, instead of one
Incomprehensible. While accepting fearlessly the facts of materialism
dwelt upon in these pages, I bow my head in the dust before that
mystery of mind, which has hitherto defied its own penetrative power,
and which may ultimately resolve itself into a demonstrable
impossibility of self-penetration.

But the secret is an open one--the practical monitions are plain
enough, which declare that on our dealings with matter depend our weal
and woe, physical and moral. The state of mind which rebels against
the recognition of the claims of 'materialism' is not unknown to me.
I can remember a time when I regarded my body as a weed, so much more
highly did I prize the conscious strength and pleasure derived from
moral and religious feeling--which, I may add, was mine without the
intervention of dogma. The error was not an ignoble one, but this did
not save it from the penalty attached to error. Saner knowledge
taught me that the body is no weed, and that treated as such it would
infallibly avenge its