hesitation, or, perhaps, refuse to draw it at all.
It is not, however, the _kind of inference_ that makes the trouble; it
is the lack of detailed information that may serve as a basis for
inference. Our inference to other minds is unsatisfactory only in so
far as we are ignorant of our own minds and bodies and of other bodies.
Were our knowledge in these fields complete, we should know without
fail the signs of mind, and should know whether an inference were or
were not justified.

And _justified_ here means proved--proved in the only sense in which we
have a right to ask for proof. No single fact is known that can
discredit such a proof. Our doubt is, then, gratuitous and can be
dismissed. We may claim that we have _verification_ of the existence
of other minds. Such verification, however, must consist in showing
that, in any given instance, the signs of mind really are present. It
cannot consist in presenting minds for inspection as though they were
material things.

One more matter remains to be touched upon in this section. It has
doubtless been observed that Mill, in the extract given above, seems to
place "feelings," in other words, mental phenomena, between one set of
bodily motions and another. He makes them the middle link in a chain
whose first and third links are material. The parallelist cannot treat
mind in this way. He claims that to make mental phenomena effects or
causes of bodily motions is to make them material.

Must, then, the parallelist abandon the argument for other minds? Not
at all. The force of the argument lies in interpreting the phenomena
presented by other bodies as one knows by experience the phenomena of
one's own body must be interpreted. He who concludes that the relation
between his own mind and his own body can best be described as a
"parallelism," must judge that other men's minds are related to their
bodies in the same way. He must treat his neighbor as he treats
himself. The argument from analogy remains the same.

42. WHAT OTHER MINDS ARE THERE?--That other men have minds nobody
really doubts, as we have seen above. They resemble us so closely,
their actions are so analogous to our own, that, although we sometimes
give ourselves a good deal of trouble to ascertain what sort of minds
they have, we never think of asking ourselves whether they have minds.

Nor does it ever occur to the man who owns a dog, or who drives a
horse, to ask himself whether the creatur