Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/697

 *spheric undulations, which are the material correlative of sound passing into the brain by the auditory nerves, produced the sensation of hearing, which is true, but that this sensation in its turn produced those exertions of the limbs which result in my arrival at the window, which is erroneous. According to the view here adopted, the atmospheric undulations stand in a direct relation of causation to the affection of the auditory nerve, and this affection, in a direct relation of causation, to the resulting movements. The states of consciousness in like manner stand in a direct relation of simple sequence to each other; the sensation of sitting in a room being followed by that of hearing my name, this by the thought that there is some one outside calling me, this by the sensation of motion through space, and this last by that of seeing the person from whom the call emanated standing in the expected place. But at no point can the one train of events be converted into the other. And while the train of external sequences does influence the train of internal sequences, this latter has no corresponding influence upon the former. For this would imply that at some period in the succession physical movements lost themselves in consciousness; ceased to be physical movements, and became something of an alien nature. It would imply further that such movements originated de novo from something of an alien nature having no calculable or measurable relation to them. Either of which implications would constitute an exception to the Persistence of Force.

Man is, in short, as the adherents of this opinion have called him, a "conscious automaton." He does not will his own actions, nor do external manifestations, whether those of the unconscious or the conscious orders of existence, influence his will. But along with the set of objective facts there is always present a parallel set of subjective facts, and the subjective facts stand in an invariable relation to the objective facts. So that where the material circumstances, both those of the surrounding world and those of the body, are of a given character, the non-material circumstances, the state of mind, is also of a given and precisely corresponding character. Variations in the one imply variations in the other; feelings in the one change or remain fixed with changes or fixity in the other.