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 mental and the physical has led to a new form of expressing the relationship, which is nearer the truth, without being, in my judgment, quite accurate. It is now often said the mind and the body act upon each other; that neither is allowed, so to speak, to pursue its course alone—there is a constant interference, a mutual influence between the two. This view is liable to the following objections:

1. In the first place, it assumes that we are entitled to speak of mind apart from body, and to affirm its powers and properties in that separate capacity. But of mind apart from body we have no direct experience, and absolutely no knowledge. The wind may act upon the sea, and the waves may react upon the wind; but the agents are known in separation—they are seen to exist apart before the shock of collision; but we are not permitted to see a mind acting apart from its material companion.

2. In the second place, we have every reason for believing that there is an unbroken material succession, side by side with all our mental processes. From the ingress of a sensation, to the outgoing responses in action, the mental succession is not for an instant dissevered from a physical succession. A new prospect bursts upon the view; there is a mental result of sensations, emotion, thought, terminating in outward displays of speech or gesture. Parallel to this mental