Page:Mind and the Brain (1907).djvu/193

 number of material elements, in a change of their mutual distances or of their modes of grouping. Now, what can there be in common, I ask you, what analogy can you see, between this drawing together or moving apart of material masses in space, and the fact of having a feeling of joy, the recollection of an absent friend, the perception of a gas jet, a desire, or of an act of volition of any kind?” And further on: “All that we can say to connect two events so absolutely dissimilar is, that they take place at the same time. . . . This does not mean that we wish to reduce them to unity, or to join them together by the link of causality. . . it is impossible to conceive any real connection, any internal relation between these two unconnected things.”

Let us not hesitate to denounce as false this proposition which is presented to us as an axiom. On looking closely into it, we shall perceive that the principle of heterogeneity does not contain the consequences it is sought to ascribe to it. It seems to me it should be split up into two propositions of very unequal value: 1, the mind and body are heterogeneous; 2, by virtue of this heterogeneity it is not possible to understand any direct relation between the two.

Now, if the first proposition is absolutely correct, in the sense that consciousness and matter are heterogeneous, the second proposition seems to us