Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/362

340 makes us go mad. Nor, on the other hand, can consciousness be mere concomitant of brain processes, for if we have here simply a case of increased current, why is not the rest of the brain roused, and if we have not a case of it, why are the ideas that are roused more vivid? That the dream current might occasionally be stronger than a waking one is possible, but that our dreams should usually seem more vivid than our every-day waking experiences, which is certainly the case, is to credit nature with a strange lack of economy in the running of our psychic affairs.

But there is a worse dilemma yet for the dualists. They stand confronted by this question: Why should consciousness be present as markedly both when we have reason to suspect the current to be strong, in times of passionate excitement, as when we have reason to believe it weak, in times of torpor? For of both these phenomena we have instances. In times of excitement, we strangely recall forgotten things; and so we do in times the opposite of excited. Extremes here emphatically meet.

But if consciousness be the effect of brain