Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/563

Rh is practically worth more than all the arguments of all the logicians who have discussed the basis of our belief in it." And so, again, with regard to another point which more nearly touches our subject to-night—the fact that we have a Will which dominates over our actions; that we are not merely the slaves of automatic impulse which some philosophers would make us—"the decision of mankind" (as Archbishop Manning, applying my words, has most truly said), "derived from consciousness of the existence of our living self or personality, whereby we think, will, or act, is practically worth more than all the arguments of all the logicians who have discussed the basis of our belief in it."

Now, then, my two points are these: What is the nature of this process which evolves, as it were, this result unconsciously to ourselves, when we have been either asleep, as in the case of the banker, or, as in the other familiar case I have cited, when we have been giving our minds to some other train of thought in the interval? What is it that brings up spontaneously to our consciousness a fact which we endeavored to recall with all the force of our will, and yet could not succeed?

And then again: What is the nature of this common-sense, to which we defer so implicitly and immediately in all the ordinary judgments of our lives?

Now, in order that we may have a really scientific conception of the doctrine I would present to you, I must take you into an inquiry with regard to some of the simpler functions of our bodies, from which we shall rise to the simpler actions of our minds. You all know that the Brain, using the term in its general sense, is the organ of our Mind. That every one will admit. We shall not go into any of the disputed questions as to the relations of Mind and Matter; for the fact is, that these are now coming to take quite a new aspect, from Physical philosophers dwelling so much more upon Force than they do upon Matter, and on the relations of Mind and Force, which every one is coming to recognize. Thus, when we speak of nerve-force and mind as having a most intimate relation, no one is found to dispute it; whereas, when we talk about Brain and Mind having this intimate relation, and Mind being the function of the brain, there are a great many who will rise up against us and charge us with materialism, and atheism, and all the other deadly sins of that kind. I merely speak of the relation of the brain to the mind, as the instrument through which the mind operates and expresses itself. We all know that it is in virtue of the impressions carried to the brain, through the nerves proceeding from the different sensory organs in various parts of the body, that we become conscious of what is taking place around us. And, again, that it is through the nerves proceeding from the brain that we are able to execute those movements which the Will prompts and dictates, or which arise from the play of the Emotions. But I have first to speak of a set of lower centres, those which