Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/197

Rh in some associated way, to manifest themselves elsewhere in manufacturing carpets, impelling railroad-trains, or printing newspapers as determined by the original construction of the machine which they have deserted? This question belongs as legitimately to science as the one discussed in the article previously referred to; for the scientist has no knowledge of mind apart from the brain which manifests it.

The same writer attempts a projection, upon the screen of thought, of "a great source of life and mind, the prototype of our physical sun," which may be supposed to hold the same relation to the world of human thought that the sun holds to our world of matter.

The relations of the sun's heat and light to the energies of our planet (including the forces manifested by the organisms developed from its crust and atmosphere) are correlations, in which the forces concerned are mutually convertible; moreover, the energies displayed by living bodies are of a higher order than are those of the sun (heat, light, etc.) through whose influence these living energies are developed.

Where, then, does such a simile lead? If the forces emanating from this great source of life and mind are convertible into human energies, then—according to the same law—human energies are convertible into those of the prototype. No new principle is introduced by such a conception, and, in order to make the figure good, the forces of the prototype must even be regarded as of a lower order than human energies.

The human brain presents the most complex and highly-organized form of matter known. Its relations and means of communication with the other less complex organs which make up the entire body are most subtilesubtle [sic] and intimate; through the organs of the special senses it is also brought into communication with an environment limited only by the range of vision, which is extended, by telescope and microscope, to the nebulosities which belong to immensity on the one hand, and to the obscurities of the infinitesimal on the other.

The energies displayed by this remarkable organ hold a rank among known forces comparable, in range and complexity, to its structural superiority over other forms and combinations of matter. These forces, so far as they come within the range of scientific observation, hold the same sort of relation to the material organism that the force called magnetism bears to the magnet, or heat to the body from which it emanates.

Beyond this relation. Science has no testimony to offer.