Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/298

284 with comparative slowness along the nerves affected; and only when it reaches the brain have we the fact of consciousness. Those who think most profoundly on this subject hold that a chemical change, which, strictly interpreted, is atomic motion, is, in such a case, propagated along the nerve, and communicated to the brain. Again, on feeling the sting 1 flap the insect violently away. What has caused this motion of my hand? The command to remove the insect travels from the brain along the motor nerves to the proper muscles, and, their force being unlocked, they perform the work demanded of them. But what moved the nerve-molecules which unlocked the muscle? The sense of pain, it may be replied. But how can a sense of pain, or any other state of consciousness, make matter move? Not all the sense of pain or pleasure in the world could lift a stone or move a billiard-ball; why should it stir a molecule? Try to express the motion numerically in terms of the sensation, and the difficulty immediately appears. Hence the idea long ago entertained by philosophers, but lately brought into special prominence, that the physical processes are complete in themselves, and would go on just as they do if consciousness were not at all implicated. Consciousness, on this view, is a kind of by-product inexpressible in terms of force and motion, and unessential to the molecular changes going on in the brain.

Four years ago I wrote thus:

"Do states of consciousness enter as links into the chain of antecedence and sequence which gives rise to bodily actions? Speaking for myself, it is certain that I have no power of imagining such states interposed between the molecules of the brain, and influencing the transference of motion among the molecules. The thing 'eludes all mental presentation.' Hence an iron strength seems to belong to the logic which claims for the brain an automatic action uninfluenced by consciousness. But it is, I believe, admitted, by those who hold the automaton theory, that consciousness is, produced by the motion of the molecules of the brain; and this production of consciousness by molecular motion is to me quite as unpresentable to the mental vision as the production of molecular motion by consciousness. If I reject one result I must reject both. I, however, reject neither, and thus stand in the presence of two incomprehensibles instead of one incomprehensible."

Here I secede from the automaton theory, though maintained by friends who have all my esteem, and fall back upon the avowal which occurs with such wearisome iteration throughout the foregoing pages; namely, my own utter incapacity to grasp the problem.

This avowal is repeated with emphasis in the passage to which Prof. Virchow's translator draws attention. What, I there ask, is the causal connection between the objective and the subjective—between molecular motions and states of consciousness? My answer is: I do not see the connection, nor am I acquainted with anybody who does. It is no explanation to say that the objective and subjective are two sides of one and the same phenomenon. Why should the phenomenon