formed, they are pushed further from the centre of the brain where the soul resides. By this means they make a continuous chain of ideas coiled up in the brain, the first end of which is furthest removed from the centre or seat of the soul; and the other end is always at the centre, being the last idea formed, which is always the present moment when considered "; etc.1

"What thought so wild, what airy dream so light
That will not prompt the theorist to write!"

This is a fair specimen of the innumerable nonsensetheories which have been propounded as to the mechanism of the mind. Obviously such persons would be much more at home with a toothing-ring or a child's rattle than with the problems of Psychology. Hook's theory is no sillier than the theories of the physiological psychologists of the present day.2

Inscrutable nature of Memory.-So, as to Memory. An act of memory requires, we know, a remembering subjecti.e. an ego, and a past experience; but how the ego gathers up the past experience into the present mnemonic act, no one can give us even the slightest information. Unfortunately, again, a large number of men are are so wanting in perspicacity, or so dowered with rashness, as not to see this easily discerned truth; and they proceed to invent many hypotheses touching the causes of memory. There is the hypothesis that it is the result of permanent material impressions which have been made on the brain; another, that it is the result of permanent

1 v. Reid's Essays: Intellectual Powers, ii. 9. Hamilton's Reid, p. 276. 2 Take Mr. Clodd's theory:-"The psychologist may analyse and catalogue the operations of the mind, but the key to understanding them lies in the study of brain structure and function, of which the physiologist is master." The Story of Creation, p. 4. Mr. Clodd is continually drawing larger drafts, if possible, upon human credulity than the Church of Rome itself. Think of a physiologist discovering, say, the Ten Commandments in the convolutions of the brain!

dispositions in the nervous fibres to repeat the same oscillatory movement; another, that it is made up of particular organs which fulfil the different functions of memory; a fourth, that it springs from different parts of the brain as the repositories of the various classes of ideas; a fifth, that it springs from a particular fibre as the instrument of every sound notion.1 It seems to be obvious at a glance that such hypotheses are nothing more than depressing monuments of the weakness of their inventors of the weakness of men who have not known their own ignorance; for examine any one of them, and you can scarcely fail to see its fatuity. Assume permanent impressions on the brain" to account for memory, and you are as far as ever from explaining the mnemonic fact. It might as well be said that a memorandum is the cause of memory, or that a staff is the cause of one's perambulating powers; or that the possession of a spoon or a glass is the cause of eating and drinking. Or think of an "oscillatory fibrous movement" being dragged in to account for memory! As well bring in a grindstone. Indeed, such hypotheses should not be devised outside of lunatic institutions. If, as in the days of old, St. Fillan's Well "could the crazed brain restore," there should be a constant procession of speculators streaming towards it to drink of its miraculous waters. In another sphere of existence it is conceivable that we may be able to know a little more than we now know of the principles upon which the memory works. Here, we remain almost wholly ignorant of the nature of its operations, having no explicatory data to proceed upon, and knowing only, as an invincible fact, that we do indeed, or may, remember-as the case may be.

Inscrutable nature of the thinking faculty.-Or take the faculty of judgment. How are we to explain the mental act of comparison, of which we are all, more or 1 Hamilton: Lectures, vol. ii. p. 217.

less capable? What is the nature of the faculty which accomplishes the act? What is the substance of the faculty? What, its textural tissue? What, its structural plan? What is the textural tissue or nature of the thoughts, fancies, imaginations which it entertains, studies and compares? In face of such problems, what is the use of talking about "mental secretions," "mind-stuff" and so forth! Far better to have a plain and unpretentious talk about turnips. It is all Bedlam madness— worse than Bedlam madness; for we may speedily put the Bedlam man under restraint; whereas the Law,-that is to say, Human Law, cannot touch the more dangerous madman whose frenzy manifests itself in the decent apparel of science or philosophy. Behold then, the plain but inscrutable facts of the case. We actually know nothing of the substance of the comparative faculty: nothing of its organic structure; nothing of its textural tissue; nothing of the internal texture of the thoughts or imaginations upon which it works; nothing of the mechanism by which it accomplishes its work: nor are we the least likely, I fear, to know anything about them as long as our postal address is on this planet. At all events, the data of such a psychology are, at present, very far beyond our reach. Our psychology, it would appear, can take us no further back than the wondrous, but indubitable, facts of consciousness, wondrously combined and rooted in the human personality; and in respect of which matters, the man robed in academical costume knows nothing more than the college bottlewasher.

Inscrutable nature of the volitional faculty.-So, as to the faculty of volition. I "will" to do something within my power, e.g. to dip my pen into my ink-bottle. I do it. How is the thing done? How does the ego act upon what we may call the physical machine in which I live? Why should nerves, muscles, joints respond to the volition and

accomplish the act? We know absolutely nothing more about it than the fact that in normal circumstances, we can accomplish it. Further data are hopelessly beyond our reach. So with regard to all the great moral revelations set forth in our minds-the facts of moral consciousness. How they came there, we know not; how they operate, we know not; but there they are as facts, significant of Heaven, significant of not of Heaven. If our psychological speculators had but recognised and respected even this one plain truth, namely, that the nature of the mental processes is, in our present circumstances, quite inscrutable, they would have rendered themselves a little more venerable than they are.

As

7. Inscrutable nature of mind and matter generally.It is well to realise and confess the limitation of our knowledge. We are ever speaking of mind and matter: yet, as to their prime substance-what are they? Pascal says, "We are unable to conceive what is mind; we are unable to conceive what is matter; still less are we able to conceive how they are united: yet this is our proper nature.” 1 So, Hume:"Matter and spirit are at bottom equally known." 2 So, Sir William Hamilton :"In so far as matter is a name for something known, it means that which appears to us" (better, presents itself to us) "under the forms of extension, solidity, divisibility, figure, motion, roughness, smoothness, colour, heat, cold, etc.; in short it is a common name for a certain series, or aggregate, or complement, of appearances or phenomena "

1 Pensées, 3. 26.

2 Essays, vol. ii. p. 399. So Stewart,-"The circumstance which peculiarly characterises the inductive science of mind is that it professes to abstain from all speculation concerning its nature and essence, confining the attention entirely to phenomena." Life of Reid, p. 71. And Brown to the same effect. "It may always be safely presumed that he knows least of mind who thinks that he knows its substance best." Philosophy, vol. i. p. 193.

(better, facts and laws) "manifested in co-existence," 1 but of matter as a primal entity (materia prima), we know absolutely nothing. The same as to the mind. We only know it in its manifestations; we are wholly ignorant of the intellectual entity. The substance of Peter Smith's actual personality is as inscrutable to us all, inclusive of Peter himself, as the dog-star; and, as we have already seen, the disparate nature of mind and matter can only be inferred from the disparate character of their manifestations.

"Who can in memory, or wit, or will,

Or (i.e. either) air, or earth, or fire, or water find?
What alchemist can draw with all his skill

The quintessence of these out of the mind?" 2

No one: not even an alchemist; though whether spiritual or material, the facts are of the same importance. But whatever may be the actual materia prima of mind and matter respectively (a question as to which, I fear, we must be contented to remain intelligently ignorant), there can be no doubt that the characteristics and activities which they respectively manifest are wholly disparate. Thought magnificently transcends the little world of the corporeal senses. None of the properties of matter will apply to the operations of mind, and none of the

Lectures, vol. i. p. 137. It is the particular merit of the "Scottish School" to have observed these facts. "Whatever minor or major differences there may be in the fulness of their exposition, or in the favourite views which they individually prefer, all who are truly of the Scottish School agree in maintaining that there are laws, principles or powers in the mind anterior to any reflex observation of them, and acting independently of the philosopher's classification or explanation of them. It refuses to admit any philosophic maxims except such laws or principles as can be shown by self-inspection to be in the very constitution of the mind." M'Cosh: Scottish Philosophy, p. 7.

2 Sir John Davies: "Of the Soule of Man," Poetical Works, vol. i. pp. 39-40.

3 This is widely recognised; see, for example, Gibbon: Decline and Fall, vol. ii. p. 295. Mr. Clodd, however, knows all about it. "We began," says he, "with the primitive nebula, we end with the highest forms of con