arity of
his. It is characteristic of the whole school he belongs to; it is
inherent in our whole modern positivism--the whole of our exact and
enlightened thought. I merely choose Dr. Tyndall as my example, not
because there is more confusion in his mind than there is in that of his
fellow-physicists, but because he is, as it were, the _enfant terrible_
of his family, who publicly lets out the secrets which the others are
more careful to conceal.

But I have not done with this matter yet. We are here dealing with the
central problem of things, and we must not leave it till we have made it
as plain as possible. I will therefore re-state it in terms of another
metaphor. Let us compare the universal matter, with its infinity of
molecules, to a number of balls on a billiard-table, set in motion by
the violent stroke of a cue. The balls at once begin to strike each
other and rebound from the cushions at all angles and in all directions,
and assume with regard to each other positions of every kind. At last
six of them collide or cannon in a particular corner of the table, and
thus group themselves so as to form a human brain; and their various
changes thereafter, so long as the brain remains a brain, represent the
various changes attendant on a man's conscious life. Now in this life
let us take some moral crisis. Let us suppose the low desire to cling to
some pleasing or comforting superstition is contending with the heroic
desire to face the naked truth at all costs. The man in question is at
first about to yield to the low desire. For a time there is a painful
struggle in him. At last there is a sharp decisive pang; the heroic
desire is the conqueror, the superstition is cast away, and '_though
truth slay me_,' says the man, '_yet will I trust in it_.' Such is the
aspect of the question when approached from one side. But what is it
when approached from the other? The six billiard balls have simply
changed their places. When they corresponded to low desire, they formed,
let us say, an oval; when they corresponded to the heroic desire, they
formed, let us say, a circle. Now what is the cause and what the
conditions of this change? Clearly a certain impetus imparted to the
balls, and certain fixed laws under which that impetus operates. The
question is what laws and what impetus are these? Are they the same or
not the same, now the balls correspond to consciousness, as they were
before, when the balls did not correspond to it