The break between physical motion and conscious sensation, if there really be one, is between the sentient atom and the physical molecule. And Prof. Ladd is therefore quite correct in insisting that:

"No relation exists between these two kinds of beings [soul and body] which can be represented as an interchange of physical energy, under the law of the conservation and correlation of such energy. This fact, however, affords no objection to our recognizing a true causal connection between the two, unless we are ready to insist upon the monstrous claim that modern physical science is entitled to affirm the impossibility of any interaction (or conditional action) taking place in the universe otherwise than between material atoms under the aforesaid law."†

*Loc. Cit., p. 661. †Loc. Cit., p. 663, et seq.

Yet the soul is not utterly unrelated to the body by the actual transmission of energy; for were this the case a physical response to the will would be impossible. There is a transmission of energy from the soul to the body, actual and real, but it does not consist in the ebbing and flowing of physical force. The soul may be said to use modes of etheric force, for its material base is composed necessarily of these inner and more potent states of matter. These forces the soul liberates in willing, with the result of etheric motion; and this, while not interchanging, is the cause of a corresponding molecular motion in the brain. It is thus true that each cycle of energy is unrelated in the way of the conservation or correlation of the energy of one in that of the other; for each completes its cycle in its own proper field of action, and no mode of force belonging to one plane passes over from that to another But each can none the less act upon the other; and, in the case of the soul, the terrible inter-etheric nature of the energy used may be seen in instances of the sudden death of the body from fright, anger or strong emotion. Physical force and soul, or will - force, touch each other's boundaries, but the very rebound keeps each acting in its own proper domain.

Yet this touch is actual, and sets up motion in the other; though, as correctly pointed out by Prof. Ladd, nothing physical passes from the one to the other. Nor does anything molecular pass when one moving billiard ball strikes another, yet the latter is none the less set in motion. In the same manner there is no portion of the manifested cosmos utterly unrelated to others. Effects may pass though causes do not.

The human nervous system is plainly a mechanism to relate entities thus acting under differing conditions and using dissimilar modes of force. It has its end-organs to receive impacts from without, or those from the material world; its system of nerve- wires to conduct, not the shocks, but certain effects of these entirely unlike them in essence, to the brain and minor ganglia; and, lastly, these ganglionic collections of gray matter, to receive and to send out counter-shocks or commotions to other appropriate end-organs, which cause motion in response to such stimuli. Yet in this, which seems so entirely mechanical, there has entered a factor which has hopelessly removed it from the domain of material physics, and which demonstrates that by means of the highly complex nervous organism the body has been related to the pole of spirit, or consciousness. Motion has been translated into terms of sensation-a thing unthinkable except as the act of a conscious entity. Motion can not become sensation; it can only be recognized as motion by a conscious entity, and conscious inferences or information deduced therefrom. A billiard ball may be made to strike another, and this still another; but no synthesizing power arises out of the original impact or resulting motion.

Nor could such power arise though force enough were used to keep the whole set caroming among each other for ages. Logic and reason absolutely require the presence of the conscious factor to take note of the molecular commotion caused by the physical impact, and to originate upon its own part new and appropriate molecular agitations in response, in the manner indicated.

There must be, then, a conscious entity moving both billiard balls and brain molecules, else neither could ever synthesize themselves into orderly sequences. That there are certain complex responses continually taking place, which are even absolutely necessary to our existence, without rising to our brain or mind consciousness, does not weaken, but rather strengthens, the argument for such an entity. For the greater the complexity of the mechanism, the greater the necessity for an intelligent, synthesizing center of consciousness to control this complexity. And, as evolution shows, these minor centers of activity are lower entities, in a universe which is but embodied consciousness of some degree, working their way upward in the scale of becoming, and aided very materially by this association with a superior directing and controlling energy.

The psychical experiences arising from physical energy acting upon the periphery of the body are too unlike that energy to be related directly thereto. There are many physiological processes necessary before the energy rises above the threshold of consciousness as a psychical experience. What these are physiology can not explain, and psychology is equally helpless. At the physical side they may be first simply dynamic, and then complex or chemical; at the psychic threshold, they must be the perceptions of a conscious, cognizing entity. In man alone this entity is self-conscious, but an entity of some degree is none the less present in every form of organic life as its synthesizer and organizer. That even in man the relation between this inner cognizer and the form through which it acts is intimate and mutually dependent, goes without saying. The immediate agent in this intimacy is undoubtedly the mechanism of the nervous system, the duty of which is to concatenate or synthesize the sense impressions arising out of the innumerable physical impacts upon the periphery of the body. But a mechanism requires a mechanic, and this is plainly the inner soul. There can be no equality between a mere mechanism, as such, and the intelligence which directs it.