Abstract
LEIBNITZ once remarked that if we could imagine a human brain so magnified, without disturbing the relations of its parts, that we could move about in it as “in a mill,” and could learn and understand all the mechanism of brain-atoms, we should see merely atoms in motion and should learn nothing of the thoughts which correspond with these motions. Du Bois-Reymond, in an address on the limits of our knowledge of nature, expresses a similar thought. Imagining that we could acquire knowledge of the processes occurring in the brain similar to that which we possess of the heavenly bodies, he says:— “As regards the actual mental processes, it is evident that even with such an astronomical knowledge of the organ of thought (Seeles-organ) they would elude our comprehension, just as they do now. In possession of such knowledge, we should still stand before them as before something completely intangible. An astronomical knowledge of the brain, the highest we can ever attain to, reveals to us nothing but matter in motion. By no conceivable arrangement or motion of material particles can a bridge be constructed which will lead us into the region of consciousness.” Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie. By Wilhelm Ostwald. Pp. 457. (Veit and Co., 1902.)
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