12 DECEMBER 1874, Page 14

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—I would ask if the position of consciousness in the chain of cause and effect is not sufficiently settled by the test of concomi- tant variations (Mill's "Logic," bk. iii., ch. 8). We cannot so. separate the action of consciousness from that which causes or accompanies consciousness as to show indisputably by that means what is or is not the proper effect of each. Consciousness and the object of consciousness, for the most part, exist and must exist

simultaneously. • But when we remember that the intensity of results in number- less instances varies with the intensity of consciousness, and not with that of physical impression, we cannot hesitateto call con- sciousness a cause of such results. Are not memory and expecta=• tion merely modes of consciousness? Do they not as such produce physical results ?-1 am, Sir, &c., G. HUGHES.