Thus, then, from every point of view the circumstantial evidence against that theory is strong. _A priori_ analysis of both brain-action and conscious action shows us that if the latter were efficacious it would, by its selective emphasis, make amends for the indeterminateness of the former; whilst the study _a posteriori_ of the _distribution_ of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself. The conclusion that it is useful is, after all this, quite justifiable. But, if it is useful, it must be so through its causal efficaciousness, and the automaton-theory must succumb to the theory of common-sense. I, at any rate (pending metaphysical reconstructions not yet successfully achieved), shall have no hesitation in using the language of common-sense throughout this book. FOOTNOTES: [155] The Theory of Practice, vol. i, p. 416 ff. [156] The present writer recalls how in 1869, when still a medical student, he began to write an essay showing how almost every one who speculated about brain-processes illicitly interpolated into his account of them links derived from the entirely heterogeneous universe of Feeling. Spencer, Hodgson (in his Time and Space), Maudsley, Lockhart Clarke, Bain, Dr. S. Carpenter, and other authors were cited as having been guilty of the confusion. The writing was soon stopped because he perceived that the view which he was upholding against these authors was a pure conception, with no proofs to be adduced of its reality. Later it seemed to him that whatever _proofs_ existed really told in favor of their view. [157] Chas. Mercier: The Nervous System and the Mind (1888), p. 9. [158] _Op. cit._ p. 11. [159] See in particular the end of Chapter IX. CHAPTER VI. THE MIND-STUFF THEORY.