“And never was,” returned Carmen promptly. “You see,” she went on, “if the brain was ever alive, it could never cease to be so. If it ever lived, it could never die. That brain never manifested real life. It manifested only a false sense of life. And that false sense died. Who or what says that the man who owned that brain is dead? Why, the human mind––human belief. It is the human mind, expressing its belief in death, and in a real opposite to life, or God. Don’t you see?”
“H’m!” The doctor regarded the girl queerly. She returned his look with a confident smile.
“You believe in evolution, don’t you?” she at length continued.
“Oh, surely,” he replied unhesitatingly. “There is overwhelming evidence of it.”
“Well, then, in the process of evolution, which was evolved first, the brain, or the mind which operates it and through it?” she asked.
“Why,” he replied meditatively, “it is quite likely that they evolved simultaneously, the brain being the mind’s organ of expression.”
“But don’t you see, Doctor, that you are now making the mind really come first? For that which expresses a thing is always secondary to the thing expressed.”
“Well, perhaps so,” he said. “At any rate, it is quite immaterial to a practical knowledge of how to meet the brain’s ills. I am a practical man, you know.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said simply. “Practical men are so stupid and ignorant.”
“Well, I declare!” he exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips and staring down at the smiling face.