Mind and Motion and Monism Part 2

On the other hand, the theory of Spiritualism labours under certain speculative difficulties which appear to me overwhelming. The most formidable of these difficulties arises from the inevitable collision of the theory with the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy.

Whether or not we adopt the view that all causation of a physical kind is ultimately an expression of the fact that matter and energy are indestructible[3], it is equally certain that this indestructibility is a necessary condition to the occurrence of causation as natural.

Therefore, if the mind of man is capable of breaking in as an independent cause upon the otherwise uniform system of natural causation, the only way in which it could do so would be by either destroying or creating certain _quanta_ of either matter or energy or both. But to suppose the mind capable of doing any of these things would be to suppose that the mind is a cause in some other sense than a physical or a natural cause; it would be to suppose that the mind is a super-natural cause, or, more plainly, that all mental activity, so far as it is an efficient cause of bodily movement, is of the nature of a miracle.

This conclusion, which appears to me unavoidably implicated in the spiritualistic hypothesis, is not merely improbable _per se_, but admits of being shown virtually impossible if we proceed to consider the consequences to which it necessarily leads. A sportsman, for example, pulls the trigger of a gun, thereby initiating a long train of physical causes, which we may take up at the point where the powder is discharged, the shot propelled, and the bird dropped. Here the man's volition is supposed to have broken in upon the otherwise continuous stream of physical causes--first by modifying the molecular movements of his brain, so as to produce the particular co-ordination of neuro-muscular movement required to take accurate aim and to fire at the right moment; next by converting a quant.i.ty of gunpowder into gas, propelling a quant.i.ty of lead through the air; and finally, by killing a bird. Now, without tracing the matter further than this, let us consider how enormous a change the will of the man has introduced, even by so trivial an exercise of its activity. No doubt the first change in the material world was exceedingly slight: the molecular movement in the cortex of his brain was probably not more than might be dynamically represented by some small fraction of a foot-pound. But so intricate is the _nexus_ of physical causality throughout the whole domain of Nature, that the intervention of even so minute a disturbance _ab extra_ is obviously bound to continue to a.s.sert an influence of ever-widening extent as well as of everlasting duration. The heat generated by the explosion of the powder, the changed disposition of the shot, the death of the bird--leading to innumerable physical changes as to stoppage of many mechanical processes previously going on in the bird's body, loss of animal heat, &c., and also to innumerable vital changes, leading to a stoppage of all the mechanical changes which the bird would have helped to condition had it lived to die some other death, to propagate its kind, and thus indirectly condition an incalculable number of future changes that would have been brought about by the ever increasing number of its descendants--these and an indefinite number of other physical changes must all be held to have followed as a direct consequence of the man's volition thus suddenly breaking in as an independent cause upon the otherwise uniform course of Nature. Now, I say that, apart from some system of pre-established harmony, it appears simply inconceivable that the order of Nature could be maintained at all, if it were thus liable to be interfered with at any moment in any number of points. And if the spiritualist takes refuge in the further hypothesis of a pre-established harmony between acts of human (not to add brute) volition and causes of a natural kind, we have only to observe that he thus lands himself in a speculative position which is practically identical with that occupied by the materialist. For the only difference between the two positions then is that the necessity which the materialist takes to be imposed on human volition by the system of natural causation, is now taken by the spiritualist to be equally imposed by a super-natural volition. The necessity which binds the human volition must be equally rigid in either case; and therefore it can make no practical difference whether the source of it be regarded as natural or super-natural, material or mental: so that a man be fated to will only in certain ways--and this with all the rigour which belongs to causation as physical--it is scarcely worth while to dispute whether the predestination is of G.o.d or of Nature. There can be no question, however, that in this matter the possibility which I have supposed to be suggested by the spiritualist is more far-fetched than that which obviously lies to the hand of the materialist; and, moreover, that it too plainly wears the appearance of a desperate device to save a hollow theory.

It remains to add that this great difficulty against the spiritualistic theory has been revealed in all its force only during the present generation. Since the days of fetishism, indeed, the difficulty has always been an increasing one--growing with the growth of the perception of uniformity on the one hand, and of mechanical as distinguished from volitional agency on the other. But it was not until the correlation of all the physical forces had been proved by actual experiment, and the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy became as a consequence firmly established, that the difficulty in question a.s.sumed the importance of a logical barrier to the theory of mental changes acting as efficient causes of material changes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: In the opinion of some modern writers the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy are alone sufficient to explain all the facts of natural causation. 'For,' it is urged, 'if in any case similar antecedents did not determine similar consequents, on one or other of these occasions some _quantum_ of force, or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared--or, which is the same thing, the law of causation cannot have been constant.' In a future chapter I shall have to recur to this view. Meanwhile I have only to observe that whether or not the law of causation is nothing more than a re-statement of the fact that matter and energy are indestructible, it is equally true that this fact is at least a necessary _condition_ to the operation of that law.]

CHAPTER II.

MATERIALISM.

This is the theory which presents great fascination to the student of physical science. By laborious investigation physiology has established the fact beyond the reach of rational dispute, that there is a constant relation of concomitancy between cerebral action and thought. Within experience mind is found in constant and definite a.s.sociation with that highly complex and peculiar disposition of matter called a living brain.

The size and elaboration of this peculiar structure throughout the animal kingdom stand in conspicuous proportion to the degree of intelligence displayed; while the impairment of this structure, whether by congenital defect, mutilation, anaemia, decay, or appropriate poison, entails corresponding impairment of mental processes. Thus much being established, no reasonable man can hesitate in believing the relation between neurosis and psychosis to be a constant and concomitant relation, so that the step between this, and regarding it as a causal relation, seems indeed a small one. For, in all matters of physical inquiry, whenever we have proved a constant relation of concomitancy in a sequence _A B_, we call _A_ the cause of _B_; and, therefore, it has been frequently said that the evidence of causation between neurosis and psychosis is recognized causation. Lastly, to fortify this hypothesis, materialists point to the doctrine of the conservation of energy, which is supplied by the science of physics as a sort of b.u.t.tress in this matter to the teachings of physiology. For, as this doctrine compels us to believe that the chain of physical causation involved in cerebral processes can nowhere be broken or deflected _ab extra_, we are compelled to believe that the mental processes, which are correlatively a.s.sociated with these cerebral processes, can nowhere escape from 'the charmed circle of the forces,' so that whether we look to the detailed teachings of physiology, or to the more general teachings of physics, we alike perceive that natural science appears to leave no locus for mind other than as a something which is in some way a result of motion.

The position of Materialism being thus at first sight so naturally strong, and having been in recent years so fortified by the labours of physiology, it is not surprising that in the present generation Materialism should be in the ascendant. It is the simple truth, as a learned and temperate author, speaking from the side of theology, has recently said, that

'Materialism is a danger to which individuals and societies will always be more or less exposed. The present generation, however, and especially the generation which is growing up, will obviously be very especially exposed to it; as much so, perhaps, as any generation in the history of the world. Within the last thirty years the great wave of spiritualistic or idealistic thought ...

has been receding and decreasing; and another, which is in the main driven by materialistic forces, has been gradually rising behind, vast and threatening. It is but its crest that we at present see; it is but a certain vague shaking produced by it that we at present feel; but we shall probably soon enough fail not both to see and feel it fully and distinctly[4].'

Such being the present importance of Materialism, I shall devote the present chapter to a consideration of this theory. Each of the points in the argument for Materialism which I have mentioned above admits, of course, of elaboration; but I think that their enumeration contains all that is essential to the theory in question. It now devolves upon us to inquire whether this theory is adequate to meet the facts.

And here I may as well at once give it as my own opinion that, of however much service the theory of Materialism may be, up to a certain point, it can never be accepted by any competent mind as a final explanation of the facts with which it has to deal. Unquestionable as its use may be as a fundamental hypothesis in physiology and medicine, it is wholly inadequate as a hypothesis in philosophy. That is to say, so long as there is a constant relation of concomitancy found by experience to obtain between neural processes and mental processes, so long no harm can accrue to physical science by a.s.suming, for its own purposes, that this relation is a causal one. But as soon as the question concerning the validity of this a.s.sumption is raised into the region of philosophy, it receives the answer that the a.s.sumption cannot be allowed to pa.s.s. For where the question becomes one not as to the _fact_ of the a.s.sociation but as to its _nature_, philosophy, which must have regard to the facts of mind no less than to those of matter, must p.r.o.nounce that the hypothesis is untenable; for the hypothesis of this a.s.sociation being one of causality acting from neurosis to psychosis, cannot be accepted without doing violence, not merely to our faculty of reason, but to our very idea of causation itself.

A very small amount of thinking is enough to show that what I call my knowledge of the external world, is merely a knowledge of my own mental modifications. A step further and I find that my idea of causation as a principle in the external world is derived from my knowledge of this principle in the internal world. For I find that my idea of force and energy in the external world is a mere projection of the idea which I have of effort within the region of my own consciousness; and therefore my only idea of causation is that which is originally derived from the experience which I have of this principle as obtaining among my own mental modifications.

If once we see plainly that the idea of causation is derived from within, and that what we call the evidence of physical causation is really the evidence of mental modifications following one another in a definite sequence, we shall then clearly see, not merely that we have no evidence, but that we _can have_ no evidence of causation as proceeding from object to subject. However cogent the evidence may appear at first sight to be, it is found to vanish like a cloud as soon as it is exposed to the light of adequate contemplation. In the very act of thinking the evidence, we are virtually denying its possibility as evidence; for as evidence it appeals only to the mind, and since the mind can only know its own sequences, the evidence must be presenting to the mind an account of its own modifications; from the mere fact, therefore, of its being accepted as thinkable, the evidence is proved to be illusory.

To uneducated men it appears an indisputable fact of 'common sense' that the colour of a flower exists as perceived in the flower, apart from any relation to the percipient mind. A physiologist has gone further into the thicket of things, and finds that the way is not so simple as this.

He regards the quality of colour as necessarily related to the faculty of visual perception; does not suppose that the colour exists _as such_ in the flower, but thinks of the something there as a certain order of vibrations which, when brought into relation with consciousness through the medium of certain nerves, gives rise to the perception experienced; and in order to account for the translation into visual feeling of an event so unlike that feeling as is the process taking place in the flower, physiologists have recourse to an elaborate theory, such as that of Helmholtz or Hering. In other words, physiologists here fully recognize that colour, or any other thing perceived, only exists _as perceived_ in virtue of a subjective element blending with an objective; the thing _as perceived_ is recognized as having no existence apart from its relation to a percipient mind. Now, although physiologists are at one with the philosophers thus far, it is to be feared that very frequently they are in the same position as the above-mentioned 'uneducated men,' when it becomes needful to press still further into the thicket. For after having distinguished the necessity of recognizing a mind-element in any possible theory of perception, they forthwith proceed to disregard this element when pa.s.sing from the ground of perception to that of thought. Although the ideas of matter, motion, causation, and so on, are themselves as much the offspring of a thinking mind, with its environment, as the perception of colour is a conceiving of the percipient mind, with _its_ environment, these ideas are inconsistently supposed to stand for equivalent realities of the external world--to truly represent things that are virtually independent of any necessary relation to mind. Or, as the case has recently been well put by Princ.i.p.al Caird:

'You cannot get mind as an ultimate product of matter, for in the very attempt to do so you have already begun with mind. The easiest step of any such inquiry involves categories of thought, and it is in terms of thought that the very problem you are investigating can be so much as stated. You cannot start in your investigations with a bare, self-identical, objective fact, stripped of every ideal element or contribution from thought. The least and lowest part of outward observation is not an independent ent.i.ty--fact _minus_ mind, and out of which mind may, somewhere or other, be seen to emerge; but it is fact or object as it appears to an observing mind, in the medium of thought, having mind or thought as an inseparable factor of it. Whether there be such a thing as an absolute world outside of thought, whether there be such things as matter and material atoms existing in themselves before any mind begins to perceive or think about them, is not the question before us. If it were possible to conceive of such atoms, at any rate you, before you begin to make anything of them, must think them; and you can never, by thinking about atoms, prove that there is no such thing as thought other than as an ultimate product of atoms. Before you could reach thought or mind as a last result you must needs eliminate from it the data of the problem with which you start, and that you can never do, any more than you can stand on your own shoulders or outstrip your own shadow.... In one word, to const.i.tute the reality of the outward world--to make possible the minimum of knowledge, nay, the very existence for us of molecules and atoms--you must needs presuppose that thought or thinking self, which some would persuade us is to be educed or evolved from them.... To make thought a function of matter is thus, simply, to make thought a function of itself[5].'

From this reasoning there can be no escape; and it is more rational for a man to believe that colour exists as such in a flower than, after having plainly seen that such cannot be the case, forthwith to disregard the teaching of this a.n.a.logy, and to imagine that any apparent evidence of mind as a result of matter or motion can possibly be entertained as real evidence.

Remembering, then, that from the nature of this particular case it is as impossible for mind to prove its own causation as it is for water to rise above its source, it may still be well, for the sake of further argument, to sink this general consideration, and to regard such spurious evidence of causation as is presented by Materialism, without prejudice arising from its being _prima facie_ inadmissible.

Materialists, as already observed, are fond of saying that the evidence of causation from neurosis to psychosis is as good as such evidence can be proved to be in any other case. Now, quite apart from the general considerations just adduced to show that from the peculiar nature of this case there can here be no such evidence at all--quite apart from this, and treating the problem on the lower ground of the supposed a.n.a.logy, it may be clearly shown that the statement is untrue. For a little thought will show that in point of fact the only resemblance between this supposed case of causation and all other cases of recognized causation, consists in the invariability of the correlation between cerebral processes and mental processes; in all other points the a.n.a.logy fails. For in all cases of recognized causation there is a perceived _connexion_ between the cause and the effect; the antecedents are physical, and the consequents are physical. But in the case before us there is no perceived, or even conceivable, connexion between the cause and the effect; for the causes are supposed to be physical and the effects mental. And the ant.i.thesis thus posited is alone sufficient to separate _toto coelo_ the case of causation supposed from that of all cases of causation recognized. From the singularly clear and well-balanced statement of this subject given by Professor Allman in his Presidential Address before the British a.s.sociation, I may here fitly quote the following:--

'If we could see any a.n.a.logy between thought and any one of the admitted phenomena of matter, we should be justified in the first of these conclusions (i. e. that of Materialism) as the simplest, and as affording a hypothesis most in accordance with the comprehensiveness of natural laws; but between thought and the physical phenomena of matter there is not only no a.n.a.logy, but no conceivable a.n.a.logy; and the obvious and continuous path which we have hitherto followed up in our reasonings from the phenomena of lifeless matter through those of living matter here comes suddenly to an end. The chasm between unconscious life and thought is deep and impa.s.sable, and no transitional phenomena can be found by which, as by a bridge, we may span it over[6].'

And, not unduly to multiply quotations, I shall only adduce one more from another of the few eminent men of science who have seen their way clearly in this matter, and have expressed what they have seen in language as clear as their vision. Professor Tyndall writes:--

'The pa.s.sage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pa.s.s, by a process of reasoning, from the one phenomenon to the other. They appear together but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electrical discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem. How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?

The chasm between the two cla.s.ses of phenomena would still remain intellectually impa.s.sable[7].'

Next, in all cases of recognized causation there is a perceived _equivalency_ between cause and effect, such equivalency belonging to the very essence of that in which we conceive causation to consist. But as between matter and motion on the one side, and feeling and thought on the other, there can be no such equivalency conceivable. That no such equivalency is conceivable may be rendered apparent on grounds of Materialism itself. For Materialism is bound to accept the fundamental doctrine of modern physics--that, viz. as to the conservation of energy--and therefore it becomes evident that unless we a.s.similate thought with energy, there is no possibility of a causal relation, or a relation of equivalency, as obtaining between the one and the other.

For however little we may know about brain-dynamics, materialists, at least, must take it for granted that in every process of cerebration the matter and force concerned are indestructible quant.i.ties, and therefore that all their possible equations are fully satisfied, could we but follow them out. Howsoever complex we may suppose the flux and reflux of forces to be within the structure of a living brain, it is no more possible for any one of the forces concerned to escape from brain to mind, than it would be for such an escape to occur in a steam-engine or a watch; the doctrine of the conservation of energy forms an insuperable bar to the supposition that any equation in the region of physics can be left unsatisfied, in order to pa.s.s over and satisfy some other equation in the region of psychics.

Of course in saying this I am aware that some of the more clear-sighted of the materialists have plainly perceived this difficulty in all its magnitude, and so have felt that unless it can be met, any theory of Materialism must necessarily contain a radical contradiction of principles. Some few materialists have therefore sought to meet the difficulty in the only way it can be met, viz. by boldly a.s.serting the possibility of thought and energy being trans.m.u.table. On this view thought becomes a mode of motion, and takes its rank among the forces as identical in nature with heat, light, electricity, and the rest. But this view is also inherently impossible. For suppose, as a matter of argument, that physiologists should discover a mechanical equivalent of thought, so that we might estimate the value of a calculation in thermal units, or the 'labour of love' in foot-pounds: still we should not be out of our difficulties; we should only have to cut a twist of flax to find a lock of iron. For by thus a.s.similating thought with energy, we should in no wise have explained the fundamental ant.i.thesis between subject and object. The fact would remain, if possible, more unaccountable than ever, that mind should present absolutely no point of real a.n.a.logy with motion. Involved with the essential idea of motion is the idea of extension; suppress the latter and the former must necessarily vanish, for motion only means transition in s.p.a.ce of something itself extended. But thought, as far as we can possibly know it, is known and distinguished by the very peculiarity of not having extension. Therefore, even if we were to find a mechanical equivalent of thought, thought would still not be proved a mode of motion. On the contrary, what would be proved would be that, in becoming transformed into thought, energy had ceased to be energy; in pa.s.sing out of its relation to s.p.a.ce it would cease to exist as energy, and if it again pa.s.sed into that relation it would only be by starting _de novo_ on a new course of history. Therefore the proof that thought has a mechanical equivalent would simply amount to the proof, not that thought _is_ energy, but that thought _destroys_ energy. And if Materialism were to prove this, Materialism would commit suicide. For if once it were proved that the relation of energy to thought is such that thought is able to absorb or temporarily to annihilate energy, the whole argument of Materialism would be inverted, and whatever evidence there is of causation as between mind and matter would become available in all its force on the side of Spiritualism. This seems plain, for if it even were conceivable--which most distinctly it is not--that a motor could ever become a motive, and so pa.s.s from the sphere of dynamics into the sphere of consciousness, the fact would go to prove, not that the motor was the cause of the motive, but rather that the motive was the cause of destroying the motor; so that at that point the otherwise unbroken chain of physical sequences was interrupted by the motive striking in upon it, and in virtue of the mysterious power supposed to have been proved by physiology, cancelling the motor, so allowing the nerve-centre to act as determined by the motive.

Of course I wish it to be understood that I believe we are here dealing with what I may call, in perhaps suitably contradictory terms, inconceivable conceptions. But let it be remembered that I am not responsible for this ambiguity; I am only showing what must be the necessary outcome of a.n.a.lysis if we begin by endeavouring phenomenally to unite the most ant.i.thetical of elements--mind and motion.

Materialism, at least, will not be the gainer should it ever be proved that in the complex operations of the brain a unique exception occurs to the otherwise universal law of the conservation of energy in s.p.a.ce.

We may, therefore, quit the suggestion that the difficulty experienced by Materialism of showing an equivalency between neurosis and psychosis can ever be met by a.s.suming that some day mental processes may admit of being expressed in terms of physical. But before leaving this difficulty with regard to equivalency, I may mention one other point that seems to me of importance in connexion with it. I have already said that if we suppose causation to proceed from brain to mind, we must suppose this essential requirement of equivalency between the cerebral causes and the mental effects to be satisfied somewhere.

But where are we to say that it is satisfied? Even if we suppose that thought has a mechanical equivalent, and that causation proceeds in the direction from energy to thought, still, when we have regard to the supposed effects, we find that even yet they bear no kind of equivalency to their supposed causes. The brain of a Shakespeare probably did not, as a system, exhibit so much energy as does the brain of an elephant; and the cerebral operations of a Darwin may not have had a very perceptibly larger mechanical equivalent than those of a banker's clerk.

Yet in the world of thought the difference between our estimate of the results, or 'work done,' in these cases is such as to drive all ideas of equivalency to the winds. Doubtless, a materialist will answer that it is not fair to take our estimate of 'work done' in the world of mind as the real equivalent of the energy supposed to have pa.s.sed over from the world of motion, seeing that our estimate is based, not on the quant.i.tative amount of thought produced, but rather on its qualitative character with reference to the social requirements of the race. But to this it is enough to answer that we have no means of gauging the quant.i.ty of thought produced other than by having regard to _its_ effects in the world of mind, and this we cannot do except by having regard to its qualitative character. Many a man, for instance, must have consumed more than a thousand times the brain-substance and brain-energy that Sh.e.l.ley expended over his 'Ode to a Skylark,' and yet as a result have produced an utterly worthless poem. Now, in what way are we to estimate the 'work done' in two such cases, except by looking to the relative effects produced in the only region where they are produced, viz. in the region of mind? Yet, when we do so estimate them, what becomes of the evidence of equivalency between the physical causes and the psychical effects?

Now if thus, whether or not we try to form an estimate, it is impossible to show any semblance of equivalency between the supposed causes and the alleged effects, how can any one be found to say that the evidence of causation is here as valid as it is in any other case? The truth rather is that the alleged effects stand out of every relation to the supposed causes, with the exception only of being a.s.sociated in time.

There still remains one other enormous difficulty in the way of the theory of Materialism; it necessarily embodies the theory of _conscious automatism_, and is therefore called upon to explain why consciousness and thought have ever appeared upon the scene of things at all. That this is the necessary position of Materialism is easily proved as follows. We have already seen that Materialism would commit suicide by supposing that energy could be trans.m.u.ted into thought, for this would amount to nothing short of supposing the destruction of energy as such; and to suppose energy thus destructible would be to open wide the door of spiritualism. Materialism, therefore, is logically bound to argue in this way: We cannot conceive of a conscious idea, or mental change, as in any way affecting the course of a cerebral reflex, or material change; while, on the other hand, our knowledge of the conservation of energy teaches us as an axiom that the cerebral changes must determine each other in their sequence as in a continuous series. Nowhere can we suppose the physical process to be interrupted or diverted by the psychical process; and therefore we must conclude that thought and volition really play no part whatever in determining action. Thoughts and feelings are but indices which show in the mirror of the mind certain changes that are proceeding in the matter of the brain, and are as inefficient in influencing those changes as the shadow of a cloud is powerless to direct the movements of that of which it is the shadow.

But when Materialism reaches, in a clear and articulate manner, this inference as a conclusion necessary from its premises, it becomes opposed at once to common sense and to the requirements of methodical reason. It becomes opposed to common sense because we all feel it is practically impossible to believe that the world would now have been exactly what it is even if consciousness, thought, and volition had never appeared upon the scene--that railway trains would have been running filled with mindless pa.s.sengers, or that telephones would have been invented by brains that could not think to speak to ears that could not hear. And the conclusion is opposed to the requirements of methodical reason, because reason to be methodical is bound to have an answer to the question that immediately arises from the conclusion. This question simply is, Why have consciousness, thought, and volition ever been called into existence; and why are they related, as they are related, to cerebral action? Materialism, by here undertaking to prove that these things stand uselessly isolated from all other things, is bound to show some reason why they ever came to be, and to be what they are. For observe, it is not merely that these things exist in a supposed unnecessary relation to all other things; the fact to be explained is that they exist in a most intimately woven and invariable connexion with certain highly complex forms of organic structure and certain highly peculiar distributions of physical force. Yet these unique and extraordinary things are supposed by automatism to be always results and never causes; in the theatre of things they are supposed to be always spectators and never actors; in the laboratory of life they are supposed to be always by-products; and therefore in the order of nature they are supposed to have no _raison d'etre_. Such a state of matters would be accountable enough if the stream of mental changes were but partly, occasionally, and imperfectly a.s.sociated with the stream of material changes; but as the a.s.sociation is so minute, invariable, and precise, the hypothesis of the a.s.sociation being merely accidental, or _not requiring explanation_, becomes, at the bar of methodical reasoning, self-convicted of absurdity.

The state of the case, then, simply is that two distinct facts stand to be explained by the theory of conscious automatism--first, why psychosis should ever have been developed as a mysterious appendage to neurosis; and, secondly, why the a.s.sociation between these things should be so intimate and precise. a.s.suredly, on the principles of evolution, which materialists at least cannot afford to disregard, it would be a wholly anomalous fact that so wide and general a cla.s.s of phenomena as those of mind should have become developed in constantly ascending degrees throughout the animal kingdom, if they are entirely without use to animals. If psychosis is, as supposed, a function of neurosis, the doctrine of natural selection alone would forbid us to imagine that this function differs from all other functions in being itself functionless.

If it would be detrimental to the theory of natural selection that any one isolated structure--such as the tail of a rattlesnake--should be adapted to perform a function useless to the animal possessing it, how utterly destructive of that theory would be the fact that all the phenomena of mind have been elaborated as functions of nerve-tissue without any one of them ever having been of any use either to the individual or to the species. And the difficulty that thus arises is magnified without limit when we remember that the phenomena of mind are invariable in their a.s.sociation with cerebral structure, grade for grade, and process for process.

It is of no argumentative use to point to the fact that many adaptive movements in animals are performed by nerve-centres apart from any a.s.sociation with consciousness or volition, because all the facts on this head go to prove that consciousness and volition come in most suggestively just where adaptive movements begin to grow varied and complex, and then continue to develop with a proportional reference to the growing variety and complexity of these movements. The facts, therefore, irresistibly lead to the conclusion (if we argue here as we should in the case of any other function) that consciousness and volition are functions of nerve-tissue super-added to its previous functions, in order to meet new and more complex demands on its powers of adaptation.

Neither is it of any argumentative use to point to the fact that adaptive actions which originally are performed with conscious volition may by practice come to be performed without conscious volition. For it is certain that no adaptive action of quite a novel kind is ever performed from the first without consciousness of its performance, and therefore, although it is true that by repet.i.tion its performance may become mechanical or unconscious, this does not prove that consciousness was without use in producing the adaptive action. It only proves that after a nervous mechanism has been elaborated by the help of consciousness, consciousness may be withdrawn and leave the finished mechanism to work alone; the structure having been completed, the scaffolding necessary to its completion may be removed.

But pa.s.sing over this difficulty which the theory of conscious automatism seems bound to encounter in its collision with the theory of natural selection, the most insuperable of all its difficulties arises from the bare fact, which it cannot explain, that conscious intelligence exists, and exists in the most intimate relation with one peculiar kind of material structure. For automatists must concede that the evidence of causation in the region of mind is at least as cogent as it is in the region of matter, seeing that the whole science of psychology is only rendered possible as a science by the fundamental fact of observation that mental antecedents determine mental consequents. Therefore, if we call a physical sequence _A, B, C_, and a mental sequence _a, b, c_ automatists have to explain, not merely why there should be such a thing as a mental sequence at all, but also why the sequence _a, b, c_ should always proceed, link for link, with the sequence _A, B, C_. It clearly is no answer to say that the sequence _A, B, C_ implies the successive activity of certain definite nerve-centres _A', B', C'_ which have for their subjective effects the sequence _a, b, c_ so that whenever the sequence _A, B, C_ occurs the sequence _a, b, c_ must likewise occur.

This is no answer, because it merely restates the hypothesis of automatism, and begs the whole question to be discussed. What methodical reason demands as an answer is simply why the sequence _A, B, C_ even though we freely grant it due to the successive activity of certain definite nerve-centres, should be attended by the sequence _a, b, c_.

Reason perceives clearly enough that the sequence _a, b, c_ belongs to a wholly different category from the sequence _A, B, C_ the one being immediately known as a process taking place in a something which is without extension or physical properties of any kind, and the other taking place in a something which when, translated by the previous something, we recognize as having extension and the other ant.i.thetical properties which we cla.s.s together as physical. There would of course be no difficulty if the sequence _A, B, C_ continued through any amount of complexity in the same conceivable category of being; so that there would be nothing actually inconceivable in cerebral sequence--changes running through _D, E, F_, &c., to an extent sufficient to cause unconscious automatism of any degree of complexity. But that which does require explanation from automatists is why automatism should have become a.s.sociated with consciousness, and this so intimately that every change in the sequence _A, B, C_, &c., is accompanied by a particular and corresponding change in the sequence _a, b, c_, &c. Thus, to take a definite ill.u.s.tration, if on seeing the sun I think of a paper on solar physics, and from this pa.s.s to thinking of Mr. Norman Lockyer, and from this to speculating on the probability of certain supposed elements being really compounds, there is here a definite causal connexion in the sequence of my _thoughts_. But it is the last extravagance of absurdity to tell me that the accompanying causal sequences going on in my brain happen to have exactly corresponded to the sequences which were taking place in the mind, the two trains of sequences being each definite and coherent in themselves, and yet each proceeding link for link in lines parallel with the other. Without some theory of pre-established harmony--which, of course, it is no part of automatism to entertain--it would, on the doctrine of chances alone, be impossible to suppose that the causal sequences in the brain always happen to be just those which, by running link for link with another set of causal sequences taking place in the mind, enable both the series to be definite and coherent in themselves. Therefore, before reason can allow the theory of automatism to pa.s.s, it must be told how this wonderful fact of parallelism is to be explained. There must be _some_ connexion between the intrinsically coherent series _A, B, C_ and the no less intrinsically coherent sequence _a, b, c_, which may be taken as an explanation why they coincide each to each. What is this connexion? We do not know; but we have now seen that, whatever it is, it cannot be an ordinary causal connexion--first, because the doctrine of the conservation of energy makes it inc.u.mbent on us to believe that the procession of physical cause and effect is complete within the region of brain--a closed circle, as it were, from which no energy can, without argumentative suicide, be supposed to escape into the region of mind; and next, because, even were this difficulty disregarded, it is unaccountable that the causative influence (whatever it is supposed to be), which pa.s.ses over from the region of physics into that of psychics, should be such as to render the psychical series coherent in itself, when on the physical side the series must be determined by purely physical conditions, having no reference whatsoever to psychical requirements.

Thus it is argumentatively impossible for Materialism to elude the necessity of explaining the kind of connexion which it supposes to subsist between neurosis and psychosis; and forasmuch as the above considerations clearly show this connexion cannot be accepted as one of ordinary causality without some answer being given to the questions which reason has to ask, Materialism must be ruled out of court if she fails to respond to the demand. But it is no less clearly impossible that she can respond to the demand, and therefore at the bar of Philosophy Materialism must be p.r.o.nounced, for this as well as for the reasons previously cited, conspicuously inadequate to account for the facts.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Professor Flint, _Ant.i.theistic Theories_, p. 99.]

[Footnote 5: _Philosophy of Religion_, pp. 95, 99, and 101.]

[Footnote 6: British a.s.sociation Report, 1879, p. 28.]

[Footnote 7: British a.s.sociation Report, 1868. Trans. of Sections, p.

5.]