Mind and Motion and Monism Part 4

We have seen that, whether we look upon the subjective or objective face of personality, we find that personality arises from limitation--or, as I have previously termed it, circ.u.mscription. Now, we have no evidence, nor are we able to conceive, of the external world as limited; consequently we are not able to conceive, of the world-eject as personal. But, inasmuch as personality arises only from limitation, the conclusion that the world-eject is impersonal does not tend to show that it is of lower psychical value than conscious personality: on the contrary, it tends to show that it is probably of higher psychical value. True, we are not able to conceive actually of mind as impersonal; but we can see that this merely arises from our only experience of mind being given under conditions of personality; and, as just observed, it is possible to conceive symbolically that there may be a form of mind as greatly transcending personality as personality transcends mechanical motion.

Now, although we cannot conceive of such a mind actually, we may most probably make the nearest approach to conceiving of it truly, by _provisionally_ ascribing to it the highest attributes of mind as known to ourselves, or the attributes which belong to human personality. Just as a thinking insect would derive a better, or more true, conception of human personality by considering it ejectively than by considering it objectively (or by considering the mind-processes as distinguished from the brain-processes), so, if there is a form of mind immeasurably superior to our own, we may probably gain a more faithful--howsoever still inadequate--conception of it by contemplating its operations ejectively than by doing so objectively. I will, therefore, speak of the world-eject as presenting conscious volition, on the understanding that if _x_ does not present either consciousness or volition, this must be--according to the fundamental a.s.sumption of psychism on which we are now proceeding--because _x_ presents attributes at least as much higher than consciousness or volition as these are higher than mechanical motion. For when we consider the utmost that our conscious volition is able to accomplish in the way of contrivance--how limited its knowledge, how short its duration, how restricted its range, and how imperfect its adaptations--we can only conclude that _if_ the ultimate const.i.tution of all things is pyschical, the philosophy of the Cosmos becomes a 'philosophy of the Unconscious' only because it is a philosophy of the Superconscious.

Now, if once we feel ourselves able to transcend the preliminary--and doubtless very considerable--difficulty of symbolically conceiving the world-eject as super-conscious, and (because not limited) also super-personal, I think there can be no question that the world-object furnishes overwhelming proof of psychism. I candidly confess that I am not myself able to overcome the preliminary difficulty in question. By discharging the elements of personality and conscious volition from the world-eject, I appear to be discharging from my conception of mind all that most distinctively belongs to that conception; and thus I seem to be brought back again to the point from which we started: the world-eject appears to have again resolved itself into the unknown quant.i.ty _x_. But here we must distinguish between actual conception and symbolical conception. Although it is unquestionably true that I can form no actual conception of Mind save as an eject of personality and conscious volition, it is a question whether I am not able to form a symbolical conception of Mind as thus extended. For I know that consciousness, implying as it does continual change in serial order of circ.u.mscribed mental processes, is not (symbolically considered) the highest conceivable exhibition of Mind; and just as a mathematician is able to deal symbolically with s.p.a.ce of _n_ dimensions, while only able really to conceive of s.p.a.ce as limited to three dimensions, so I feel that I ought not to limit the abstract possibilities of mental being by what I may term the accidental conditions of my own being.

I need scarcely wait to show why it appears to me that if this position is granted, the world-object furnishes, as I have said, overwhelming proof of psychism; for this proof has been ably presented by many other writers. There is first the antecedent improbability that the human mind should be the highest manifestation of subjectivity in this universe of infinite objectivity. There is next the fact that throughout this universe of infinite objectivity--so far, at least, as human observation can extend--there is unquestionable evidence of some one integrating principle, whereby all its many and complex parts are correlated with one another in such wise that the result is universal order. And if we take any part of the whole system--such as that of organic nature on this planet--to examine in more detail, we find that it appears to be instinct with contrivance. So to speak, wherever we tap organic nature, it seems to flow with purpose; and, as we shall presently see, upon the monistic theory the evidence of purpose is here in no way attenuated by a full acceptance of any of the 'mechanical' explanations furnished by science. Now, these large and important facts of observation unquestionably point, as just observed, to some one integrating principle as pervading the Cosmos; and, if so, we can scarcely be wrong in supposing that among all our conceptions it must hold nearest kinship to that which is our highest conception of an integrating cause--viz., the conception of psychism. a.s.suredly no human mind could either have devised or maintained the working of even a fragment of Nature; and, therefore, it seems but reasonable to conclude that the integrating principle of the whole--the Spirit, as it were, of the Universe--must be something which, while as I have said holding nearest kinship with our highest conception of disposing power, must yet be immeasurably superior to the psychism of man. The world-eject thus becomes invested with a psychical value as greatly transcending in magnitude that of the human mind, as the material frame of the universe transcends in its magnitude the material frame of the human body. Therefore, without in any way straining the theory of Monism, we may provisionally shade _x_ more deeply than _z_, and this in some immeasurable degree.

One other matter remains to be considered with reference to this world-eject as sanctioned by Monism. It leaves us free to regard all natural causation as a direct exhibition of psychism. The prejudice against anything approaching a theistic interpretation of the Universe nowadays arises chiefly from the advance of physical science having practically revealed the ubiquity of natural causes. It is felt that when a complete explanation of any given phenomenon has been furnished in terms of these causes, there is no need to go further; the phenomenon has been rendered intelligible on its mechanical side, and therefore it is felt that we have no reason to suppose that it presents a mental side--any supplementary causation of a mental kind being regarded as superfluous. Even writers who expressly repudiate this reasoning prove themselves to be habitually under its influence; for we constantly find that such writers, after conceding the mechanical explanations as far as these have been _proved_, take their stand upon the more intricate phenomena of Nature where, as yet, the mechanical explanations are not forthcoming. Whether it be at the origin of life, the origin of sentiency, of instinct, of rationality, of morality, or of religion, these writers habitually argue that here, at least, the purely mechanical interpretations fail; and that here, consequently, there is still room left for a psychical interpretation. Of course the pleading for theism thus supplied is seen by others to be of an extremely feeble quality; for while, on the one hand, it rests only upon ignorance of natural causation (as distinguished from any knowledge of super-natural causation), on the other hand, abundant historical a.n.a.logies are available to show that it is only a question of time when pleading of this kind will become more and more restricted in its subject-matter, till eventually it be altogether silenced. But the pleading which Monism is here able to supply can never be silenced.

For, according to Monism, all matter in motion is mind; and, therefore, matter in motion is merely the objective revelation, _to_ us and _for_ us, of that which in its subjective aspect--or in its ultimate reality--is mind. Just as the operations of my friend's mind can only be revealed to me through the mechanical operations of his body, so it may very well be that the operations of the Supreme Mind (supposing such to exist) can only be revealed to me through the mechanical operations of Nature. The only difference between the two cases is that while I am able, in the case of my friend's mind, to elicit responses of mechanical movement having a definite and intended relation to the operations of my own mind, similarly expressed to him; such is not the case with Nature.

With the friend-eject I am able to _converse_; but not so with the world-eject[11]. This great difference, however, although obviously depriving me of any such direct corroboration of psychism in the world-eject as that which I thus derive of psychism in the friend-eject, ought not to be regarded by me as amounting, in the smallest degree, to _disproof_ of psychism in the world-eject. The fact that I am not able to converse with the world-eject is merely a negative fact, and should not be allowed to tell against any probability (otherwise derived) in favour of psychism as belonging to that eject. There may be a thousand very good reasons why I should be precluded from such converse--some of which, indeed, I can myself very clearly perceive.

The importance of Monism in thus enabling us rationally to contemplate all processes of physical causation as possibly immediate exhibitions of psychism, is difficult to overrate. For it entirely discharges all distinction between the mechanical and the mental; so that if physical science were sufficiently advanced to yield a full natural explanation of all the phenomena within human experience, mankind would be in a position to gain as complete a knowledge as is theoretically possible of the psychological character of the world-eject. Already we are able to perceive the immense significance of being able to regard any sequence of natural causation as the merely phenomenal aspect of the ontological reality--the merely outward manifestation of an inward meaning. Thus, for example, I am listening to a sonata of Beethoven's played by Madame Schumann. Helmholtz tells me all that he knows about the physics and physiology of the process, both beyond and within my brain. But I feel that, even if Helmholtz were able to tell me very much more than he can, so long as he is dealing with these objective explanations, he is at work only upon the outer skin of the whole matter. The great reality is the mind of Beethoven communicating to my mind through the complex intervention of three different brains with their neuro-muscular systems, and an endless variety of aerial vibrations proceeding from a pianoforte. The method of communication has nothing more to do with the reality communicated than have the paper and ink of this essay to do with the ideas which they serve to convey. In each case a vehicle of symbols is necessary in order that one mind should communicate with another; but in both cases this is a vehicle of _symbols_, and nothing more. Everywhere, therefore, the reality may be psychical, and the physical symbolic; everywhere matter in motion may be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

Take again the case of morality and religion. Because science, by its theory of evolution, appears to be in a fair way of explaining the genesis of these things by natural causes, theists are taking alarm; it is felt by them that if morality can be fully explained by utility, and religion by superst.i.tion, the reality of both is destroyed. But Monism teaches that such a view is entirely erroneous. For, according to Monism, the natural causation of morality and religion has nothing whatever to do with the ultimate truth of either. The natural causation is merely a record of physical processes, serving to manifest the psychical processes. Nor can it make any difference, as regards the ultimate veracity of the moral and religious feelings, that they have been developed slowly by natural causes; that they were at first grossly selfish on the one hand, and hideously superst.i.tious on the other; that they afterwards went through a long series of changes, none of which therefore can have fully corresponded with external truth; or that even now they may be both extremely far from any such correspondence. All that such considerations go to prove is, that it belongs to the natural method of mental evolution in man that with advancing culture his ejective interpretations of Nature should more and more nearly _approximate_ the truth. The world-eject must necessarily vary with the character of the human subject; but this does not prove that the ejective interpretation has throughout been wrong in _method_: it only proves that such interpretation has been imperfect--and necessarily imperfect--in _application_.

Such, then, I conceive to be one of the most important consequences of the monistic theory. Namely, that by regarding physical causation as everywhere but the objective or phenomenal aspect of an ejective or ontological reality, it furnishes a logical basis for a theory of things which is at the same time natural and spiritual. On the objective aspect, the explanations furnished by reason are of necessity physical, while, on the ejective aspect, such explanations are of necessity metaphysical--or rather, let us say, hyper-physical. But these two orders of explanation are different only because their modes of interpreting the same events are different. The objective explanation which was given (as we supposed) by Helmholtz of the effects produced on the human brain by hearing a sonata, was no doubt perfectly sound within its own category; but the ejective explanation of these same effects which is given by a musician is equally sound within _its_ category. And similarly, if instead of the man-object we contemplate the world-object physical causation becomes but the phenomenal aspect of psychical causation; the invariability of its sequence becomes but the expression of intentional order; the iron rigidity of natural law becomes the sensuous manifestation of an unalterable consistency as belonging to the Supreme Volition.

My object in this paper has been to show that the views of the late Professor Clifford concerning the influence of Monism on Theism are unsound. I am in full agreement with him in believing that Monism is destined to become the generally accepted theory of things, seeing that it is the only theory of things which can receive the sanction of science on the one hand and of feeling on the other. But I disagree with him in holding that this theory is fraught with implications of an anti-theistic kind. In my opinion this theory leaves the question of Theism very much where it was before. That is to say, while not furnishing any independent proof of Theism, it likewise fails to furnish any independent disproof. The reason why in Clifford's hands this theory appeared to furnish independent disproof, was because he persisted in regarding the world only as an object: he did not entertain the possibility that the world might also be regarded as an eject. Yet, that the world, under the theory of Monism, is at least as susceptible of an ejective as it is of an objective interpretation, I trust that I have now been able to show. And this is all that I have endeavoured to show.

As a matter of methodical reasoning it appears to me that Monism alone can only lead to Agnosticism. That is to say, it leaves a clear field of choice as between Theism and Atheism; and, therefore, to a carefully reasoning Monist, there are three alternatives open. He may remain a Monist, and nothing more; in which case he is an agnostic. He may entertain what appears to him independent evidence in favour of Theism, and thus he may become a theist. Or he may entertain what appears to him independent evidence in favour of Atheism, and thus he may become an atheist. But, in any case, so far as his Monism can carry him, he is left perfectly free either to regard the world as an object alone, or to regard the world as also an eject[12].

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: If we imagine the visible sidereal system compressed within the limits of a human skull, so that all its movements which we now recognize as molar should become molecular, the complexity of such movement would probably be as great as that which takes place in a human brain. Yet to this must be added all the molecular movements which are now going on in the sidereal system, visible and invisible.]

[Footnote 10: _Principles of Psychology_, vol. i. pp. 159-61; _Essays_, vol. iii. pp. 246-9; and _First Principles_, p. 26.]

[Footnote 11: It is, however, the belief of all religious persons that even this distinction does not hold. If they are right in their belief, the distinction would then become one as to the mode of converse. In this case what is called communion with the Supreme Mind must be supposed to be a communion _sui generis_: the converse of mind with mind is here _direct_, or does not require to be translated into the language of mechanical signs: it is subjective, not ejective. Still, even here we must believe that the physical aspect accompanies the psychical, although not necessarily observed. An act of prayer, for example, is, on its physical aspect, an act of cerebration: so is the answer (supposing it genuine), in as far as the worshipper is concerned. Thus prayer and its answer (according to Monism) resemble all the other processes of Nature in presenting an objective side of strictly physical causation.

Nor is it possible that the case could be otherwise, if _all_ mental processes consist in physical process, and vice versa. It is obvious that this consideration has important bearings on the question as to the physical efficacy of prayer. From a monistic point of view both those who affirm and those who deny such efficacy are equally in the right, and equally in the wrong; they are merely quarrelling upon different sides of the same shield. For, according to Monism, if the theologians are right in supposing that the Supreme Mind is the hearer of prayer in any case, they are also right in supposing that the Mind must necessarily be able to grant what is called physical answers, seeing that in order to grant _any_ answer (even of the most apparently spiritual kind) some physical change must be produced, if it be only in the brain of the pet.i.tioner. On the other hand, the scientists are equally right in maintaining that no physical answer to prayer can be of the nature of a miracle, or produced independently of strictly physical causation; for, if so, the physical and the psychical would no longer be coincident. But, until the scientists are able to perform the hopeless task of proving where the possibilities of physical causation end, as a mere matter of abstract speculation and going upon the theory of Monism, it is evident that the theologians may have any lat.i.tude they choose to claim, both as regards this matter and that of so-called miracles.]

[Footnote 12: It may be explained that by Agnosticism I understand a theory of things which abstains from either affirming or denying the existence of G.o.d. It thus represents, with regard to Theism, a state of suspended judgement; and all it undertakes to affirm is, that, upon existing evidence, the being of G.o.d is unknown. But the term Agnosticism is frequently used in a widely different sense, as implying belief that the being of G.o.d is not merely now unknown, but must always remain unknowable. It is therefore often represented that Mr. Herbert Spencer, in virtue of his doctrine of the Unknowable, is a kind of apostle of Agnosticism. This, however, I conceive to be a great mistake. The distinctive features of Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable are not merely non-agnostic, but anti-agnostic. For the doctrine affirms that we have this much knowledge of G.o.d--namely, that if He exists, He must for ever be unknown. Without question, this would be a most important piece of definite knowledge with regard to Deity, negative though it be; and, therefore, any man who holds it has no right to be called an agnostic.

To me it has always seemed that the doctrine of the Unknowable, in so far as it differs from the doctrine of the Unknown, is highly unphilosophical. By what right can it be affirmed that Deity, if He exists, may not reveal the fact of His existence to-morrow--and this to the whole human race without the possibility of doubt? Or, if there be a G.o.d, who is to say that there certainly cannot be a future life, in which each individual man may have unquestionable proof of Theism? It is a perfectly philosophical statement for any one to make that, as matters now stand, he can see no evidence of Theism; but to say that he knows the human race never can have such evidence, is a most unphilosophical statement, seeing that it could only be justified by absolute knowledge.

And, on this account, I say that the doctrine of the Unknowable, in so far as it differs from the doctrine of the Unknown, is the very reverse of agnostic.

Now, the theory of Monism alone, as observed in the text, appears to be purely agnostic in the sense just explained. If in some parts of the foregoing essay I appear to have been arguing in favour of theistic implications, this has only been in order to show (as against Clifford) that the world does admit of being regarded as an eject. But inasmuch as--religious faith apart--we are not able to verify any such ejective interpretation, we are not able to estimate its value. Monism sanctions the shading of _x_ as deeply as we choose; but the shading which it sanctions is only provisional.]

CHAPTER V.

THE WILL IN RELATION TO MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM.

In the foregoing chapters I have considered the theory of Monism, first in contrast with the theories of Materialism and of Spiritualism, and next in relation to the theory of Theism. In this chapter and that which succeeds it I propose to consider Monism in relation to the Will. To do this it is needful to begin by considering the problems which are presented by the Will in relation to the older theories of Materialism on the one hand and of Spiritualism on the other.

Although the phenomena of volition have occupied so large a province of philosophical literature, the fundamental problems which arise in connexion with them are only two in number, and both admit of being stated in extremely simple terms. The historical order in which these two problems have arisen is the inverse of their logical order. For while in logical order the two problems would stand thus--Is the Will an agent? If so, is it a free agent?--in actual discussion it was long taken for granted that the Will is an agent, and hence the only controversy gathered round the question whether the Will is a free agent. Descartes, indeed, seems to have entertained the prior question with regard to animals, and there are pa.s.sages in the _Leviathan_ which may be taken to imply that Hobbes entertained this question with regard to man. But it was not until recent years that any such question could stand upon a basis of science as distinguished from speculation; the question did not admit of being so much as stated in terms of science until physiology was in a position openly to challenge our right to a.s.sume that the Will is an agent. Such a challenge physiology has now given, and even declared that any a.s.sumption of volitional agency is, in the presence of adequate physiological knowledge, impossible.

The two problems which I thus state separately are often, and indeed generally, confused together; but for the purpose of clear a.n.a.lysis it is of the first importance that they should be kept apart. In order to show the wide distinction between them, we may best begin with a brief consideration of what it is that the two problems severally involve; and to do this we may best take the problems in what I have called their logical order.

First, then, as regards the question whether the Will is an agent, the rival theories of Materialism and Spiritualism stand to one another in a relation of contradiction. For it is of the essence of Spiritualism to regard the Will as an agent, or as an original cause of bodily movement, and therefore as a true cause in Nature. On the other hand, it is of the essence of Materialism to deny that the Will is an agent. Hitherto, indeed, materialists as a body have not expressly recognized this implication as necessarily belonging to their theory; but that this implication does necessarily belong to their theory--or rather, I should say, really const.i.tutes its most distinctive feature--admits of being easily shown. For the theory that material changes are the causes of mental changes necessarily terminates in the so-called theory of conscious automatism--or the theory that so far as the conditions to bodily action are concerned, consciousness is advent.i.tious, bearing the same ineffectual relation to the activity of the brain as the striking of a clock bears to the time-keeping adjustments of the clock-work. From this conclusion there is no possibility of escape, if once we accept the premises of Materialism; and therefore I say it belongs to the essence of Materialism to deny the agency of Will.

Just as necessarily does it belong to the essence of Monism to affirm the agency of Will. For, according to this theory, while motion is producing nothing but motion, mind-change nothing but mind-change, both are producing both simultaneously; neither could be what it is without the other, for each is to the other a necessary counterpart or supplement, in the absence of which the whole causation (whether regarded from the physical or mental side) would not be complete.

Now, in my opinion the importance of the view thus presented by the theory of Monism is, for all purposes of psychological a.n.a.lysis, inestimable. It is impossible nowadays that such a.n.a.lysis can proceed very far in any direction without confronting the facts presented by physiology: hence it is impossible for such a.n.a.lysis to confine itself exclusively to the spiritual or subjective side of psychology. On the other hand, in so far as such a.n.a.lysis has regard to the material or objective side, it has. .h.i.therto appeared to countenance--in however disguised a form--the dogmatic denial of the Will as an agent. Hence the supreme importance to psychology of reconciling the hitherto rival theories of Spiritualism and Materialism in the higher synthesis which is furnished by the theory of Monism. For, obviously, in the absence of any philosophical justification of the Will as an agent, we are without any guarantee that all psychological inquiry is not a vain beating of the air. If, as Materialism necessarily implies, the Will is not a cause in Nature, there would be no reason in Nature for the agency either of feeling or of intelligence. Feeling and intelligence would, therefore, stand as ciphers in the general const.i.tution of things; and any inquiry touching their internal system of causation could have no reference to any scientific inquiry touching causation in general. I am aware that this truth is habitually overlooked by psychologists; but it is none the less a truth of fundamental importance to the whole superstructure of this science. Or, in other words, unless psychologists will expressly consent to rear their science on the basis provided by the philosophical theory of Monism, there is nothing to save it from logical disintegration; apart from this basis, the whole science is, so to speak, built in the air, like an unsubstantial structure of clouds.

Psychologists, I repeat, habitually ignore this fact, and constantly speak of feeling and intelligence as true causes of adjustive action; but by so doing they merely beg from this contradictory theory of Spiritualism a flat denial of the fundamental postulate on which they elsewhere proceed--the postulate, namely, that mental changes are determined by cerebral changes. Consider, for example, the following pa.s.sage from Mr. Spencer's _Principles of Psychology_ (-- 125), which serves to show in brief compa.s.s the logical incoherency which in this matter runs through his whole work:--

'Those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been, other things equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals among races in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, tending ever to bring about perfect adjustment.'

The argument here is that the 'adjustments of feelings to actions,' when once attained, leads in turn to an adjustment of actions to feelings--or, as I have myself stated the argument in my _Mental Evolution in Animals_, 'the _raison d'etre_ of Pleasure and Pain has been that of furnishing organisms with guides to adjustive action: moreover, as in the case of direct sensation dictating any simple adjustment for the sake of securing an immediate good, so in the case of instinct dictating a more intricate action for the sake of eventually securing a more remote good (whether for self, progeny, or community); and so, likewise, in the case of reason dictating a still more intricate adjustment for the sake of securing a good still more remote--in all cases, that is, where volition is concerned, pleasures and pains are the guides of action.' But thus to affirm that pleasures and pains are the guides of action is merely another way of affirming that the Will is an agent--a cause of bodily movement, and, as such, a cause in Nature. Now, as we have seen, Mr. Spencer not only affirms this--or rather a.s.sumes it--but proceeds to render an _a priori_ explanation of the accuracy of the guidance. Yet he nowhere considers the fundamental question--Why should we suppose that the Will is an agent at all? a.s.suredly the answer given by physiology to this question is a simple denial that we have any justification so to regard the Will: in view of her demonstration of conscious automatism, she can see no reason why there should be any connexion at all between a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain and an objective fact of 'agreement or disagreement with the environment'--nay, one of the most eminent of her priesthood has declared that there _is_ no more connexion between the ambition of a Napoleon and a general commotion of Europe, than there is between the puff of a steam-whistle and the locomotion of a train. And, as I have now repeatedly insisted, on grounds of physiology alone this is the only logical conclusion at which it is possible to arrive. Yet Mr. Spencer, while elsewhere proceeding on the lines of physiology, whenever he encounters the question of the agency of Will, habitually jumps the whole gulf that separates Materialism from Spiritualism. And this wonderful feat of intellectual athletics is likewise performed, so far at least as I am aware, by every other psychologist who has proceeded on the lines of physiology. Indeed, the logical incoherency is not so serious in Mr. Spencer's case as it is in that of many other writers whom I need not wait to name. For Mr. Spencer does not seek to found his system on a basis of avowed Materialism, and, therefore, he may be said to have left this fundamental question of volitional agency in abeyance.

But all those writers who have reared their systems of psychology on a basis of avowed Materialism--or, which is the same thing, on a basis of physiology alone--lay themselves open to the charge of grossest inconsistency when they thus a.s.sume that the Will is an agent. It is impossible that these writers can both have their cake and eat it.

Either they must forego their Materialism, or else they must cease to speak of 'motives determining action,' 'conduct being governed by pleasures and pains,' 'voluntary movements in their last resort being all due to bodily feelings,' 'the highest morality and the lowest vice being alike the result of a pursuit of happiness,' &c. &c. And, so far as I can see, it is only in the way above indicated, or on the theory of Monism, that it is possible, without ignoring the facts of physiology on the one hand or those of psychology on the other, philosophically to save the agency of Will.

From this brief exposition it may be gathered that on the materialistic theory it is impossible that the Will can be, in any sense of the term, an agent; that on the spiritualistic theory the Will is regarded as an agent, but only in the sense of a non-natural or miraculous cause; and, lastly, that on the monistic theory the Will is saved as an agent, or may be properly regarded and as properly denominated a true cause, in the ordinary sense of that term. For this, as well as for other reasons which need not here be specified, I accept in philosophy the theory of Monism; and am thus ent.i.tled in psychology to proceed upon the doctrine that the Will is an agent. We have next to consider the ulterior question whether upon this theory the Will may be properly regarded as a free agent.

By a free agent is understood an agent that is able to act without restraint, or spontaneously. The word 'free,' therefore, bears a very different meaning when applied exclusively to the Will, and when applied more generally to the living organism. For we may properly say that a man, or an animal, is free when he, or it, is at liberty to act in accordance with desire. Touching the fact of freedom in this sense there is, of course, no question. We have not to consider the possible freedom of man, but the possible freedom of Will; we have not to contemplate whether a man may be free to do what he wills, but whether he can be free to will what he wills. Such being the question, we have to consider it in relation to the three philosophical theories already stated--Materialism, Spiritualism, and Monism.

For the theory of Materialism the present question has no existence. If this announcement appears startling, it can only be because no materialist has ever taken the trouble to formulate his own theory with distinctness. For, as previously shown, Materialism necessarily involves the doctrine of conscious automatism; but, if so, the Will is concluded not to be an agent at all, and therefore it becomes idle to discuss whether, in any impossible exercise of its agency, it is free or subject to restraint. The most that in this connexion could logically stand to be considered by the advocates of Materialism would be whether or not the advent.i.tious and inefficacious feelings of subjectivity which are a.s.sociated with cerebral activity are determinate or free; but this would probably be regarded on all hands as a somewhat useless topic of discussion, and certainly in any case would have no reference to the question of free _agency_. The point to be clearly understood is that, according to the materialistic theory, a motor is distinct from a motive, although in some unaccountable manner the motor is able to cause the motive. But the motive, when thus caused, is not supposed to exert any causal influence on bodily action; it is supposed to begin and end as a motive, or never itself to become a motor. In other words, as before stated, the Will is not supposed to be an agent; and, therefore, to this theory the doctrine of free-will and of determinism are alike irrelevant. We need not wait to prove that this important fact is habitually overlooked by materialists themselves, or that whenever a materialist espouses the cause of determinism, he is thereby and for the time being vacating his position as a materialist; for if, according to his theory, the Will is not an agent, he is merely impugning his own doctrines by consenting to discuss the conditions of its agency.

The theory of Spiritualism and the theory of Monism agree in holding that the Will is an agent; and, therefore, to both of these theories the question whether the Will is a free agent is a real question. Here, then, it devolves upon us to consider carefully the logical status of the rival doctrines of so-called Liberty and Necessity. For convenience of arrangement in what follows, we may best begin with the doctrine of Necessity, or Determinism.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WILL IN RELATION TO MONISM.

We have now seen that, according to Materialism, the Will is not an agent, while according both to Spiritualism and to Monism the Will is an agent. Touching the further question, whether the Will is a free agent, we have seen that while the question does not exist for Materialism, it appears to require a negative answer both from Spiritualism and from Monism. For, as regards its relation to Spiritualism, when once the ground is cleared of certain errors of statement and fallacies of reasoning, we appear to find that unless the will is held to be motiveless--which would be to destroy not only the doctrine of moral responsibility, but likewise that of universal causation--it must be regarded as subject to law, or as determined in its action by the nature of its past history and present circ.u.mstances. Lastly, the theory of Monism appears likewise to deny the possibility of freedom as an attribute of Will; for, according to this theory, mental processes are one and the same with physical processes, and hence it does not appear that the doctrine of determinism could well be taught in a manner more emphatic.

Thus far, then, the doctrine of determinism is seen to be victorious over the doctrine of freedom all along the line. By Materialism the question of freedom is excluded _ab initio_; by Spiritualism and by Monism, so far as yet seen, it can be logically answered only in the negative. From which it follows that the sense of moral responsibility is of the nature of a vast illusion, the historical genesis of which admits of being easily traced, and the authority of which is thus destroyed. Although it may still serve to supply motives to conduct, it seems that it can do so only in the way that belongs to superst.i.tion--that Conscience, as I have before said, is the bogey of mankind, and that belief in its authority is like belief in witchcraft, destined to dwindle and to fade before the advance of a better or more complete knowledge of natural causation.

But the discussion must not end here. Hitherto I have presented the case Liberty _versus_ Necessity with all the impartiality of which I am capable; but I have done so without travelling an inch beyond those limits of discussion within which the question has been debated by previous writers. I believe, indeed, that I have pointed out several important oversights which have been made on both sides of the question; but in doing this I have not gone further than the philosophical basis upon which the question has been hitherto argued. My object, however, in publishing these papers is not that of destructive criticism; and what I have done in this direction has been done only in order to prepare the way for what is now to follow. Having shown, as it appears to me conclusively, that upon both the rival theories of Materialism and Spiritualism--the doctrine of Liberty, and therefore of Moral Responsibility--must logically fall, I now hope to show that this doctrine admits of being re-established on a basis furnished by the theory of Monism.

It often happens that an elaborate structure of argument, which is perfectly sound and complete upon the basis furnished by a given hypothesis, admits of being wholly disintegrated when the fundamental hypothesis is shown to be either provisional or untrue. And such, I believe, is the case with the issue now before us. For the issue Liberty _versus_ Necessity has. .h.i.therto been argued on the common a.s.sumption that natural causation is not merely the most ultimate principle which the human mind can reach; but also a principle which is, in some way or another, external to that mind. It has been taken for granted by both sides in the controversy that if our volitions can be proved to depend upon natural causation, as rigid in its sequences within the sphere of a human mind as within that of a calculating machine, there must be an end of the controversy; seeing that our volitions would be thus proved to be rigidly determined by those same principles of fixed order, or 'natural law,' which are external to, or independent of, the human mind--quite as much as they are external to, or independent of, the calculating machine. Now, it is this a.s.sumption which I challenge. The theory of Monism ent.i.tles one to deny that when we have driven the question down to the granite bed of natural causation, nothing more remains to be done; according to this theory it still remains to be asked, What is the nature of this natural causation? Is it indeed the ultimate datum of experience, below which the human mind cannot go? And is it indeed so far external to, or independent of, the human mind, that the latter stands to it in the relation of a slave to a master--coerced as to action by the conditions which that master has laid down?

Now these questions are all virtually answered in the affirmative by the dualistic theory of Spiritualism. For the Will is here regarded as an agent bound to act in accordance with those conditions of external necessity which dualism recognizes as natural causation. Its internal causation thus becomes but the reflex of external; and the reflection becomes known internally as the consciousness of motive. Hence, the Will cannot be philosophically liberated from the toils of this external necessity, so long as dualism recognizes that necessity as existing independently of the Will, and thus imposing its conditions on volitional activity. But the theory of Monism, by identifying external with internal causation--or physical processes with psychical processes--philosophically saves the doctrine of freedom, and with it the doctrine of moral responsibility. Moreover, it does so without relying upon any precarious appeal to the direct testimony of consciousness itself. As this view of the subject is one by no means easy of apprehension, I will endeavour to unfold it part by part.

To begin with, Monism excludes the possibility of volition being determined by cerebration. Let us suppose, for example, that a sequence of ideas, _A, B, C, D_, occurs in the mind, which on its obverse or cerebral aspect may be represented by the sequence _a, b, c, d_. Here the parallelism is not due, as supposed by Materialism, to _a_ determining _Ab_, _b_ determining _Bc_, &c.; it is due to _Aa_ determining _Bb_, _Bb_ determining _Cc_, &c.--the two apparently diverse causal sequences being really but one causal sequence. If the determinist should rejoin that a causal sequence of some kind is all that he demands--that the Will is equally proved to be unfree, whether it be bound by the causal sequence _a, b, c, d_, or by the causal sequence _Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd_--I answer that this is a point which we have to consider by-and-by. Meanwhile I am only endeavouring to make clear the essential distinction between the philosophical theories of Monism and Materialism. And the effect of this distinction is to show that, for the purposes of clear a.n.a.lysis, we may wholly neglect either side of the double reality. If we happen to be engaged on any physiological inquiry, we may altogether neglect the processes of ideation with which any process of cerebration may be concerned; while, if we happen to be engaged upon any psychological inquiry, we may similarly neglect the processes of cerebration with which any process of ideation may be concerned. Seeing that each is equally an index of a common sequence, it can make no difference which of them we take as our guide, although for purposes of practical inquiry it is of course expedient to take the cerebral index when we are dealing with the objective side of the problem, and the mental index when dealing with the subjective. In the following pages, therefore, I shall altogether neglect the cerebral index. The inquiry on which we are engaged belongs to the region of mind, and, therefore, after what has just been said, it will be apparent that I am ent.i.tled to adopt the standpoint of a spiritualist, to the extent of fastening attention only upon the mental side of the problem.

For although the theory of Monism teaches, as against Spiritualism, that no one of the mental sequences could take place without a corresponding physical sequence, the theory also teaches the converse proposition; and therefore it makes no difference which of the two phenomenal sequences is taken as our index of the ontological.

Now, it clearly makes a great difference whether the mental changes concerned in volition are regarded as effects or as causes. According to Materialism, the mental changes are the effects of cerebral changes, which were themselves the effects of precedent cerebral changes.

According to Spiritualism, these mental changes are the causes, not only of the cerebral changes, but also of one another. According to Monism, the mental changes may be regarded as the causes of the cerebral, or _vice versa_, seeing that in neither case are we stating a real truth--the real truth being that it is only a cerebro-mental change which can cause any change either of cerebration or of mentation. Now it is evident that if the mental processes were always the effects of cerebral processes (Materialism), there could be no further question with regard to Liberty and Necessity; while, if the mental processes are the causes both of the cerebral processes and of one another (Spiritualism), the question before us becomes raised to a higher level.

The causality in question being now regarded as purely mental, the will is no longer regarded as a pa.s.sive slave of the brain, and the only thing to be considered is whether freedom is compatible with causation of a purely mental kind. Now, at an earlier stage of our enquiry I have argued that it is not; but this argument was based entirely upon spiritualistic premises, or upon the a.s.sumption that the principle of causality is everywhere external to, or independent of, the human mind--under which a.s.sumption I cannot see that it makes much difference whether the coercion comes from the brain alone, or from the whole general system of things external to the human mind. And here it is that I think the theory of Monism comes to the rescue.