The Mind and the Brain Part 4

Further, there are thousands of circ.u.mstances where the ideation is neither in conflict with the perception nor isolated from it, but in logical continuity with it. This continuity must even be considered as the normal condition. We think in the direction of that which we perceive. The image seems to prepare the adaptation of the individual to his surroundings; it creates the foresight, the preparation of the means, and, in a word, everything which const.i.tutes for us a final cause. Now, it is very necessary that the image appear real to be usefully the subst.i.tute of the sensation past or to come.

Let us establish one thing more. Acting as a subst.i.tute, the image not only appears as real as the sensation, it appears to be of the same nature; and the proof is that they are confounded one with the other, and that those who are not warned of the fact take one for the other.

Every time a body is perceived, as I previously explained, there are images which affix themselves to the sensation unnoticed. We think we perceive when we are really remembering or imagining. This addition of the image to the sensation is not a petty and insignificant accessory; it forms the major part, perhaps nine-tenths, of perception. Hence arise the illusions of the senses, which are the result, not of sensations but of ideas. From this also comes the difficulty of knowing exactly what, under certain circ.u.mstances, is observation or perception, where the fact perceived ends, and where conjecture begins. Once acquainted with all these possibilities of errors, how can we suppose a radical separation between the sensation and the image?

Examined more closely, images appear to us to be divisible into as many kinds as sensations: visual images correspond to visual sensations, tactile to tactile, and so on with all the senses.

That which we experience in the form of sensation, we can experience over again in the form of image, and the repet.i.tion, generally weaker in intensity and poorer in details, may, under certain favourable circ.u.mstances, acquire an exceptional intensity, and even equal reality: as is shown by hallucinations. Here, certainly, are very sound reasons for acknowledging that the images which are at the bottom of our thoughts, and form the object of them, are the repet.i.tion, the modification, the transposition, the a.n.a.lysis or the synthesis of sensations experienced in the past, and possessing, in consequence, all the characteristics of bodily states. I believe that there is neither more nor less spirituality in the idea than in the sensation. That which forms its spirituality is the implied act of cognition; but its object is material.

I foresee a final objection: I shall be told that even when the unreality of the image is not the rule, and appears only under certain circ.u.mstances, it nevertheless exists. This is an important fact. It has been argued from the unreality of dreams and hallucinations in which we give a body to our ideas, that we do not in reality perceive external bodies, but simply psychical states and modifications of our souls. If our ideas consist--according to the hypothesis I uphold--in physical impressions which are felt, we shall be told that these particular impressions must partic.i.p.ate in the nature of everything physical; that they are real, and always real; that they cannot be unreal, fict.i.tious, and mendacious, and that, consequently, the fict.i.tious character of ideation becomes inexplicable.

Two words of answer are necessary to this curious argument, which is nothing less than an effort to define the mental by the unreal, and to suppose that an appearance cannot be physical. No doubt, we say, every image, fantastical as it may seem as signification, is real in a certain sense, since it is the perception of a physical impression; but this physical nature of images does not prevent our making a distinction between true and false images. To take an a.n.a.logous example: we are given a sheet of proofs to correct, we delete certain redundant letters, and, although they are printed with the same type as the other letters, we have the right to say they are false. Again, in a musical air, we may hear a false note, though it is as real as the others, since it has been played. This distinction between reality and truth ought to be likewise applied to mental images. All are real, but some are false. They are false when they do not accord with the whole reality; they are true when they agree; and every image is partly false because, being an image, it does not wholly accord with the actual perceptions. It creates a belief in a perception which does not occur; and by developing these ideas we could easily demonstrate how many degrees of falsehood there are.

Physiologically, we may very easily reconcile the falsity of the image with the physical character of the impression on which it is based.

The image results from a partial cerebral excitement, which sensation results from an excitement which also acts upon the peripheral sensory nerves, and corresponds to an external object--an excitant which the image does not possess. This difference explains how it is that the image, while resulting from a physical impression, may yet be in a great number of cases declared false--that is to say, may be recognised as in contradiction to the perceptions.

To other minds, perhaps, metaphysical reasoning will be more satisfactory. For those, we propose to make a distinction between two notions, Existence or Reality, on the one hand, and Truth, on the other.

Existence or Reality is that of which we have an immediate apprehension. This apprehension occurs in several ways. In perception, in the first place. I perceive the reality of my body, of a table, the sky, the earth, in proportion to my perception of them. They exist, for if they did not, I could not perceive them. Another way of understanding reality is conception or thought. However much I may represent a thing to myself as imaginary, it nevertheless exists in a certain manner, since I can represent it to myself. I therefore, in this case, say that it is real or it exists. It is of course understood, that in these definitions I am going against the ordinary acceptation of the terms; I am taking the liberty of proposing new meanings. This reality is, then, perceived in one case and conceived in the other. Perceptibility or conceivability are, then, the two forms which reality may a.s.sume. But _reality_ is not synonymous with _truth_; notwithstanding the custom to the contrary, we may well introduce a difference between these two terms. Reality is that which is perceived or conceived; truth is that which accords with the whole of our knowledge. Reality is a function of the senses or of ideation; truth is a function of reasoning or of the reason.

For cognition to be complete, it requires the aid of all these functions. And, in fact, what does conception by itself give? It allows us to see if a thing is capable of representation. This is not a common-place thing, I will observe in pa.s.sing; for many things we name are not capable of representation, and there is often a criticism to be made; we think we are representing, and we are not. What is capable of representation exists as a representation, but is it true?

Some philosophers have imagined so, but they are mistaken; what we succeed in conceiving is alone possible.

Let us now take the Perceptible. Is what one perceives true? Yes, in most cases it is so in fact; but an isolated perception may be false, and disturbed by illusions of all kinds. It is all very well to say, "I see, I touch." There is no certainty through the senses alone in many circ.u.mstances that the truth has been grasped. If I am shown the spirit of a person I know to be dead, I shall not, notwithstanding the testimony of my eyes, believe it to be true, for this apparition would upset all my system of cognitions.

Truth is that which, being deemed conceivable, and being really perceived, has also the quality of finding its place, its relation, and its confirmation in the whole ma.s.s of cognitions previously acquired.

These distinctions,[21] if developed, would readily demonstrate that the advantages of observation are not eclipsed by those of speculation; and that those of speculation, in their turn, do not interfere with those of observation. But we have not time to develop these rules of logic; it will be sufficient to point out their relation to the question of the reality of mental images. Here are my conclusions in two words. Physical phenomena and images are always real, since they are perceived or conceived; what is sometimes wanting to them, and makes them false, is that they do not accord with the rest of our cognitions.[22]

Thus, then, are all objections overruled, in my opinion at least. We can now consider the world of ideas as a physical world; but it is one of a peculiar nature, which is not, like the other, accessible to all, and is subject to its own laws, which are laws of a.s.sociation. By these very different characteristics, it separates itself so sharply from the outer world that all endeavour to bring the two together seems shocking; and it is very easy to understand that many minds should wish to remain faithful to the conception that ideas form a mental or moral world. No metaphysical reasoning could prevail against this sentiment, and we must give up the idea of destroying it. But we think we have shown that idea, like sensation, comprises at the same time the physical and the mental.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Let me say, in pa.s.sing, that this separation that DESCARTES thinks he can establish between perception and ideation, is only conceivable on condition that it be not too closely examined, and that no exact definition of ideation be given. If we remark, in fact, that all thought is a reproduction, in some degree, of a sensation, we arrive at this conclusion: that a thought operated by a soul distinct from the body would be a thought completely void and without object, it would be the thought of nothingness. It is not, therefore, conceivable. Consequently the criterion, already so dangerous, which DESCARTES constantly employs--to wit: that what we clearly conceive is true--cannot apply to thought, if we take the trouble to a.n.a.lyse it and to replace a purely verbal conception by intuition.]

[Footnote 20: I somewhat regret that TAINE fell into the common-place idea of the opposition of the brain and thought; he took up again this old idea without endeavouring to a.n.a.lyse it, and only made it his own by the ornamentation of his style. And as his was a mind of powerful systematisation, the error which he committed led him into much wider consequences than the error of a more common mind would have done.]

[Footnote 21: I have just come across them again in an ingenious note of C. L. HERRICK: _The Logical and Psychological Distinction between the True and the Real_ (_Psych. Rev._, May 1904). I entirely agree with this author. But it is not he who exercised a suggestion over my mind; it was M. BERGSON. See _Matiere et Memoire_, p. 159.]

[Footnote 22: In order to remain brief, I have not thought fit to allude in the text to a question of metaphysics which closely depends on the one broached by me: the existence of an outer world.

Philosophers who define sensation as a modality of our Ego are much embarra.s.sed later in demonstrating the existence of an outer world.

Having first admitted that our perception of it is illusory, since, when we think we perceive this world, we have simply the feeling of the modalities of our Ego, they find themselves powerless to demonstrate that this illusion corresponds to a truth, and invoke in despair, for the purpose of their demonstration, instinct, hallucination, or some _a priori_ law of the mind. The position we have taken in the discussion is far more simple. Since every sensation is a fragment of matter perceived by a mind, the aggregate of sensations const.i.tutes the aggregate of matter. There is in this no deceptive appearance, and consequently no need to prove a reality distinct from appearances. As to the argument drawn from dreams and hallucinations which might be brought against this, I have shown how it is set aside by a distinction between perceptibility and truth. It is no longer a matter of perception, but of reasoning. In other words, all that we see, even in dreams, is real, but is not in its due place.]

CHAPTER IV

DEFINITION OF THE EMOTIONS

After sensations and images, we have to name among the phenomena of consciousness, the whole series of affective states--our pleasures and our pains, our joys and our griefs, our sentiments, our emotions, and our pa.s.sions. It is universally admitted that these states are of a mental nature, for several reasons. (1) We never objectivate them as we do our sensations, but we constantly consider them as indwelling or subjective states. This rule, however, allows an exception for the pleasure and the pain termed physical, which are often localised in particular parts of our bodies, although the position attributed to them is less precise than with indifferent sensations. (2) We do not alienate them as we do our indifferent sensations. The sensations of weight, of colour, and of form serve us for the construction of bodies which appear to us as perceived by us, but as being other than ourselves. On the contrary, we constantly and without hesitation refer our emotional states to our _Ego_. It is I who suffer, we say, I who complain, I who hope. It is true that this attribution is not absolutely characteristic of mental phenomena, for it happens that we put a part of our Ego into material objects, such as our bodies, and even into objects separate from our bodies, and whose sole relation to us is that of a legal proprietorship. We must guard against the somewhat frequent error of identifying the Ego with the psychical.

These two reasons sufficiently explain the tendency to see only psychological states in the emotional ones; and, in fact, those authors who have sought to oppose mind to matter have not failed to introduce emotion into their parallel as representing the essence of mind. On this point I will recall the fine ironical image used by Tyndall, the ill.u.s.trious English physicist, to show the abyss which separates thought from the molecular states of the brain. "Let us suppose," he says, "that the sentiment love, for example, corresponds to a right-hand spiral movement of the molecules of the brain and the sentiment hatred to a left-hand spiral movement. We should then know that when we love, a movement is produced in one direction, and when we hate, in another. But the Why would remain without an answer."

The question of knowing what place in our metaphysical theory we ought to secure for emotion seems difficult to resolve, and we even find some pleasure in leaving it in suspense, in order that it may be understood that a metaphysician is not compelled to explain everything. Besides, the difficulties which atop us here are peculiarly of a psychological order. They proceed from the fact that studies on the nature of the emotions are still very little advanced.

The physical conditions of these states are pretty well known, and their psychical and social effects have been abundantly described; but very little is known as to what distinguishes an emotion from a thought.

Two princ.i.p.al opinions may be upheld in the actual state of our acquaintance with the psychology of the feelings. When we endeavour to penetrate their essential and final nature, we have a choice between two contrary theories.

The first and traditional one consists in seeing in emotion a phenomenon _sui generis_; this is very simple, and leaves nothing more to be said.

The second bears the name of the intellectualist theory. It consists in expunging the characteristic of the affective states. We consider them as derivative forms of particular modes of cognition, and they are only "confused intelligence." This intellectualist thesis is of early date; it will be found in Herbart, who, by-the-by, gave it a peculiar form, by causing the play of images to intervene in the formation of the feelings. However, this particular point is of slight Importance. The intellectualist theory is more vast than Herbartism; it exists in all doctrines in which the characteristic difference between thought and feeling is expunged and feeling is brought back to thought. One of the clearest means of so doing consists in only seeing in the feeling the fact of perceiving something. To perceive is, in fact, the property of intelligence; to reason, to imagine, to judge, to understand, is always, in a certain sense, to perceive. It has been imagined that emotion is nothing else than a perception of a certain kind, an intellectual act strictly comparable to the contemplation of a landscape. Only, in the place of a landscape with placid features you must put a storm, a cataclysm of nature; and, instead of supposing this storm outside us, let it burst within us, let it reach us, not by the outer senses of sight and condition, but by the inner senses. What we then perceive will be an emotion.

Such is the theory that two authors--W. James and Lange--happened to discover almost at the same time, Lange treating it as a physiologist and W. James as a philosopher. Their theory, at first sight, appears singular, like everything which runs counter to our mental habits. It lays down that the symptoms which we all till now have considered as the physiological consequence, the translation, and the distant effects of the emotions, const.i.tute their essential base. These effects are: the expression of the physiognomy, the gesture, the cry, and the speech; or the reflex action on the circulation, the pallor or blushing, the heat mounting to the head, or the cold of the shiver which pa.s.ses over the body. Or it is the heart, which hastens or slackens its beats, or makes them irregular, or enfeebles, or augments them. Or the respiration, which changes its rhythm, or increases, or is suspended. Or else it is the secretion of the saliva or of the sweat, which flows in abundance or dries up. Or the muscular force, which is increased or decays. Or the almost undefinable organic troubles revealed to us by the singing in the ears, constriction of the epigastrium, the jerks, the trembling, vertigo, or nausea--all this collection of organic troubles which comes more or less confusedly to our consciousness under the form of tactile, muscular, thermal, and other sensations. Until now this category of phenomena has been somewhat neglected, because we saw in it effects and consequences of which the role in emotion itself seemed slight, since, if they could have been suppressed, it was supposed that emotion would still remain. The new theory commences by changing the order of events. It places the physical symptoms of the emotions at the very beginning, and considers them the direct effects of the external excitant, which is expressed by this elegant formula: "It used to be said, 'I perceive a danger; I am frightened, I tremble.' Now we must say, 'I tremble before a danger, first, and it is after having trembled that I am frightened.'" This is not a change in order only; it is something much more serious. The change is directed to the nature of emotion. It is considered to exist in the organic derangements indicated above. These derangements are the basis of emotion, its physical basis, and to be moved is to perceive them. Take away from the consciousness this physical reflex, and emotion ceases.

It is no longer anything but an idea.

This theory has at least the merit of originality. It also pleases one by its great clearness--an entirely intellectual clearness, we may say; for it renders emotion comprehensible by enunciating it in terms of cognition. It eliminates all difference which may exist between a perception and an emotion. Emotion is no longer anything but a certain kind of perception, the perception of the organic sensations.

This reduction, if admitted, would much facilitate the introduction of emotion into our system, which, being founded on the distinction between the consciousness and the object, is likewise an intellectualist system. The definition of emotion, as it is taught by W. James, seems expressly made for us who are seeking to resolve all intellectual states into physical impressions accompanied by consciousness.

By the side of emotion we may place, as demanding the same a.n.a.lytical study, the feeling of effort. We ought to inquire with effort, as has been done with emotion, what is the psychological nature of this phenomenon; and in the same way that there exists an intellectualist theory of the emotions, viz. that of James, who reduces all the history of the emotions to intelligence, so there exists an intellectualist theory of effort, which likewise tends to bring back, all will to intelligence. It is again the same author, that true genius, W. James, who has attempted this reduction. I do not know whether he has taken into account the parallelism of the two theories, but it is nevertheless evident. Effort, that basis of activity, that state of consciousness which so many psychologists have described as something _sui generis_, becomes to James a phenomenon of perception.

It is the perception of sensations proceeding from the muscles, the tendons, the articulations, the skin, and from all the organs directly or indirectly concerned in the execution of movement. To be conscious of an effort would then be nothing else than to receive all these centripetal sensations; and what proves this is, that the consciousness of effort when most clearly manifested is accompanied by some muscular energy, some strong contraction, or some respiratory trouble, and yields if we render the respiration again regular and put the muscles back into repose.

To my great regret I can state nothing very clear regarding these problems. The attempt to intellectualise all psychical problems is infinitely interesting, and leads to a fairly clear conception, by which everything is explained by a mechanism reflected in a mirror, which is the consciousness. But we remain perplexed, and we ask ourselves whether this clearness of perception is not somewhat artificial, whether affectivity, emotivity, tendency, will, are really all reduced to perceptions, or whether they are not rather irreducible elements which should be added to the consciousness. Does not, for instance, desire represent a complement of the consciousness? Do not desire and consciousness together represent a something which does not belong to the physical domain and which forms the moral world? This question I leave unanswered.

CHAPTER V

DEFINITION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS--THE RELATION SUBJECT-OBJECT

After having separated from the consciousness that which it is not, let us try to define what it is. This and the two following chapters are devoted to this study.

A theory has often been maintained with regard to the consciousness; namely, that it supposes a relation between two terms--a subject and an object, and that it consists exactly in the feeling of this relation. By subject is understood the something that has consciousness; the object is the something of which we are conscious.

Every thought, we are told, implies subject and object, the representer and the represented, the _sentiens_ and the _sensum_--the one active, the other pa.s.sive, the active acting on the pa.s.sive, the _ego_ opposed to the _non ego_.

This opinion is almost legitimised by current language. When speaking of our states of consciousness, we generally say, "I am conscious; it is I who have consciousness," and we attribute to our I, to our Ego, to our personality, the role of subject. But this is not a peremptory argument in favour of the above opinion; it is only a presumption, and, closely examined, this presumption seems very weak.

Hitherto, when a.n.a.lysing the part of mind, we have employed non-committal terms: we have said that sensation implied consciousness, and not that sensation implied something which is conscious.[23] The difference may appear too subtle, but it is not; it consists in taking from consciousness the notion of a subject being conscious and replacing it by the very act of consciousness.

My description applies very exactly, I think, to the facts. When we are engaged in a sensation, or when we perceive something, a phenomenon occurs which simply consists in having consciousness of a thing. If to this we add the idea of the subject, which has consciousness, we distort the event. At the very moment when it is taking place, it is not so complicated; we complicate it by adding to it the work of reflection. It is reflection which constructs the notion of the subject, and it is this which afterwards introduces this construction into the states of consciousness; in this way the state of consciousness, by receiving this notion of subject, acquires a character of duality it did not previously possess. There are, in short, two separate acts of consciousness, and one is made the subject of the other. "Primitively," says Rabier, "there is neither representative nor represented; there are sensations, representations, facts of consciousness, and that is all. Nothing is more exact, in my opinion, than this view of Condillac's:--that primitively, the inanimate statue is entirely the sensation that it feels. To itself it is all odour and all savour; it is nothing more, and this sensation includes no duality for the consciousness. It is of an absolute simplicity."

Two arguments may be advanced in favour of this opinion. The first is one of logic. We have divided all knowledge into two groups--objects of cognition, and acts of cognition. What is the subject of cognition?

Does it form a new group? By no means; it forms part of the first group, of the object group; for it is something to be known.

Our second argument is one of fact. It consists in remembering that which in practice we understand by the subject of cognition; or rather, metaphorically we represent this subject to ourselves as an organ--the eye that sees or the hand that touches--and we represent to ourselves the relation subject-object in the shape of a material relation between two distinct bodies which are separated by an interval and between which some action is produced which unites them.