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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031232139

THE NATURE OF MIND

HUMAN AUTOMATISM,

BY

MORTON PEINCE, M.D.,

PHYSICIAN yOR NERVOUS DISEASES, BOSTON DISPENSARY; PHYSICIAN FOR NERVOUS
DISEASES, OUT-PATIENT DEPARTMENT, BOSTON CITY HOSPITAL, ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. LIPPINCOTT f"0:\rPANY.

LONDON: 15 RUSSELL STREET, CO VENT GARDEN

1885.

A' /^^rs-S"

Copyright, 1885, by Morton Peince.

PREFACE.

The basis of the following; work was written some
eight or nine years ago during my student days at the
medical school, and afterwards served as a graduation
thesis. Having been urged to publish this thesis by ray
friends, it was enlarged between two and three years ago
to its present size. I do not think that the views ex-
pressed in the earlier essay have been changed in any
important particular, though the phraseology has been in
many passages altered, partly to make it harmonize with
the conventional forms of expression used generally by
writers on this subject, and partly because mature reflec-
tion made me aware that some of the original terms
and phrases employed either did not correctly explain
my meaning, or were lacking in precision and conse-
quently capable of different interpretations. Many
points which were of necessity merely touched upon in
the earlier essay and hence liable to misinterpretation,
have been since greatly expanded, and, especially in the
chapter on " Self-Determination," explained more fully,
extended reasons being given for the conclusions ex-
pressed. The final chapter, on "Materialism," has been
entirely added. As I have pursued my studies on this
subject, the views of other writers have been so far in-
corporated and criticised as has been thought would
make the subject-matter clearer.

iv PREFACE.

The primary object of this book is to discuss certain
problems of mind aud matter — particularly the rela-
tion between the mind and the brain — simply as ques-
tions of psychology and physiology, without regard to
the bearing they may have on philosophical doctrines.
Still, all such questions lie so deeply at the root of the
latter, that it is impossible to discuss the one without
regarding the effect they have upon the other. Hence
I have not hesitated to enter into the doctrine of Mate-
rialism so far as it is affected by the conclusions arrived
at. Such questions as the relation of the mind to the
body constitute the foundation of Spiritualism and
Materialism. The latter, as a result of the great ad-
vancement which has been made by science during the
last half-century, has of recent years awakened re-
newed interest and discussion. This has been directly
due in no small degree to the writings of sucii men,
among others, as Spencer, Huxley, Clifford, and Mauds-
ley, in England, Vogt, Moleschott, and Biichner, in
Germany, who, whether all of them have espoused ma-
terialistic opinions or not, have at any rate given new
energy to the materialistic school, and aroused the
opposition of the anti-materialists. It is not always
easy, however, to correctly classify many prominent
writers, as so much that is directly contradictory is
found in their writings. It is not uncommon to read
on one page that a given author emphatically denies
materialism, and on the next to find what is apparently
the most pronounced materialism. But, notwithstand-
ing the strong ground on which it is intrenched, and
the great help which it has received from science, ma-
terialism has met with strong opposition. Its oppo-

PREFACE. V

iients, it must be confessed, have made their attacks
from all sides, with considerable vigor, and effectively
brought to bear arguments based on philosophy and
science. And yet, in spite of all its short-comings,
materialism is essentially the philosophy of science,
and hence that which must eventually prevail. All
attacks against it have served only to show its weak
places, not to break it down. Still, it cannot be denied
that some of the objections urged against such forms
of materialism as have been maintained by even its
ablest advocates have been well founded. This, it
seems to me, has not been the fault of the doctrine, but
rather of its expounders. Not only have false mean-
ings been attributed to it by its opponents, but even its
advocates have not always understood its first princi-
ples, and the conclusions which have been drawn from
scientific data have sometimes been directly in contra-
diction to the teachings of experience. Whatever
merit the views advocated in the following pages may
have, it is to be hoped that they at least harmonize some
of the hitherto conflicting theories and facts, and that
the really valid objections to materialism are avoided.
In the maintenance of the materialistic nature of mind,
certain difficulties have almost universally been recog-
nized, especially on the side of " automatism," " self-de-
termination," and in the application of the law of the
Correlation of Forces, etc., which it has been difiicult
to overcome. Nay, more, while it has been seen that
mind is to be regarded as some sort of " manifestation
of matter," yet most writers are ready to admit the im-
possibility of explaining the exact connection between
the two, and confess an insoluble mystery. Many of

vi PREFACE.

the most thoroughgoing materialists content themselves
with stating the intimate union of the mental and physi-
cal worlds, without attempting to explain how they are
united. The views maintained in the following pages, it
is thought, both overcome these difficulties and furnish
a satisfactory explanation of many of the mysteries of
the mind, including its relation to the body and other
kindred questions. The conclusions expressed as to
the nature of the mind avoid, I believe, the objections
which have proved fatal to other materialistic doctrines.

There is one writer whose writings I regret to have
overlooked until long after this work was completed,
and a short time before going to press. I refer to the
late Professor Clifford, who, so far as I know, is the
only writer whose views on the relation of the mind to
the body coincide with those expressed in these pages.
I regret that it was not practicable to refer to Clifford's
writings more fully in the text, but references have
been made in foot-notes when there appeared to be
reason for doing so.

The original essay was withheld from print during
these many years for several reasons, not the least
among them being the desire to reflect well on so diffi-
cult a subject, which has already baffled some of the
ablest minds the world has ever produced, before com-
mitting myself to a public expression of opinion. But
I may add that continued study and maturer thought
has only strengthened me in the views originally formed.

Boston, March, 1885.

OOI^TEl^rTS.

THE NATURE OF MIND.

CHAPTER I.

THE MODERN DOCTRINE OP THE RELATION OF THE MIND TO

THE BODY.

PAaB

Introductory — Spiritualism and Materialism — Purpose of
this "Work— The Physical Basis of Mind— The Theory of
Punctions — The Theory of Aspects — The Inadequacy of
toth Theories— The Usual Explanation no Explanation —
The Heal Questions to be answered — The Logical Deduc-
tions from these Theories inconsistent with the known
Facts — The Inadequacy of the Usual Explanation gener-
ally recognized ; by Spencer; byTyndall — Fiske — Logical
Conditions of the Problem — Bain — One Cause of Hostility
to Materialism — The Notion of Double Properties enter-
tained by Tyndall ; by Bain — Mind does act upon Body —
Views of Lewes ... . . 3-27

CHAPTER II.

THE TRUE NATURE OP THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED.

Statement of the Theorem to be proved — Meaning of Sub-
jective and Objective — "What is meant by Matter and
Motion — Pour Different Conceptions of Matter — Careless-
ness in the Use of the Term Matter — "What is meant by
Cerebral Activities — Their True Nature— Sources of Error
in investigating the Problem — Parallelism between Phys-
ical and Mental Processes —Piske on this Parallelism —
Fallacy of the Theory of Parallelism— Spencer . 28-43

Viii CONTENTS.

OHAPTEK III.

THE SOLTJTIOlf.

FAGS

The Argument — The Brain as the Organ of the Min-d —
Grounds for believing Consciousness to be Dependent
upon Molecular Motions in the Brain — Nature of the
Dependence — Pour Possible Explanations — The Second
only probable — Consciousness the Reality of Physical
Processes — Apparent Paradox — The Eeal Question not
how Physical Processes are transformed into Consciousness
— Lewes — Explanation of the Paradox — Nature of the
Association between Consciousness and the "accompany-
ing Physical Changes" 44-60

CHAPTEK IV.

THE NATURE OP THE MIND.

The Ultimate Nature of Mind — Consciousness an Ultimate
— Difficulty of understanding the Transition between
Mind and Body avoided — Carpenter — Ferrier — There are
not Two Processes, but One — Feeling is not accompanied
by Molecular Changes — It is not inconceivable that Mind
should have been produced from Matter ; Reply to Fiske
— Spencer and the Substance of Mind — The Insufficiency
of the Notion of Mind being a Symbol of something else;
also of the Theory of Aspects — Matter and Mind as Dif-
ferent Modes of apprehending something else — Deduc-
tions from the foregoing Principle 61-82

CHAPTER V.

THE CORRELATION OP PORCBS.

The Applicability of the Law to Mental Action — Meaning
of the Law— Objections to its Application as offered by
Fiske — Objections answered — Materialism not inconsist-
ent with this Law ... . . . 83-90

CONTENTS. ix

IPJ^iaT II.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

CHAPTER I.

THE REFLEX CHAKACTBR 07 IDEAS.

PAOB

Logical Consequences of the Preceding Doctrine — Law of
Inertia — Consciousness is Passive, not Active — All Mus-
cular and Mental Action Reflex — Apparent Objection to
this Conclusion — ^TJse of the Term Reflex to describe Psy-
chical Pacts . 03-98

CHAPTER IL

CONSCIOUSNESS AB AN AQBNT IN THE DETERMINATION OP
BODILY ACTION.

Automatism the Logical Consequence of the Reflex Theory
— Automatism modified by the Discovery of the Nature
of Mind — Objections to Automatism avoided — Conscious-
ness an Agent in Determining Action — Lewes and Au-
tomatism — Huxley — Objections to Consciousness being a_
Collateral Product — Experiments on Animals — Interpre-
tation of these Experiments — Case of the French Ser-
geant 99-130

CHAPTER III.

SBLF-DBTERMINATION.

Meaning of Self-Determination— Agency by which it is
accomplished — Nature of the Ego — Self-Determination
compatible with the Reflex Theory and Automatism —
All Action determined by the Strongest Motive — Revery
and Deliberation — Coleridge — Mozart — General Conclu-
sions . . 131-148

X CONTENTS.

OHAPTEK IV.

WHAT IS MATERIALISM ?

PAGE

Vagueness in the Term — Materialism Misunderstood — False
Meanings attributed to the Term — Only Two Positions
upon which we can stand — Showing that Mind is the
Keality of Matter does not transfer it to Spiritualism —
Any Doctrine which in Substance accepts this is Materi-
alism — Evolution shows that External Forces are allied
in Nature to Consciousness — Materialism does not impair
the Dignity or Attributes of anything in the Universe —
The Discovery of the Causation and Origin of Phenomena
does not alter the Phenomena themselves — Materialism in
one Eespeot more elevating than any other Doctrine —
The Morality of Materialism — Evolution of Moral Prin-
ciples — Highly-developed Brain necessary for High Stand-
ard of Morals among Kaces — High Standard impossible
among the Lower Kaces — Illustrations of this — Ahsence
of the Moral Codes of Civilized Nations not Evidence of
the Absence of all such Codes in Lower Races — Theo-
logical Codes best suited to Man in his Present State 149-173

PABT I.

THE l^^ATUEE OF MIND.

" The very idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial, and so
exalted a being as the anima, or even the animus, taking up her
residence, and sitting dabbling, like a tadpole, all daylong, both
summer and winter, in a puddle, or in a liquid of any kind, how
thick or thin soever, he would say, shocked his imagination: he
would scarce give the doctrine a hearing." — Tristram Shandy,
B. ii. oh. 19.

CHAPTEE I.

THE MODERN DOCTRINE OP THE RELATION OP
THE MIND TO THE BODY.

" When men have once acquiesced in untrue opin-
ions," remarks Hobbes, " and registered tiiem as authen-
ticated records in their minds, it is no less impossible
to speak intelligibly to such persons than to write
legibly on a piece of paper already scribbled over."
Hence it is that any inquiry like that which is the
subject of this work is fraught with difficulties, which
are due as much to the fact that most men have already
acquiesced, without question, in opinions of transmitted
authority as to the inherent obscurity of the matter.
And although those, who have given especial thought
to such questions, and from the stand-point of modern
science have studied anew the problem of the relation-
ship of the mind to the body, have arrived at conclu-
sions differing largely from the orthodox beliefs held
by the majority of even educated people, still, for a
long time to come, it cannot be expected that these con-
clusions will be very widely accepted, until at least
radical changes are made in modern methods of edu-
cation. And yet, if all men could and would wipe
out from their minds, as with a sponge, all existing
opinions on such matters, and would begin anew to
build up a doctrine of the nature of mind which should
be in harmony with existing knowledge, there can be
no doubt that a very different opinion would be arrived

3

4 THE NATURE OF MIND.

at than that which obtains to-day. It is very difficult
for any one, brought up with certain ideas and beliefs,
to sufficiently set aside these preconceived notions to
give due weight to evidence offered by those of an op-
posed way of thinking. This is one of the reasons,
aside at least from the inherent difficulty of the subject
and the lack of exact knowledge of the mechanism of
the nervous system, why there has been so much differ-
ence of opinion regarding the relation of the mind to
the body, and why the opinion maintained by the gen-
erality of people differs so widely from that held by the
leaders in advanced thought. But though there is a
wide chasm between the notions of the unlearned and
the scientific writers of the day, there is an equally
wide one between the latter and another class of men,
who, though learned in such matters, still, from the
force of conservatism, adhere to ancient scholastic
creeds. The philosophical world to-day is divided, as
it always has been, into two schools of philosophy, —
the spiritual and the material, though the latter may
be said to be the exponent of modern science.

Spiritualism endeavors to explain all mental phe-
nomena by presupposing the existence of a spiritual
something acting through the brain as its instrument :
materialism looks to the properties of matter alone for
a solution. But while spiritualism simplifies the prob-
lem by postulating what in one sense may be consid-
ered a definite, if incomprehensible, factor, materialism
on the other hand, protean in its forms, embraces many
doctrines and appears under many guises. Spiritual-
ism simply avoids the difficulty by going around it ;
materialism boldly enters the labyrinth, but often

THE NATURE OF MIND. 5

becomes lost in its mazes. Materialism, like spiritu-
alism, was originally the creation of metaphysical
speculation, and contained very little that was founded
upon established fact. As long as this was the case,
as long as materialism was but the product of abstract
speculation without positive scientific data upon which
to rest, it was nothing more than a mere collection of
fanciful hypotheses, without solidity and without sub-
stantial support. In this respect it was like unto its
opponent spiritualism, and only merited the neglect
it formerly received. It is only within the last few
decades that sufficient evidence has been collected, as
the result of patient and laborious investigation into
the phenomena of nature, to justify the offering of
materialism as a satisfactory explanation of the phe-
nomena of the universe and to warrant its acceptance.
With every addition to our knowledge, with every fresh
discovery in the domains of science, the deeper we pene-
trate into the mysteries of nature, the stronger becomes
the doctrine of modern materialism ; until to-day it
offers the most acceptable explanation of the vital
problems with which science has to deal. It is difficult
to understand how any one, who has taken pains to
thoroughly inform himself on the great scientific ques-
tions of the day and is conversant with the discoveries
made of late years in the natural sciences, especially in
the department of biology, can fail to find in material-
ism' the most satisfactory explanation that has yet been

' It is only fair to say that by materialism I do not mean any
of those crude notions which are commonly attached to the term.
By materialism I mean a much higher form of doctrine, which
I believe to be the legitimate expression of the scientific thought

1*

6 TBE NATURE OF MIND.

offered of vital phenomena. It is true that what has
been accomplished is insignificant compared with what
remains to be done, but with every step forward the
way becomes clearer and the path surer. In these
pages we shall be interested only with that aspect of
materialism which deals with the relation between mind
and body ; an old question, but one which so far from
becoming hackneyed with time, receives increasing
interest from every additional discovery made in the
physiology of the nervous system. We are to-day, for
the first time, just beginning to be in a position to in-
vestigate the problem which nervous physiology alone
has properly opened to us and which before has re-
mained as a sealed book. All metaphysical specula-
tion, not founded- on physiological data, as to its con-
tents must be looked upon as a series of more or less
shrewd guesses, and even with our present knowledge
of the functions of the nervous system, we cannot con-
sider that we have more than arrived at the threshold
of the inquiry. The time has not yet arrived when we
can hope to thoroughly understand the relations of the
mental to the physical world. Nevertlieless, as the
merchant from time to time stops in the midst of his
transactions to " take account of stock," so in the prog-
ress of science, it is well to occasionally pause, and cast

of the day, though perhaps it is necessary to admit that some of
the exponents of this thought reject, for what appears to me in-
sufficient reasons, the term materialism. This maybe because
this expression has often been invested with a meaning, crude
and unphilosophical, with which this higher form has nothing
in common. What is understood by materialism will be ex-
plained in the final chapter, to which the reader is referred.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 7

our eyes over what has been done, to sum up the evi-
dence that has been accumulated, and see whither we
are drifting. Accordingly, the writer has ventured in
these pages to call attention to that explanation of the
problem which seems most in accordance with the
present condition of science. The subject lias been ap-
proached entirely from a materialistic stand-point, and
therefore the spiritualist will probably find little herein
to disconcert him. In a subject so prolific in litera-
ture as that of the relation of mind and matter, no one
can hope to invent a theory that has not at some time
or other been previously suggested. At most one can
only hope, as fresh additions are made to our knowl-
edge, to bring new and more potent evidence in sup-
port of this or that theory, and to read more intelli-
gently by the light of improved science problems that
before have been involved in obscurity and veiled in
mysticism. In the following pages the writer has
simply endeavored to bring forward evidence in sup-
port of a theory which has seemed to him most in
accordance with known facts, and to explain by natu-
ral means phenomena which otherwise border on the
mysterious. The doctrines which are maintained have
seemed to him to be the only logical sequences of
the generally accepted views held to-day in regard to
the basis of mental processes, and if the latter are ac-
cepted the other should be also. How far the views
here advocated are in harmony with those of other
writers will be noticed later.

If we look a little more closely into the history of
philosophy, it will be found that it has always been a
tendency of mankind to explain the unknown by a

8 THE NATURE OF MIND.

resort to mysterious and supernatural agents. This
has been true both of animate and inanimate nature.
It is a tendency which has prevailed in inverse propor-
tion to the existing knowledge of the causation of
natural phenomena. The wind, the thunder, the light-
ning, the properties of matter, all have at different
times been explained by means of supernatural or im-
material agents. Mind has been no exception to this
law ; but as the cloud which has hung over our knowl-
edge of biological processes has remained longer un-
lifted than in other departments of science, the spiritual
influence has been longer felt, and mental phenomena
have remained for a longer time enshrouded in
mysticism.

To-day the weight of authority is in favor of a
material basis for all mental phenomena. It is gen-
erally conceded that mind depends upon the develop-
ment of a peculiar matter, the brain, for its existence.

The brain is a complex organ made up of what are
called nerve-cells and nerve-fibrt's, the latter serving as
conductors, like ordinary telegraph-wires, for the cells,
which are the batteries which run the nervous mechan-
ism. Of the nerve-fibres, some connect together the
neighboring cells, others cells situated in distant parts
of the brain. Other systems of fibres connect the
brain with the various parts of the body. Of these
latter there are two kinds : one ingoing, called the
sensory or centripetal nerves, which convey impres-
sions to the cells of the brain ; and the other, out-
going, called motor, or centrifugal, which convey ex-
citations from the cells of the brain to the muscles,
viscera, and other parts. This, in a rough way, is

THE NATVRE OF MIND. 9

the anatomical mechanism of the nervous system.
The more minute structure with still other systems
of nerves it is not necessary for our purpose to con-
sider. We have here what is called a nervous loop.
An impression is conveyed from the skin, for ex-
ample, by way of the ingoing nerves to the brain.
Here an agitation^ is set up among the molecules
of the cells. This agitation is conveyed from cell
to cell, a greater or less number being implicated as
the case may be ; and finally this molecular motion
is retransmitted as a nervous current along the out-
going nerves to the muscles to end in muscular action.
Now the important point is this: at the moment
when the ingoing current reaches the cerebral mole-
cules, a feeling of some sort arises in the individual,
and continues as long as these molecules continue in
agitation, and ceases when the molecular motion ceases.
Whenever the molecules of the brain are set into ac-
tivity, a sensation or thought of some kind occurs ;
and, vice va-sa, whenever a thought or sensation arises,
a corresponding molecular agitation occurs. Let us
take a concrete example. A man is sitting in his
library quietly reading. The rays of light from his
book fall upon his retina and excite the terminal fila-
ments of the optic nerve; from here the impression is
carried as a neural current to the brain, and excites the
molecules of the cells. Along with this excitement of
the cerebral molecules there arises the image called the
book, and all the various thoughts corresponding to the
printed words of the page. These thoughts are said

> Often called undulations, tremors, vibrations, etc.

10 THE NATURE OF MIND.

to occur side by side with the molecular agitation.
Suddenly the cry of " fire" is raised. The man throws
down his book, jumps from his chair, and runs down
stairs in answer to the alarm. Now what has occurred
in his nervous apparatus? The pulsations of the at-
mosphere corresponding to the sound " fire" have struck
upon his auditory apparatus ; from there tiiey have
been conveyed as a neural undulation or current along
the auditory nerve to his brain and there aroused a new
set of molecular motions ; and with them a new set of
thoughts has arisen, embracing perhaps a mental picture
of the house in flames and of danger to the inmates.
But not stopping here, the cerebral motion has been
transmitted along the outgoing nerves to the muscles,
and resulted in the actions just described ; we have
here, from a physical point of view, what is called a
nervous circuit. On the one hand we have a series of
molecular motions beginning with irritations of sen-
sory nerves, and passing as cerebral motions through
the brain, ending in muscular action ; and on the other
hand we have states of consciousness correlated with
a portion of that circuit, the cerebral portion. In this
or in some modified form of this consists all nervous
and mental action. On this fact is based the doctrine
of the physical basis of mind, which recognizes the
association and interdependence of molecular motions
and consciousness. Underneath, then, every mental act
there flows a physical current. With every thought,
sensation, or emotion is associated a physical cJiange in
a material substance, — the brain. No mental act can
take place without a corresponding physical change;
no physical change without a corresponding mental

THE NATURE OF MIND. H

act. Such is the usually accepted doctrine of the
present day.

According to this view we have two sets of phe-
nomena, two classes of facts, a mental act and a physi-
cal change, invariably associated together. But this is
very far from explaining the nature of mental processes.
The further question is here presented to us. What is
the nature of this association ? Is it to be looked upon,
as many think, as a mere coexistence of dissimilar phe-
nomena, rather than as one in which any dependency
of the one upon the other can be traced ? And are we
here to place a limit to our inquiries, and consider that
the problem has been reduced to its lowest terms? If
we are content to do so, very little progress can be said
to have been made towards understanding the relation-
ship between mind and matter. Unless some causal
or interdependent relation between the two can be
established, we shall be very little better off than we
were before physiological science undertook to solve
the problem.

But, in truth, physiological science does pretend to
go further, though a careful study of the teachings of
the exponents of the modern school will reveal two
different interpretations of the facts, however unani-
mous they may appear at first sight. These two inter-
pretations may be termed the Theory of Functions and
the Theory of Aspects. Both theories I hope to be
able to show are neither a sufficient nor correct expla-
nation of the facts.

The basis of both doctrines is a physical substance
undei?lying both series of facts, — the physical disturb-
ances, and consciousness, — but the relation which the

12 THE NATURE OF MIND.

two series bear to this substance differs in the two
theories. First, as to the Theory of Functions.

After a careful study of the reasoning by which this
conclusion has been reached, as well as of the general
meaning which seems to underlie the writings of the
principal authorities on the subject, I am convinced
that there is only one intelligible meaning with which
this doctrine can be invested, and that is this : there is
one underlying matter or substance ; this substance has
two properties, — one of these properties is known as
those disturbances we call nerve-motions, the other is
consciousness; that is, our ideas, sensations, and emo-
tions. When nerve-motions, the one "property" of
this matter, is present, consciousness, the other " prop-
erty," appears simultaneously. Both come and both
go side by side together ; but why when one appears
the other should do so also we do not know. They
may be likened to the following ideal case. Let us in-
vest a piece of iron with the properties of magnetism
and heat under ideal conditions. Let us suppose
(which is not the case) that whenever the temperature
of the iron is raised above that of the surrounding air
it becomes magnetized, and, conversely, whenever it
becomes magnetized the temperature becomes raised.
In this case the magnetism could be said to correspond
with consciousness and heat with nerve-motions.

This simile must not be pushed farther than is in-
tended. In this case of the iron the heat will probably
be inferred to be the cause of the magnetism, and vice
versa. But this has scarcely been asserted to be the
case with mind and the accompanying neural undula-
tions. The analogy is applicable only so far as con-

THE NATURE OF MIND. ]3

cerns the parallelism of the phenomena. Conscious-
ness and nerve-motions are said only to run in parallel
circuits. When one is present, the other is also pres-
ent. They resemble two clocks, which, wound up at
the same moment, record the time and strike the hours
in perfect harmony. " We can trace," says Tyndall,
" the development of a nervous system, and correlate
with it the parallel phenomena of sensation and thought.
We see with nndoubting certainty that they go hand
in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment
we seek to comprehend the connection between them;" ^
and yet " thought," says Huxley, " is as much a function
of matter as motion is." ^

Although the theory has not often, if at all, been
stated as distinctly or boldly as has just been done, still
I think I am justified in this interpretation of it. This
is the general idea underlying this form of the mate-
rialistic doctrine, and is the only meaning which can
be deduced from the writings of such men as have ac-
cepted it, although it may be suspected that the very
vagueness with which it is often stated is not indicative
of a clear conception of the defined conditions. Fur-
thermore, this interpretation is the only one which is
logically compatible with the deductions which have been
drawn from the doctrine itself. This I hope to be able
to show later. Till then I shall have to ask the reader
to provisionally accept it. According to this doctrine
we may be said to have to do with a unity of sub-
stance and a duality of properties.

The Theory of Aspects differs considerably from this,

* Belfast Address, p. 62. ^ On Descartes.

14 THE NATURE OF MIND.

though the two are sometimes confused and regarded
as identical. There is certainly often lacking that pre-
cision of language which is essential to a clear under-
standing of the problem.

According to the Theory of Aspects, consciousness
and nerve motions (vibrations) are only diiFerent aspects
of one and the same underlying substance, which is
unknown. This view has perhaps been as clearly ex-
pressed by Bain, as by any one else, when he says, " the
one substance with two sets of properties, two sides (the
physical and the mental), a double-faced unity, would
seem to comply with all the exigencies of the case." ^

The same notion has thus been described by Lewes :
"There maybe every ground for concluding that a
logical process has its correlative physical process, and
that tlie two processes are merely two aspects of one
event." ^ And again : " The two processes are equiva-
lent, and the difference arises from the difference in the
mode of apprehension." ^

The inadequacy of these theories of Functions and
Aspects to explain much of the difficulty is admitted
by most writers almost in the same breath in which
they advanced them. That which has received the
most general acceptance is the Theory of Aspects, but
as an explanation it is incomplete. To say that con-
sciousness is the subjective aspect of matter is equiva-
lent to saying that consciousness is the conscious side
of matter, which is no explanation. It is simply
stating over again in different terms the fact we wish

1 Mind and Body, p. 196.

» Physical Basis of Mind, p. 895. » Ibid.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 15

to explain ; and similarly, to say that nerve-motion is
the objective aspect of the same matter is simply to say
that nerve- motions are objective phenomena, which is
what we knew before. These are only restatements of
the facts, not explanations of them. Nor does it help
matters to say that the same matter underlies both, or
the difference between them is due to different modes
of apprehending the same thing. I shall have more
to say on this point in chapter iv., to which the reader
is referred. What we wish to know is this : How do
we come to have two aspects instead of one ? Why, when
we have one aspect, should we also have at the same
time the other? How is the one set of changes, the
physical, related to the other set, the mental ? What
is that connection between them that insures the pres-
ence of a feeling when physical disturbances are pro-
duced, or when a feeling is present, induces physical
disturbances? Whai difference is there between the
essential naiure of an objective fact, like a neural
tremor, and a subjective state or feeling, and have they
anything in common f These are important questions
which call for answers, and any doctrine which fails to
explain them falls far short of the requirements of the
case. But these questions, there need be no hesitation
in saying, neither the theory of functions nor aspects
explains. On the contrary, the former has led to de-
ductions which, though logically drawn from the prem-
ises, are inconsistent with the facts established by each
one's own consciousness. Consequently the premises
must be false. The deductions I refer to I propose to
consider in a later chapter, and therefore that discussion
will not be anticipated here, further than to say that,

16 THE NATURE OF MIND.

accepting this explanation, it has been held by some,
that states of consciousness are merely by-products, and
in nowise essential to the working of the body ; or, in
other words', that our feelings have no causative influ-
ence in the production of our actions. So that when I
eat because (as I suppose) I am hungry, or work out
an intricate mathematical problem, or strike some one
who made me angry, I am not prompted to these acts,
and do not carry them into execution under the direc-
tion of my thoughts and feelings, but these acts are
done by the mechanism of the brain, and the chemical
and physical changes which work the mechanism are
simply accompanied by my feelings and thoughts, but
not influenced in any way by them. Our feelings be-
come simply indicators, like those of a steam-engine,
which tell the number of revolutions, and height of
pressure, without in any way affecting the revolutions
themselves.

Such a conclusion is sufficient to reduce the whole
theory to an absurdity.

The inadequacy of the above explanations, however
simple and satisfactory they may appear at first sight,
is recognized on all sides, and is the same whether it be
approached on the physical or on the subjective side.
They simply avoid the difficulty, they do not remove it.
This difficulty is, as I have said, in explaining how we
come to have two aspects, and how these two " aspects"
are related ; how physical changes become translated
into the subjective feeling. That the two are correlated
in time, that is, that the two occur simultaneously, side
by side, is plain enough and easily understood, but it is
confessedly not so easy to understand how the one be-

THE NATURE OF MIND. 17

comes " transformed" (?) into the other; how, in fact, a
feeling insures the presence of a pTiysical motion, and
a physical motion, of a feeling. Thus Mr. Spencer,
who, as a psychologist, has treated the matter in a
masterly manner, maintains this view of different as-
pects. " For what," he says, " is objectively a change
in a superior nerve-centre is subjectively a feeling, and
the duration under the one aspect measures the duration
of it under the other." ^ And the same thing is re-
peated in other passages. But this is no explanation,
as Mr. Spencer himself tacitly recognizes when he later
adds, " though accumulated observations and experi-
ments have led us by a very indirect series of infer-
ences to the belief that mind and nervous action are
the subjective and objective faces of the same thing,
we remain utterly incapable of seeing and even of imagin-
ing how the two are related. Mind still continues to us
a something without any kinship to other things; and
from the science which discovers by introspection the
laws of this something, there is no passage by trans-
itional steps to the sciences which discover the laws of
these other things." ^ Here is a mystery which he
recognizes in common even with his spiritualistic
opponents.

Professor Tyndall, as a physicist and avowed ma-
terialist, as one who finds in the properties of matter
alone sufficient to account for everything in the uni-
verse, both for tlie objective phenomena about us, and
for the subjective world of consciousness within, " bows

• Principles of Psj'ehology, 2d ed., ii. p. 107.
' Ibid., p. 140. The italics not in original.
i 2*

18 THE NATURE OF MIND.

his head in the dust before that mystery of the mind,
which has hitherto defied its own penetrative power,
and which may ultimately resolve itself into a demon-
strable impossibility of self-penetration." ^ While Pro-
fessor Tyndall finds in matter alone suificient to account
for the existence of mind, he still recognizes the diffi-
culty whereof we speak. " The passage," he says,
" from the physics of the brain to the corresponding
facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a
definite thought, and a definite molecular action of the
brain, occur simultaneously : we do not possess the in-
tellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the
organs which would enable us to pass, by a process of
reasoning, from one to the other. They appear to-
gether, 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 electric 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
classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually
impassable." ^ " We may think over the subject again
and again ; it eludes all intellectual presentation; we
stand at length face to face with the incomprehensible." '
It may be seen how insufficient is the boasted modern

' Apology for the Belfast Address.

^ Soientiflc Materialism in Fragments of Science, p. 420.

' Apology for the Belfast Address. Same, p. 560.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 19

scientific doctrine as explained by Spencer and others,
even to those who maintain it, by turning to the works
of Mr. Fiske, a disciple and enthusiastic admirer of
Mr. Spencer. " Henceforth," he says, " we may regard
materialism as ruled out, and relegated to that limbo
of crudities to which we some time since consigned the
hypothesis of special creations. The latest results of
scientific inquiry, whether in the region of objective
psychology or in that of molecular physics, leave the
gulf between mind and matter quite as wide as it was
judged to be in the time of Descartes. It still remains
as true as then, that between that of which the differ-
ential attribute is thought and that of which the differ-
ential attribute is extension, there can be nothing like
identity or similarity. Although we have come to see
that between the manifestations of the two there is
such an unfailing parallelism that the one group of
phenomena can be correctly described by formulas
originally invented for describing the other group, yet
all that has been established is this parallelism." '

Many other writers, physiologists and psychologists
alike, might be quoted to the same effect, but it is
hardly necessary.

It is naturally with considerable hesitation that one
attempts to explain that which such thoughtful minds
declare to be inexplicable, and yet it may fairly be
questioned whether, after all, this " mystery" is not a
dust of their own raising. It may be asked whether
each, the physiologist and psychologist, has not ap-
proached the subject too much from his own point of

'■ Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 445.

20 THE NATURE OF MIND.

view to the exclusion of that of the other; whether
the physiologist has not paid too strict attention to the
physical phenomena to the neglect of facts of con-
sciousness, while the psychologist has kept too steadily
in mind the data of consciousness and left out of sight
the physical side. I would not be understood to insin-
uate that either took no account of one or the other
side. This would be merely presumptuous misstate-
ment. On the contrary, both recognize one material
basis for both classes of facts ; both recognize that the
presence of consciousness cannot be disassociated from
the physical changes which are supposed to accompany
it, and that we cannot have one without the other.
But after recognizing this, and indeed emphasizing it
and insisting upon it, they straightway take leave of
one another, and travel in different directions.

Wiien discussing such a subtle subject as the nature
of the relation between mind and matter, it is necessary
to keep constantly before one both the facts which terms
represent and the ultimate analysis of those facts, and
to bear the whole of this ultimate analysis constantly
in mind. For example, when we speak of a material
object we must constantly keep before us what we
really mean by this object; we must have before us the
notion of a number of sensations or states of our own
mind, such as extension, color, hardness, etc., which are
commonly, though of course erroneously, located in the
object itself; then the notion of the supposed some-
thing existing outside of us, and which is the cause of
those sensations ; and, lastly, the inferred reaction be-
tween the" two, by whirh the latter excite in us the
sensations we call properties of the object. Unless the

THE NATURE OF MIND. 21

whole of this is constantly remembered we are liable to
be drawn into fallacies, for it is only in this way that
in any given set of phenomena that which is subjective
can be picked out and separated from that which is
objective. In the simplest example of the objective
world, as of a table or book, that which is subjective,
and the creation of the mind is so interwoven with that
which is objective, and which really exists outside of
us, that only those learned in such matters can distin-
guish between them. Nine persons out of ten, if told
that those physical characteristics which distinguish
one j)icture from another — the beauty of the coloring,
the grace of the drawing, and the '' tone" — do not
really belong to it, but exist as such only in the mind
of the observer, would indignantly repel your insinua-
tions, and if you slill insisted upon it as a philosophical
truth, you would be set down as a "crank" for your
superior knowledge. Even the most acute thinkers,
those most conversant with these truths, will sometimes
fall into tlie pitfall of objectivity. Alexander Bain,
for example, in chapter vi. on the Union of Mind and
Body, remarks, —

" Walking in the country in spring, our mind is oc-
cupied with the foliage, the bloom, and the grassy
meads, — all purely objective things; we are suddenly
and strongly arrested by the odor of the May blossom ;
we give way for a moment to the sensation of sweet-
ness : for that moment the ohjp.ctive regards cease ; we
think of nothing extended; we are in a state vvhere
extension has no footing; there is to us place no
longer." ^

' Loc. cit., p. 135. Italics not in orisrinal.

22 THE NATURE OF MIND.

Now why is the sense of smell any less objective than
the sense of sight? "When we smell "Anything, how
does the subjective element enter into it any more than
it does in our mental condition when we see anything?
The odor called sweetness is as much objective as those
sensations of sight which he calls "the foliage, the
bloom, and the grassy meads." Sweetness is not ex-
tended to be sure, but that is simply because smell is
not sight or touch. Sweetness is a sensation which
we commonly ascribe to objects, such as a rose or an
orange, and we say that it belongs to them as a prop-
erty, and hence is objective.' Further, though sweet-
ness is not extended, that which causes the sensation
of sweetness is capable of being presented to us through
the sense of vision, ideally or actually, and then becomes
extended.

Perhaps the principal reason for the great hostility
which the materialistic doctrine has evoked on all sides
is to be found, as has been hinted above, in the deduc-
tions which some writers have seen fit to draw from it.
Because mind is only a " manifestation of matter" it
has been maintained in some quarters that conscious-
ness plays an unessential part in our cerebral processes,

' It may be urged in objection that the pleasurable emotion
accompanying the odor, being entirely a subjective state, elimi-
nates the objective element from the whole. But this would be
equally true of the sensations of sight, such as "the foliage,
the bloom," etc. There is more of a subjective element about
sight than smell, for a visual perception of an object is a com-
pound sensation, made up of color, absence or presence of light,
size and shape (extension), and the combining of these into an
idea of the object is a process of judgment, — an entirely subjec-
tive state.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 23

and has nothing to do with determining our actions.
No less an authority than Professor Huxley has ex-
pressed the opinion that the "consciousness of brutes [and
men] would appear to be related to the mechanism of
the body simply as a collateral product of its working,
and to be as completely without the power of modify-
ing that working as the steam-whistle, which accom-
panies the work of a locomotive-engine, is without
influence upon its machinery." The lecture in which
he gave expression to this view exposed him, in conse-
quence, to a storm of vituperation and abuse, which
might have overwhelmed a less fearless and able man
tlian Professor Huxley. That this conclusion should
not be accepted is proper, because it is not in accord-
ance with the facts, and therefore either the premises
or the reasoning by which it was reached must be false.
In this case I conceive it to be the premises. I sliall
refer to this point in a later chapter and in another
connection. But, on the other hand, it must be ad-
mitted that these views are the logical deductions of
that doctrine which represents matter and mind to be
double but parallel properties of matter. In this con-
text it will be interesting to notice how the same idea
of double properties impregnates the thought of another
vigorous thinker, Mr. Tyndall. He recognizes two
difficulties, two alternatives, neither of which can he
accept. He consequently " bows his head" in his ac-
knowledged ignorance before " two incomprehensibles."
The error is the same ; it lies partly in his premises,
and partly in not keeping in mind what is subjective
and what is objective in the notion of motion. He
says, —

24 THE NATURE OF MIND.

"The discussion above referred to turns on the
question, Do states of consciousness enter as links into
the chain of antecedence and sequence, which give rise
to bodily action and to other states of consciousness, or
are tliey merely by-produds, which are not essential to
the physical processes going on in the brain ? Speak-
ing for myself, it is certain that I have no power of
imagining states of consciousness interposed between
the molecules of the brain, and influencing the trans-
ference of motion among the molecules. The thought
' eludes all mental presentation,' and hence the logic
seems of iron strength, which claims for the brain an
automatic action uninfluenced by states of conscious-
ness. But it is, I believe, admitted by those who hold
the automatic theory that states of consciousness are
produced by the marshalling of the molecules of the
brain; and this production of consciousness by molec-
ular motion is to me quite as unthinkable as the pro-
duction of molecular motion by consciousness. If,
therefore, unthinkabiiity be the proper test, I must
equally reject both classes of phenomena. I, how-
ever, reject neither, and thus stand in the presence of
two incomprehensibles instead of one incomprehen-
sible."^

The difficulty lies here: if physical changes and
consciousness are double and parallel properties, then,
as the former is known to enter as a link in the dy-
namic circuit, the latter cannot, and must, therefore, be
a by-product, without influence over our bodily actions.
On the other hand, the conscious property cannot be

1 Apology for the Belfast Address.

TBE NATURE OF MIND. 25

thought of as entering into the dynamic circuit, be-
cause of the error above insisted upon of confusing the
subjective side of the notion of molecules with the real
objective or unknown side, the molecules-in-them-
selves. This fallacy pervades the whole passage.

Even Bain has this idea of a double property.
" The only tenable supposition is that mental and
physical proceed together as undivided terms." (This
is not an explanation ; it is only a restatement of the
association of mental and physical states.) " When,
tJierefore, we speak of a mental cause, a mental agency,
we have always a two-sided cause; the effect produced is
not the effect of mind alone, but of mind in company
with body. That mind should have operated on the
body is as much as to say that a two-sided phenom-
enon, one side being bodily, can influence the body; it
is, after all, body acting upon body. Wlien a shook of
feai' paralyzes digestion, it is not the emotion of fear in
the abstract or as a pure mental exidenrc that does the
harm; it is the emotion in company -witli a peculiarly ex-
cited condition of the nervous system; and it is this coiv-
dition of the brain which deranges the stomach." ^

Now, on the contrary, we are entitled to believe that
our mind does not deceive us in this respect, and that
it is the sensation of fear which deranges the stomach.
How it does it is another question, but iliat it does it is
beyond dispute. When, at the thought of something
disagreeable, we feel nausea and the stomach " rebels,"
I believe we are entitled to maintain that the disagree-
able thought is the cause both of the nausea and the

' Mind and Body, p. 131. Italics not in original.
B 3

26 THE NATURE OF MIND.

spasm of the stomach. When, at the thought of a
delicious morsel, our " mouth waters," it is the thought
itself, par exodlenee, wliich causes the flow of saliva.
But how is the problem requiring solution. I do not
think any one can read Mr. Bain's work without be-
lieving that his treatment of this part of the subject is
vague and unsatisfactory.

One thing must be admitted as a logical conse-
quence of this doctrine. If consciousness and neural
processes are only collateral parallel phenomena, the
former must be excluded from all part in that working
of the body in which the latter enter as links in the
circuit of neural undulations.

The difficulty is we have been looking too much
through prismatic spectacles, and have seen one line as
two.

Sufficient lias been said to show not only how inade-
quate is the commonly accepted modern doctrine to
explain the relation between mind and matter, but that
this very doctrine, when carried to its logical conse-
quences, leads to the denial of the truth of that convic-
tion possessed by each one of us, that our feelings have
something to do with the production of our actions.
They become merely collateral products of the work-
ings of the body.

But there is one writer to whom I wish to call atten-
tion, who for clearness of thought, precision of expres-
sion, and for correct use of terms has rarely been
equalled by any writer on this subject. I refer to the
late George H. Lewes, whose work on the Physical
Basis of Mind has not received, at least in this country
the attention it merits. I know of no one who has so

THE NATURE OF MIND- 27

correctly appreciated the nature of the problem to be
solved. To Mr. Lewes belongs the credit of being the
first to offer an explanation of many of the difficulticB
of the problem ; an explanation which in some re-
spects must be accepted as final. And yet his conclu-
sions I cannot accept, believing them not to be the logical
outcome of his arguments. He maintains the view of
difference in "aspects" which has already been referred
to. This, I hope to show, is not a logical or adequate
explanation. I cannot at this time refer more particu-
larly to his argument, as it would be anticipating what
will necessarily follow.^

In the next chapter we shall consider the nature of
the problem to be solved and the difficulties surround-
ing it.

' I regret that I should have overlooked the writings of the
late Professor Clifford on this subject. It was not till a short
time before going to press, and some years after this work was
written, that I became aware of his essay, entitled " Body and
Mind" (Lectures and Essays). The essay just referred to, to-
gether with two others on the same subject, " Things in Them-
selves" and " The Unseen Universe," are masterpieces of lucid
exposition. Professor Clifford, whose death was such a loss to
the world, possessed to a rare degree the faculty of both clearly
conceiving what he wished to say, and saying it in a happy way
that was at once thoroughly intelligible and attractive.

I rejoice to say that the views of this vigorous thinker on the
question of the relation between Mind and Body agree with those
expressed in this woi'k. He is the only writer so far as I know
whose views coincide with those herein advanced. I regret that
I am prohibited from referring more particularly in the text to
his writings.

CHAPTEE II.

THE TEUE NATURE OP THE PROBLEM TO BE
SOLVED.

Having now become familiar with that doctrine
which has been most generally accepted by those best
qualified to judge, and having seen how far short it
falls of explaining the connection between those activi-
ties we call mental and those activities we call physi-
cal ; nay, having seen that it has even been declared
that " the task of transcending or abolishing the radical
antithesis between the phenomena of mind and the
phenomena of motions of matter must always remain
an impracticable task. For in order to transcend or
abolish this radical antithesis, we must be prepared to
show how a given quantity of molecular motion in
nerve-tissue can become transformed into a definable
amount of ideation or feeling. But this, it is quite
safe to say, can never be done ;" * having become con-
versant with all this, we shall now proceed, refusing to
accept this verdict, to attempt the task ; with what
success we shall leave to the reader to determine.

I shall state at the outset that theorem which I con-
ceive will answer all the requirements of the case and
which it shall be my effort to prove.

It is this : instead of there beina: one substance with

1 Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, ii. p. 442.
28

THE NATURE OF MIND. 29

two properties or " aspects," — mind and motion, — there
is one substance, mind ; and the other apparent prop-
erty, motion, is only the way in which this real sub-
stance, mind, is apprehended by a second organism :
only the sensations of, or effect upon, the second organ-
ism, when acted upon (ideally) by the real substance,
mind.

This may, at first sight, appear to the reader as
practically the same thing, only expressed in different
terms. But it is not so. There is a radical difference
in the conception. Tlie one recognizes one substance
with duality of "properties" or "aspects;" the other,
one substance with one aspect only. If the meaning
of this, at this time, be not clear or be not admitted, I
must ask the reader to suspend his judgment, and to
follow me with open-mindedness through the next
chapter. If it shall then be found that this theorem
both explains all the difficulties we have encountered
and does not lead to conclusions inconsistent with the
facts, I shall consider that I am justified in my reason-
ing.

In this problem we have to do with the relationship
between two worlds which are considered to be radi-
cally antithetical in their nature, — the world of thought
and feeling, and the world of things. The former is
called subjective, the latter objective. It will be neces-
sary before going further to inquire more intimately
into what we mean by each. This inquiry will neces-
sarily involve what will probably be judged by those
learned in the matter a tedious restatement of first
principles, but it is absolutely necessary for a proper
appreciation of the argument for those not well versed

3*

30 THE NATURE OF MIND.

in philosophic matters. Therefore no apology will be
offered for the digression.

The subjective world is well known to every one.
We all know what a thought is, or an emotion of
fear, or anger, or a sensation of pain or sweetness. No
definition can make the knowledge any more definite.
But the objective world about us is not so well known
to us. He who imagines that the things about him in
the room — the chairs, the table, the pictures — are really
what they seem, is grievously mistaken. He who picks
up a book, and, perceiving something which has a
certain shape, size, hardness and color, say redness,
and thinks that these qualities reside as such in the
something he calls a book, does not know what per-
ceiving a thing consists in. Physiology teaches us
that the qualities of any object, as the book, are only
a number of sensations, and accordingly states of our
own consciousness. These sensations we are in the
habit of projecting outside of us, and then imagining
they exist as such independent of our own conscious-
ness ; but as a matter of fact tliey do not exist as such.
When these sensations occur grouped together in a
particular way, we call the group, after being thus
imagined to exist outside our minds, an object. Each
sensation then becomes a quality of the object which is
the whole group.

The object, then, does not exist as such outside of us,
but is only a bundle of our sensations. Undoubtedly
something exists outside of us which is the cause of
these sensations in us. This something has been called
the thing-in-itself, but its nature is unknown to us.
If this is not clear, perhaps an example will make it

THE NATURE OF MIND. 31

SO. We are looking at the question now entirely from
a physiological point of view. When I say that my
pipe is yellow, I do not mean that there is anything
like yellowness existing in the pipe-itself, but the rays
of light reflected from the "pipe" fall upon the retina,
and a commotion is excited among the fibres of the
optic nerve. This commotion is conveyed to the brain,
and there, in some way or other (which it will be our
object to explain later), the sensation of yellowness is
created ; so that the quality of yellowness exists in the
mind of the observer and not in the pipe itself. All
tlie other qualities of tlie pipe may similarly be re-
solved into states of our own consciousness, as, for ex-
ample, hardness, shape, etc. It is only after we have
imagined these sensations to exist outside of us that
we can regard the pipe to exist as a pipe at all. But
after we have abstracted these qualities from the
"pipe," what remains behind? We have every reason
to believe that something, which we may call the tliing-
in-itself, exists independent of our consciousness. What
this is is another question, which is fiir beyond our pur-
pose to consider here. We may simply say that there
are certain activities existing outside our conscious-
ness, which correspond to certain modes of our con-
sciousness, and constitute the reality of the latter when
these are projected outside of us to form phenomena.
The nature of these activities is practically unknown
to us. The only thing we know is our sensations.
The material world is thus resolved into certain un-
known activities and certain groups of sensations,
which latter constitute our perception of the former.
That these activities, constituting the thing-in-itself,

32 THE NATURE OF MIND.

exist at all is an inference, but an inference of such
irresistible force that we cannot resist it. Thus, the
properties of objects are all sensations dependent on
unknown activities outside of us. When these ac-
tivities exist grouped together in a particular way, so
as to produce a particular group of sensations, we call
this group a book, or table, or chair, and artificially
locate the sensations in the external matter as its quali-
ties. These activities in matter, which may be said to
constitute matter, are unknown, and should be denom-
inated simply by X-

The application of all this will soon become appar-
ent, if it is not so already. That which we call the
subjective world is composed of our thoughts and feel-
ings ; that which we call the objective world is a mass
of activities unknown to us, but conventionally desig-
nated by subjective terras of sensation, as red, hard,
sweet, etc. ; and these sensaiions are the reaetion of the
organism to these external unknown activities.

Now to extend this reasoning to the same conditions,
but submitted to a further analysis, what do we mean
by motions, undulations, and such phenomena? On
analyzing light by physical methods we find it to
consist of oscillations of molecules of the ether. We
find that difference in the color of light is due to a
difference in the length of these oscillations; that in
red light, for example, the length of oscillation is
0.0000271 inch, and blue light 0.0000155 inch, or a
little over half as long as that of the red. Sound is said
to be due to vibrations of the atmosphere, and the pitch
of any note depends upon the rate of vibration of each
particle of air, the greater the rapidity of the vibra-

THE NATURE OF MIND. 33

tions the higher the note, and vice versa. Heat is
said to be motion among the molecules of matter, —
the more rapid or violent the motion the greater the
heat.

Now what is meant by all this? Is there anything
really existing outside of us identical with these
motions? Do these motions or vibrations really exist
as such outside of our own mind ? Have, in fact, the
oscillations of the ether any more real objective exist-
ence than red light or green light? Not at all. We
have simply made the really. existing, but unknown,
activities in matter impress us through different chan-
nels ; made them appear as motion instead of color;
made the disturbances of the atmosphere appear
through the sense of sight instead of hearing, — as
motion instead of sound ; made heat appear through
the sense of sight instead of touch, — as motion instead
of heat. But the new sensations have no more real
objective existence than old and familiar ones. These
phenomena have simply been translated from terms of
one sense into those of another. Color, sound, and
heat have now ceased to be such, and have become
motion. These activities can be made by suitable de-
vices to appear to us through several senses ; but we
must never lose sight of the device, nor of the un-
known nature of the activities.

When we talk about matter, then, what do we mean ?
We may have four different notions, each radically dis-
tinct, and unless we bear constantly in mind to which
we refer we are liable to be led into confusion of
thought.

1st. There is the notion we may have of our own

34 THE NATURE OF MIND.

conscious states. As such without reference to any
thing beyond them, and consisting of groups of sensa-
tions, as of the motion of two points (which points may
again be resolved into sensations, — color, shape, etc.).
This motion may be called subjective matter.

2d. The notion of the unknown reality, or thing-in-
itself, existing outside of us, and corresponding to these
sensations, — the unknown X. This may be called
actual matter.

3d. The double notion of both these two classes of
facts and the relation between them. This embraces
the other two, and is the one which should be particu-
larly kept in view when inquiring into the ultimate
nature of things.

4th. The common idea of matter as employed in
ordinary discourse and in the physical sciences. In
this sense, matter is made to include our conscious
states (1st notion) after being projected outside of us,
and artificially made to have an active existence as
phenomena or objects. This may be caWeA phenomenal
matter. This, as has already been explained, is philo-
sophically an erroneous notion, being only an artifice,
but nevertheless one that is necessary for the ordinary
purposes of social life and the pursuit of the physical
sciences. Here it is of inestimable value, and, in fact,
we could not do without it. It would be ridiculous,
not only in the every-day use of language, but in our
conceptions employed to carry on the ordinary affairs
of life, to bear any other notion in mind.

In discussing philosophical matters, however, it
should always be remembered that it is only through
an artifice, as Lewes has pointed out, that we have this

THE NATURE OF MIND. 35

conception ; but it is an artifice that is indispensable
when properly employed.

Now in these different notions embraced by " matter"
lies the gist of the whole question under consideration.
These are facts which even Macaulay's wonderful
school-boy ought to know, though it is to be feared
that his education has been sadly neglected in this re-
spect. Certainly every one who has discussed the sub-
ject since Berkeley wrote knows them, and yet we
continually go on talking about " matter" as if it were
perfectly plain what we meant, and it were impossible
to misunderstand wliich of the four notions we had
reference to. We take the precaution to analyze the
meaning of the term in a sort of prologue to our argu-
ments, discover that it covers at least four diflFerent
classes of facts, insist upon the importance of the dis-
covery, and straightway apparently forget all about it
when we happen to require the term for use. I do not
think I speak too strongly in saying that it too often
happens that we use the word " matter" regardless of
the various interpretations that may be placed upon it,
and I venture to say that nine times out of ten, even
those who are the most precise in the use of terms, will
speak of matter without regard to its being an abstract
term, and without proper weight being given to the
different facts embraced by it. If interrupted in the
flow of their talk, they will with great accuracy ex-
plain what we know, but in argument the word is used
in the most general manner. Hence often difference
of opinion arises simply because of the shifting mean-
ing given to the terms employed. Of course, in speak-
ing in this way of the ambiguous use of this word, I

36 THE NATURE OF MIND.

refer only to philosophical discussions. In the physical
sciences the term is employed with a special significa-
tion, and is well understood.

Let us return now to our subject, and apply what
has been learned regarding matter to the motions of
the cerebral molecules which are said to accompany
consciousness. It is evident that in .speaking of the
molecular motions occurring in your brain I may
refer either to the motion proper, which is my state of
consciousness, or I may have reference to the reality
actually occurring outside of me and belonging to you,
and a part of you. If I refer to the former, I know
what it is; it is my sensation. If I refer to the latter,
the Reality, the question arises. What is it? Is it un-
known, and if not, what is its nature? We will ap-
proach tins question in another way, which will make
its meaning clearer.

Let us consider these physical cerebral activities,
and ask from a purely physical point of view what
kind of activities they are. We have reference, of
course, only to those activities which are supposed to
constitute nerve-force and to underlie all conscious
states. Suppose that by a suitable device we could
have them presented to us objectively, so that we could
actually recognize them, how would they appear to us?
That would depend upon the sense we employed in
perceiving them. We might ideally (as we do when
thinking of them) or actually see them; they would
then appear as motions, oscillations, undulations, or
some such movement. We might, by the suitable
microphone, hear them ; they would then appear as
musical notes. If our tactile sense were sufficiently

THE NATURE OF MIND. 37

developed we might /eeZ them; they might then ap-
pear as heat. But none of these sensations represent
these activities as they really are.

Now, to put another hypothetical question, suppose,
for a moment, that what they really are is conscious-
ness, — that is, a thought or sensation of pain, — how
would this sensation of pain appear to as if we could
apprehend it through our senses, and through the sense
of sight in particular (either, of course, ideally or in the
brain of another)? The answer is, Only as all other
activities in matter appear to us, namely, as motions,
undulations, etc. If, then, these hypothetical conditions
were the facts, it ^vould be easy to understand how
mental states can become " transformed" into physical
disturbances, and vice versa, because there is no trans-
formation about it. There would be in this case only
one thing, mental states, which would appear as physical
activities when viewed (ideally) through the senses, as
tremors if viewed through sight. Now have we any
reason for believing that the actual activities — these
physical activities-in-themselves, as they really are —
are a state of consciousness? This it shall be our effort
to establish by a series of inferences, the only method
of proof open to us for such a problem. If we are
successful, it would appear that the reason for the dif-
ficulty which has been experienced in conceiving how a
sensation can become a physical change lies in not prop-
erly perceiving the nature of the problem we are trying
to solve. A great deal of thought has been devoted to
trying to understand how molecular changes are trans-
formed into consciousness, when in reality there is no
transformation at all. Another source of error has

4

38 THE NATURE OF MIND.

arisen from regarding the two classes of facts — the
physical and the mental — as two different modes of
apprehending, or aspects of the same thing. An arti-
ficial parallelism has thus been drawn between them
which has only served to increase the difficulty, and
lias prevented all assimilation of one with the other.
To this parallelism so much attention has been devoted
that the mode by which the parallelism arises has been
neglected and an artificial difficulty created.

To show how much stress has been laid on this par-
allelism and to what difficulties it leads when pushed
to an extreme degree will require a momentary digres-
sion. That a parallelism exists is true, but it has been
exaggerated into a great bugbear, because there has
not been constantly and clearly kept in mind what is
parallel. Phenomena have been made abstractions,
abstractions unconsciously made entities, and two lines
sharply drawn parallel, which originate and diverge
from the same point.

To justify this assertion I shall refer to a very able
writer, from whom I have had occasion to quote be-
fore. "On such grounds as these," says Mr. Fiske, "I
maintain that feeling is not a product of nerve-motion
in anything like the sense that it is sometimes the pro-
duct of heat, or that friction electricity is a product of
sensible motions. Instead of entering into the dynamic
circuit of correlative physical motions, the phenomena
of consciousness stand outside as utterly alien and dis-
parate phenomena. They stand outside but uniformly
parallel to that segment of the circuit which consists
of neural undulations. , The relation between what
goes on in consciousness and what goes on simultane-

THE NATURE OF MIND. 39

ously in the nervous system may best be described as a
relation of uniform concomitance. I agree with Prof.
Huxley and Mr. Harrison that along with every act
of consciousness there goes a molecular change in the
substance of the brain, involving a waste of tissue.
This is not materialism, nor does it alter a whit the
position in which we were left by common sense before
physiology was ever heard of. Everybody knows that
so long as we live on earth the activity of mind as a
whole is accompanied by activity of the brain as a
whole. What nervous physiology teaches is simply
that each particular mental act is accompanied by a
particular cerebral act. By proving this the two sets
of phenomena, mental and physical, are reduced each
to its lowest terms, but not a step is taken toward con-
founding the one with the other. On the contrary, the
keener our analysis the more clearly does it appear that
the two can never be confounded. The relation of
concomitance between them remains an ultimate and
insoluble mystery."^

Let us see how much truth there is in all this. On
examining the passage critically it will be found to con-
tain three distinct propositions : first, that states of mind
are phenomena ; secondly, that states of mind, as feel-
ing and neural undulations, are " utterly alien and dis-
parate in nature;" thirdly, tiiut the relation between
them is only one of parallelism and " uniform concom-
itance." Each of these propositions will require sepa-
rate consideration.

• North American Review, Jan.-Feb., 1878. Tiie italics are
mine.

40 THE NATURE OF MIND.

To the first we will devote only a few wOrds in this
place, as it is liable to involve us in a discussion re-
garding terms merely.

It may very properly be questioned whether states
of mind recognized as subjective can be designated by
the same terms used to characterize the physical world.
If the former are actualities, as I hope to be able
to show strong grounds for believing, and the latter
merely symbols of something else, then, though the
latter are properly classed as phenomena, or the ap-
pearances of things, the former should be classed as
the thing-in-itself, or actuality, and not phenomena.
To insist upon this exactness in the use of terms may
appear to the reader to savor of pedantry. But it is
not so. Though it may be of no consequence what
terms we use so long as we bear continuously in mind
the exact conditions which they represent, still it is
almost impossible for even the clearest thinkers to keep
the thing represented differentiated mentally from the
terms representing it, and in the prolongation of an
argument the two become unconsciously confused ; so
that, though the premises may be exactly defined and
true, in the conclusion and especially in corollaries and
deductions drawn from these conclusions, errors of
great magnitude and serious moment creep in. Just
as a slight error at the apex of an angle may be of no
consequence, yet with every prolongation of the sides
the error becomes amplified. So it is with philosophic
discussion. The history of philosophy has been the
history of the misuse of terms.

As to the second proposition, that the " phenomena"
of consciousness are "utterly alien and disparate" from

TBE NATURE OF MIND. 41

the phenomena of physical motions, it must rest upon
either one or two alternatives.

We have seen before (pp. 30-34) that physical mo-
tions have no objective reality or existence as such out-
side of our own minds; on the contrary, they are
subjective sensations, similar to any other mental
state, though they be caused by some physical change
in actual matter, and of which they are the symbols.
Consequently, being subjective, so far from being ut-
terly "alien and disparate phenomena," physical mo-
tions and mental states are of exactly the same nature
and class. If to this Mr. Fiske replies, as he un-
doubtedly would, that he takes the other alternative,
and means by " pliysical motions" simply to symbolize
the unknoivn physical disturbances of which motion is
only a subjective representation, — as he must call them
something, — then I answer that he clearly begs the
question in asserting tliat they are " utterly alien and
disparate ;" for, as he confesses that he does not know
and cannot know what these unknown physical changes
really are, he cannot logically assert whether they are
or are not essentially similar to or dilFerent from the
" phenomena" of consciousness. If we do not know
what they are, what right has any one to declare that
both may not be of the same nature ; or, at least, do so
without strong circumstantial evidence in favor of such
a conclusion? But no attempt has ever been made
through indirect evidence to establish this conclusion.
On the contrary, everything points the other way. To
assert without circumstantial evidence that the two
classes of phenomena are essentially diiferent, is like
maintaining that any object whatever, as this pen with

4*

42 THE NATURE OF MIND.

which these lines are written, has no resemblance to
any other object lying at the bottom of the sea, when
we have no idea whatsoever of the object that is lying
there, or any knowledge of the conditions by which it
came and remains there. Nor can I reconcile this pas-
sage with his approval of that portion of Mr. Spen-
cer's argument quoted on pages 446-448, vol. ii., of
his " Cosmic Philosophy."

It is absolutely essential that we should hear in mind at
the outset that the physical changes which go along with
every act of consciousness are in reality not an undula-
tion or a motion, bid, an unknown X .

This oversight, which it would appear to be, seems
to have arisen from too close attention having been
paid to the third proposition, or the parallelism and
concomitance of the phenomena. That the two classes
of facts are parallel there can be no doubt; that they
are concomitant there can be no doubt. The same
thing may be said of the musical note and the vibra-
tions of the tuning-fork. They are parallel and con-
comitant; but concomitance is not the sole relation.
No one would think of confusing visual vibrations
with a musical note; the contrast between them is
sharp and defined. So no one can confuse a feeling of
pain with the oscillation of a molecule ; they are sharply
contrasted ; but it may be shown that one is only a
mode of cognizing the other, or rather, the former is
the actual activity, the latter the mode by which a sec-
ond person becomes conscious of its existence. " Can
we, then, think of the subjective and objective activi-
ties as the same?" asks Mr. Spencer. Looking at
them simply as activities, and not as phenomena, I

THE NATURE OF MIND. 43

unhesitatingly answer, " Yes, we can." " Can the
oscillation of a molecule," he continues, " be repre-
sented in consciousness side by side with a psychical
shock and the two be recognized as one? No effort
enables us to assimilate them. That a unit of feeling
has nothing in common with a unit of motion becomes
more than ever manifest when we bring the two into
juxtaposition." Mr. Spencer has here misconceived
the nature of the problem he is investigating. Such a
question is like asking is a stone a tree, or is sound
light.

Whatever view he held regarding the likeness or
unlikeness of the activities called feeling to the activi-
ties underlying the phenomena called a table, we have
no reason to believe they are unlike those activities
underlying the phenomena called neural undulations,
however different they may be made to appear by
artificial means.

If this reasoning be correct, the inference is justifi-
able that too much attention has hitherto been paid to
the phenomena themselves and too little to the activi-
ties lying behind them. It must not be inferred from
anything that has been said in these pages that any of
the writers quoted have not recognized the great truths
established by Berkeley regarding the amount that is
subjective in that which we call matter. On the con-
trary, in the pages of Fiske and Spencer and others
they are reiterated over and over again. But having
been once recognized, they are straightway overlooked
on being put into application. This will be considered
by some an unwarranted assertion, but I believe it to
be borue out by the facts.

CHAPTER III.

THE SOLUTION.

We shall now inquire into the grounds we have for
the suspicion that states of mind and neural activities
are identical, and if it shall be found that the evidence
is sufficiently strong to turn this suspicion into a con-
viction, we shall proceed to an investigation into the
conditions which cause them to appear so strongly
contrasted.

The method which we shall employ will be the
physiological method, as being the one most conducive
to positive results; but the conclusions arrived at will
then be submitted to the test of subjective analysis;
and if they shall stand this test we shall consider that
our theorem has been established.

There are two propositions the acceptance of which
is absolutely essential for any discussion of the problem
on which we are engaged. These are: first, everystate
of consciousness has its seat in the brain (or at least in
some part of the cerebro-spinal system) ; and, second,
every such state is accompanied, as has been so frequently
stated above, by a molecular change in the substance
of the brain. The first of these has been so well es-
tablished that it would be tedious to repeat the proofs
of it here. The second has also been accepted on all
sides by spiritualists and materialists alike. They may
both, then, be considered a-^ outside all matter of con-
44

THE NATURE OF MIND. 45

troversy. But now I propose to assume what will not
be so readily granted and will even be totally denied
by some people ; nevertheless we have a right to assume
it if only as a basis of investigation. This is, that not
only is every act of consciousness accompanied by a
molecular change in the substance of the brain, but
that the former is in some way dependent upon the
latter, though we may not know how. This is an infer-
ence we have a right, from a physiological stand-point,
to make. Everything in cerebral physiology points to-
wards it. Everything that points to the existence of
these molecular changes and a concomitance of the two
classes of facts — the objective and subjective — points
to this conclusion. As physiologists we are entitled to
employ the physical method and study both classes of
facts objectively, and when we do so this conclusion is
inevitably forced upon us. It would be carrying us
too far out of our way to go into all the physiological
facts upon which this reasoning is based; but they may
be summed up in the following brief statements: We
can have no consciousness without a material substance,
the brain, nor without the activity of the brain. In-
jure the brain and you destroy consciousness; prevent
the activities from -going on and we have no conscious-
ness. Excite these activities and consciousness appears.
They appear invariably side by side. Alter the con-
ditions of occurrence of the physical changes and an
equivalent alteration occurs in consciousness. Change
the quality and quantity of the physical changes by
disease and a similar alteration of the quality and
quantity of consciousness appears (delirium, etc.). In-
crease the intensity and quantity of physical changes

46 , THE NATURE OF MIND.

and a concomitant increase takes place in consciousness.
Tiiis and much more points to a dependent relation.

The admission of this is not a committal of opinion
as to the nature of the dependency. It is consistent
even with the belief in a spiritual mind, or with the
belief that it never can be discovered how the one class
of facte is dependent on the other. Whatever view be
held regarding this point, from a physiological point
of view the concliision of dependency is justifiable and
sound. To be sure, it cannot be established by positive
and direct proof, and it depends upon a series of infer-
ences for its support. But it is not for that reason to
be discarded. How many things in this world which
are accepted as established facts are anything more than
inferences? The foundations upon which the sciences
of chemistry and physics rest are nothing but inferences.
The boasted atom and molecule are nothing but hypo-
thetical existences. The ethei-, into disturbances of
which light has been resolved, has only an inferential
existence. The external world, everything about us,
the books, the table and the chairs in this room, the
human beings and the horses and carriages that pass the
window, all anhnate and inanimate things, the world
and the universe iteelf, have only an existence for us
based on our inferences. We only hnow the sensations
they produce in us; that there is any matter lying be-
hind these sensations and the cause of them is only an
inference, but an inference so strong that no one can
deny the truth of it. Furthermore, it is upon a series
of inferences similar to those upon which the depend-
ency of mind upon matter is based that half the physi-
ological processes of the body are established. It is

THE NATURE OF MIND. 47

by means of a similar series of inferences that the liver-
cells are said to secrete bile, the peptic cells pepsin, and
the salivary cells saliva.' It must also be borne in
mind to what a large extent we are dependent upon
inferences for most of our daily acts. We do not hesi-
tate to convict a man and send him to the gallows, even
though the verdict which convicted him was based on a
series of inferences. It is only upon a series of infer-
ences that the piiysician establishes his diagnosis upon
which rests the fate of his patient, and upon inferences
the merchant and the speculator risk their fortunes.

Yet there are probably those who will deny the
validity of the inference that consciousness depends on
physical changes being induced in the cells of the brain.
They only see parallel phenomena, with no bond of
connection between them. What a mental act is, how
it is related, if at all, to the concomitant molecular
change in the brain, is declared to be an insoluble
mystery, and they do not advance one iota beyond the
point where the question was left by Descartes over
two hundred years ago. How thought can proceed in-
variably side by side with physical change and be un-
connected with it, be neither material nor spiritual,^ is
difficult to understand. I confess my inability to com-
prehend such eclectic reasoning. If we touch a lighted
match to a piece of paper we find it invariably burns,

' I hope no one will imagine, because a simile is here employed,
referring to the logical process, that the physiological process is
meant, and the brain be supposed to secrete thought.

' Compare Mr. Fiske's assertion that his views are " not mate-
rialism" with his argument for quasi-spiritualism in " Oosmlo
Philosophy," vol. ii. part iii. chap. iv.

48 THE NATURE OF MIND.

consequently we say the cause of the paper burning is
the lighted match. Whenever the gastric cells are
stimulated gastric juice is formed. We still say that
the latter is dependent upon the former. But in the
brain a sharp line is drawn. Though mental activity
is invariably connected with cell activity, no dependent
relation is admitted by some. It is difficult to appre-
ciate the consistency in asserting the one and denying
the other. I think we have as much reason in the one
case as in the other, so long as we deal with physiolog-
ical inquiries, in holding that one group of phenomena
is dependent upon the other group, though we may not
understand how it is so dependent. If one chooses to
deny the validity of all causes on the ground that we
only know sequence in time, and that the idea of cause
and effect is only an abstraction of the mind, all well
and good. But if cause is admitted in one case, it must
be in the other also.*

It is only so long as we study the problem from a
physiological stand-point that we observe two processes,
— the physical and the mental. The minute we leave
physiology we find that there are not two processes, but
only one process, and a feeling is not strictly accompa-
nied by a physical change. This will soon be shown.

There is one amusing thing connected with this dis-
cussion, and that is the readiness with which those
who deny any relationship between the mental and
physical phenomena seize upon the theory of a physi-
cal substratum to consciousness and maintain the ex-
istence of physical changes " in the substance of the

^ It may be thought that I am arguing against imaginary ob-
jections. If so, no harm is done.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 49

brain involving a waste of tissue," and which " go along
with every act of consciousness." This doctrine they
maintain with a confidence that is amazing, consider-
ing" that it is entirely beyond the possibility of so called
proof. It is in reality only theory, and supported
merely by a series of inferences similar to those upon
which the doctrine maintained here is based. Neither
less nor more. And yet it is commonly stated as if it
were an established fact, entirely beyond cavil, and
that, too, by the very persons who refuse to recognize
the force of a similar process of reasoning to establisli
a relationship between mental and physical phenomena.
But I do not wish to be understood to push the ground
from under my own feet. There is every reason to be-
lieve that these physical changes do occur, and that
they are the foundation of every doctrine of a physical
basis of mind. But they cannot be considered as
absolutely established, and rest simply on evidence
similar to that for the tiieory advocated in these pages.

To proceed with our argument. We have two
classes of facts, mental and physical ; the former we
assume ' to be dependent ujion the latter. The one we
know as thought, sensation, and emotion ; the other
utterly unknown objectively, but represented by sym-
bols in consciousness. What is the nature of this de-
pendence? Tliere are four possibilities, and four only,
which are thinkable.

First. Consciousness may be formed, secreted, man-
ufactured, so to speak, by the protoplasmic activity of

' If any one denies the validity of this assumption, but admits
the rest of my logic, I am amply satisfied. The case is then suf-
ficiently proved.

d 5

50 THE NATURE OF MIND.

the cells of the brain, after the same manner that liver-
cells secrete bile.

Second. Consciousness may be a change in the mu-
tual relations of the actual or real molecules of the
protoplasm of the brain-cells; that is, these unknown
physical disturbances themselves, — the protoplasmic dis-
turbances as they really are ; the actuality of so-called
neural undulations. It would possibly be equivalent
to the passage of the protoplasm from a higher to a
lower state of chemical combination, or more probably
some physical as opposed to a chemical change, as, say,
so-called undulations or vibrations.

Third. It may be the essence or actuality of a second
and parallel physical change in the protoplasm. Sup-
posing, for example, tlie physical change, which enters
into the nervous circuit, beginning at one end as irrita-
tions, and ending at the other in muscular action, to be
undulations in nervous matter, consciousness might then
be the actuality of a second physical change induced by
the parallel and concomitant physical ciiange.

Fourth. Consciousness may be the reality of a change
induced by the cerebral molecules in a second substance
pervading all matter (and therefore the brain), the
ether.

A very little consideration will show that the first of
these propositions is not only untenable, but may be
reduced to an absurdity. It would not be seriously
considered here were it not that an expression made
use of by a German physiologist has given rise, rightly
or wrongly, to the idea that such an explanation has
been maintained as a doctrine of materialism. Accord-
ing to this view, every thought must be something

THE NATURK OF MIND. 5I

new-formed, something newly brought into existence.
But this something must be either immaterial or mate-
rial. Ill the former case, aside from the inconceivable
conception of a material substance manufacturing an
immaterial or spiritual tiling or entity, it becomes
necessary to revive the old doctrine of a supernatural or
spiritual mind. This in itself is a sufficient objection.
I shall have more to say in regard to it later. In the
latter case, if this new-formed substance, a thought or
idea is a material something, it necessarily follows that
this secretion, for such it must be, must remain (a) in
the brain ; or (6) be removed as such by the natural
channels, the blood- and lymph- vessels; or (c) be de-
composed soon after formation, leaving its resulting
products to be removed. The objections lo, or rather
the absurdity of, all these possibilities (or impossibili-
ties) is so obvious, that any serious discussion of them
seems unnecessary. But it is somewhat startling to
think of the peril in which the life of any individual,
who boasts of an abundance of ideas, would be placed
from the accumulation of this extraordinary secretion be-
neath the skull. One can imagine that the eifect would
be similar to filling his head with dried peas, and then
pumping it full of water. The sword of Damocles
would be a mere bagatelle compared to the danger of
his own thoughts. Like a steam-engine without a
safety-valve, he would be the generator of the power that
would explode himself. While if his ideas and sensa-
tions were removed as such, by the vessels, they would
be carried away to all parts of his body whithersoever
the blood and lymph flowed. We might then be said
literally to carry our ideas in our finger-tips, while our

62 THE NATURE OF MIND.

inner organs would once more be embellished with our
emotions and the peculiarities of our character, — a sort
of visceral phrenology. We might, with literal truth,
be said to have " bowels of compassion," and to have a
" heart full of feeling."

The third hypothesis is not so easily disposed of, and
yet it will not be difficult to show that it is untenable.
In the first place, it leads to the negation of conscious-
ness as a causative factor in all our action. It makes
consciousness superfluous, as everything could be done
as well without consciousness as with it. Conscious-
ness becomes the steam-whistle to the engine. This
was shown in the first chapter. It reduces the doc-
trine to an absurdity.

In the second place, it is incompatible with the doc-
trine of the correlation of forces ; for, if those physi-
cal activities called neural vibrations enter as links in
the dynamic circuit, which begins with the ingoing
current and ends with the outgoing current, there is
no link left for those activities called mental. (See
page 16, also Chap. V.)

In the third place, it is an unnecessary and super-
fluous element. If consciousness could be identical
with these second physical activities, so could it be with
the first series of activities. There is nothing in favor
of the former that does not speak for the latter, which
are included in the second hypothesis.

The fourth proposition,' that mind is the Reality of

'I scarcely imagined when this chapter was written, some
eight or nine years ago, that those unknon-n activities, repre-
sented to us objectively as the ether, would ever be seriously pro-
posed as an explanation of the nature of mind, and much less

THE NATURE OF MIND. 53

a molecular change transmitted to the ether, is also one
which cannot be maintained. It is open to every ob-
jection to which the third is subject. These objections
are fatal to it. As with the second activities so with
the ether. We gain nothing by transferring this dis-
turbance to a second substance, about which we know

that the ether in its material aspect would be so made use of.
But such seems to have been the case. Dr. Maudsley, in a work
lately published (Body and Will, Kegan, Paul & Co., 1883),
utilizes the ether as a means of bridging over the conventional
chasm between mind and matter, and as explaining what mind
is. "Perhaps . . , the theory of an all-pervading mentiferous
ether," he says, " may help to bridge over the difficulty. For
if the object and the brain are alike pervaded by tuch a hyper-
subtile ether; and if the impressions which the particular object
makes upon the mind be then a sort of pattern of the mentifer-
ous undulations as they are stirred and conditioned within it by
its particular form and properties ; and if the mind in turn be the
mentiferous undulations [italics are mine] as conditioned by the
convoluted form and the exceedingly complicated and delicate
structure of the brain; then it is plain that we have eluded the
impassable difficulty of conceiving the action of mind upon
matter — the material upon the immaterial — which results from
the notion of their entirely different natures. Here, in fact, is a
theory that gets rid at the same time of the gross materiality of
matter and of the intangible spiritualities of mind, and itjstead of
binding them together in an abhorred and unnatural union of
opposites, unites them in a happy and congenial marriage in an
intermediate substance, — a substance which, mediator-like, par-
takes of the nature of both without being exclusively either."
The fallacies, only out of respect for Dr. Maudsley's ability I
do not say absurdities, of such an hypothesis must be apparent
to the reader who has followed me thus far. The fact that such
a crude notion could be seriously entertained by a writer having
such a special knowledge of the subject as Dr. 3Iaudsley, shows
how little understood must be even the nature of the problem
with which we are dealing.

54 THE NATURE OF MIND.

scarcely anything, save a certain amount of mystery,
while we break the Newtonian canon, forbidding us to
postulate new causes before proving the inadequacy of
existing ones. If consciousness can be produced by
atoms of ether, in a state of change, why cannot it be
done by atoms of protoplasm under similar conditions ?
Furthermore, the introduction of a new factor brings
with it new difficulties which are quite as troublesome
to explain. For instance, it is very difficult to under-
stand how changes in a homogeneous substance, such
as we must understand the ether to be, can give rise to
the multitude of heterogeneous ideas and sensations of
which the human mind is possessed, unless there be a
difiFerent kind of change for every species of mental
progress ; a most improbable, if not impossible, assump-
tion. But, supposing it to be the case, these heteroge-
neous disturbances of the ether must be indicated by
corresponding changes in the protoplasm of the brain;
in which case the ether, from a logical point of view,
would be an entirely unnecessary factor, and hence
there is no necessity for introducing it as an element in
the problem.

We are left, then, with the second hypothesis, against
which none of the objections to the others obtain. Ac-
cording to this, consciousness is the unknown cerebral
activities underlying the phenomena which we call
neural disturbances or motions. It may be called an
alteration in the temporary conditions under which the
Realities of the atoms of protoplasm of the brain exist.
Consciousness is the supposed "unknown" disturbances
X, which in this case are known to us. It is the actual
physical change as it really occurs, not as it appears

THE NATURE OF MIND. 55

to US objectively. It may be called the essence of _
physical change in cerebral protoplasm. In other
words, a mental state and those physical changes which
are known in the objective world as neural undulations
are one and the same thing, but the former is the

ACTUALITY, THE LATTER A MODE BY WHICH IT IS
PRESENTED TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF A SECOND PER-
SON,^ — i.e., to the non-possessor of it.

Having arrived at this apparently paradoxical con-
clusion, the task still remains to us to explain the sole
objection which can be urged against it, and this is:
How does it liappen that cerebral activity or conscious-
ness can be presented to us under sucii strongly con-
trasted forms? Tliis will be considered by some per-
sons to be tiie same thing as the original problem. How
physical changes or matter becomes transformed into
consciousness; but with the foregoing presentation of
the problem it has assumed another aspect. The real
question is, not regarding the transformation of matter
into mind, but how one state of consciousness comes
to be perceived as another state of comciousness, or how a
subjective fact comes to be perceived as an objective
fact ; how a feeling comes to be presented to us as a
vibration.

Unless this can be satisfactorily answered, the con-
clusion at which we have just arrived cannot claim ac-
ceptance. For this purpose it will be necessary to
submit it to subjective analysis, as was promised at the
outset ; and after this has been done, if we find that

1 It is not sufficiently exact to saj' that both are different modes
of apprehending one and the same thing, for that implies that
neither is the actuality. See Chapter IV.

56 THE NATURE OF MIND.

there is no real contradiction, we shall consider that
our theorem has been established.

For those who are accustomed to think on such mat-
ters what has already been said in the last chapter will
be sufficient, and they will see at once that there is no
real difficulty; but for the majority of readers some
further explanation will be necessary.

Whether the explanation which has already been
suggested, and will now be offered with more detail,
will prove as satisfactory to others as to the writer re-
mains to be seen. The confidence of tlie writer in its
adequacy and correctness is naturally strengthened by
the fact that though arrived at independently by him
many years ago, it is in many points similar to that
originally offered by Mr. Lewes, to whom the credit is
due for having been the first to really perceive the true
nature of the problem. It almost seems, if the reason-
ing here employed is correct, as if Mr. Lewes, however,
had missed the point of his argument, for he expresses
his conclusions in terras which do not seem to the writer
to be applicable. He considers the difference between
the mental and the physical processes to be one of
aspects, and to be dependent upon the difference in the
modes of apprehension. My objection to this mode of
expressing the relationship will be given later. The
difference between us may be only one of terms ; but
as Mr. Lewes himself has most rigorously insisted on
the necessity of precision in the use of terms, I have
less hesitation in calling attention to the distinction.^

' The late Prof. Clifford is the only writer, so far as I know,
whose views on the relation of the mind to matter thoroughly
coincide with those herein expressed.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 57

It may at first sight appear impossible that these
physical phenomena, with which we are familiar, as
motion, undulations, or what you will, can also appear
as states of consciousness. But this is because in our
daily experience we are apt to overlook the well-known
fact, which has been sufficiently explained in the pre-
ceding chapter, that all those properties with which
we endow matter have no objective existence, but are
only subjective states called sensations, and hence forms
of consciousness, and these are symbolic only of the
unknown change occurring in matter. Just as the
words written on this page are symbolic of the ideas
they represent, but are as unlike as possible the ideas
themselves. Any sensation, such as light, is a repre-
sentation in consciousness of physical changes in matter
outside the brain, but gives us no idea what those
changes are. A sensation is related to its physical ex-
ternal cause as the dent in the hot iron is to the blow of
the blacksmith's hammer that fashions it. Tiie true
nature of a physical change in a foreign body — a piece
of iron, for example — is absolutely beyond our range'
of comprehension. A physical change in ray brain is
an idea, ray idea. To you, could you in sorae way be-
come conscious of it, it would appear only like any
other physical phenomenon, — as, for instance, a vibra-
tion, — being only symbolized in your consciousness;
and when you ideally conceive it, it is not the idea
itself which you are conscious of, but the disturbance
in your brain in the form of a sensation, and this
you characterize as a physical phenomenon, and locate
in mine. So that a disturbance in my brain which I
experience as an idea of an orange, you ideally experi-

58 TjtiE NATURE OF MIND.

ence as a physical phenomenon in the form of a neural
undulation or some similar (objective) sensation.

Let us take a concrete example. We will imagine
that you have a sensation of pain presented to your
mind; we will also picture to ourselves a physical
process in your brain in the form of neural vibrations.
Now these two^the mental and physical — are usually
described as two processes, both of which occur some-
how in you. They are said to take place synchronously,
and one is the correlate of the other. But this is not
the correct way of putting it. We will suppose now,
further, I could apply a microscope to your brain and
watch the cells (as I can ideally) when this pain is felt
by you. What now would happen ? At the moment
when you have the sensation of pain I become conscious
of neural vibrations, which I locate as such (but eri'one-
ously) in your brain-cells. The real activities in you
are pain, not neural vibrations. The reason for this is
this: your mental process, the_ pain, acting upon my
retina sets up a process in me, and as this process of
mine is excited through my organ of vision, I am af-
fected according to the physiological laws of this organ
and become conscious of neural vibrations. These
neural vibrations I erroneously locate in you while they
really are parts of my consciousness, and the only thing
which occurs in yoii is the feeling of pain. The reac-
tion of my brain to your feeling is a sensation of vibra-
tions. The only way in which these activities could be
apprehended by me is objectively as neural vibrations.
The only way in which they can be brought into your
consciousness is as the sensation of pain. But, in fact,
it is one process in you, the sensation of pain, which is

THE NATURE OF MIM). 59

the real activity. Here, then, lies the parallelism of
the phenomena : your consciousness or pain is the cor-
relate of my apprehension of this consciousness as neu-
ral vibration. The parallelism is between your conscious-
ness and my consciousness of your consciousness, or, what
is the same thing, between the consciousness in you and the
pixsture in my mind of neural vibrations. The former is
the reality, the latter the symbol of it. There is an
invariable concomitance of these facts.

Again, under the hypothetical conditions stated
above, I cannot become conscious of your physical
changes or process in its true form, the sensation of
pain, for that which I become conscious of is the effect
which tills physical process produces in my brain, the
reaction of my brain to it, as a sensation of neural
vibrations. To be sure, I can conjure up the sen-
sation of pain by allowing my mind to dwell on it,
and produce in this way a so-called imaginary pain ;
but this is an entirely different thing. In that
case there would be no relation between my mental
state of pain and your mental statej which I am endeav-
oring to become conscious of. So you can picture to
yourself neural vibrations as well as I, and perceive
them as objective phenomena. But here, too, the con-
ditions are altered, and we have to do not with a mental
process and its correlated neural process, but with a
physical process ideally projected outside of your cere-
brum, and a symbolic representation of it as neural
vibrations in your mind.

It is no objection to this statement of the nature of
the parallelism to say that there is something more
than a parallelism between your consciousness and my

60 THE NATURE OF MIND.

mode of becoming conscious of your consciousness, be-
cause you can have both consciousness as pain and a
picture of neural vibrations supposed to occur side by
side with the former, for this amounts to the same
thing. For when you conceive of correlated neural
processes in your brain you in reality have gone
through the following logical process : you first have
perceived hypotlietical physical disturbances in some
one else's brain, and these you have recognized as
neural vibrations. Then you have inferred that they
occur invariably side by side with the consciousness of
the individual. Having determined tliis, you ideally
abstract them, transfer them to your own brain, and
infer that they occur there under similar conditions.
This is the same thing as if a second individual had
been the object of your study. Then it follows that
when you think of physical changes in the protoplasm
of your brain you ideally abstract and project them
outside of you, and then ideally become conscious of
the eff'eot which they produce on your mind, namely,
the sensation of vibrations; but this effect is entirely
distinct in character from, though correlative with, the
ideas which are the realities.

Physical changes ooourring in a foreign body, as a
piece of iron, though giving us our experience of it, must
be absolutely unJcnoion to ms. Physical changes occur-
ring in our brains are clearly known to us; they are our
thoughts, our sensations, and our emotions.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NATURE OP THE MIND.

Feom this point of view it is plainly evident how
barren must be the question, Wiiat is the ultimate
nature of mind? when by it is meant a desire to go
behind the facts of consciousness. The very question
involves an absurdity. We all know what n\ind is by
direct consciousness. Mind is mind and that is the
end of it. When we step on a needle and feel pain
we know what pain is; and if we could resolve it into
a dozen physical elements, such as vibrations among
those molecules which make up the protoplasm of the
brain-cells, it would give us no new information on
the nature of pain. Those vibrations are not pain,
but every one knows what pain is. When we are
angry with any one for an injury done us, or feel sor-
row at the death of a friend, we know what sorrow
and anger are. The mere consciousness of these emo-
tions is sufficient. So we all know what the idea of a
horse is. When we say these diflPerent mental states
are molecular vibrations in nervous matter, it is, as
Lewes has well pointed out, a mere artifice to enable
us to study the conditions under which these states of
consciousness are generated. This artifice is of inesti-
mable value ; but the fact must never be lost sight of
that it is an artifice, and the artifice must never be con-

6 61

62 THE NATURE OF MIND.

founded with the reality, which is the mental state.
When the physicist declares that light is a vibration
of the ether, and the chemist that sulphate of iron is
green and sulphide of lead is black, both make use of
a similar artifice, and endow matter with properties
which exist only in their own minds. This is a device
which is not only justifiable but necessary for the study
of nature and the progress of science. In no other
way could we examine the conditions under which
phenomena exist, and determine relations of difference
and agreement, in which all knowledge of the objec-
tive world consists. It is so with the study of mind
when we employ the physiological method. When we
study mental states as physical conditions we use the
physiological method j but when we inquire into the
ultimate nature of things, and desire to know more of
mind than is furnished by consciousness, we fail to
bear in mind what knowing; a thing consists in.
When we ask what water is, the chemist tells us it
is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. But hydrogen
and oxygen are not water : it is only when they are
chemically united that we have water, and then we
have hydrogen and oxygen as such no longer. When
we ask what sound is, the physicist says it is the vibra-
tion of air. But have we now any more intimate
knowledge of its essential nature? On the contrary,
sound is the sensation which is the effect of certain
unknown disturbances in matter acting on our audi-
tory apparatus; and when we describe these disturb-
ances as vibrations we artificially make them appear to
us through sight, and simply transfer them from terms
of one sense into those of another. W^e seem to know

THE NATURE OF MIND. 63

them better because the sensations of sight are usually
more vivid and complex than those of sound. It is
the same with heat. Neither sound nor vibrations nor
heat are the real disturbances. These must be for-
ever unknown to us. Knowing the nature of a thing,
then, in the objective world merely consists in trans-
lating the terms of perception from those of one sense
into those of another, or into different terms of the
same sense. How, then, can we have a more intimate
knowledge of the nature of mind by saying it is neural
vibrations? We might, by means of an extraordinarily
delicate microphone, listen to the murmur of the mole-
cules as they jingle against one another in tlie myriads
of cells of the brain. In that case it might be said
that mind was a musical note. Actual feeling is not
molecular vibration, though it may be presented to our
senses as such ; but there is no objection to our using
physical terms to describe states of consciousness if we
keep in mind the object we have in view, any more
than there is to the physicist's using terms of sight to
describe phenomena of sound. In both cases they
answer the same purposes.

But further, let us suppose that these physical dis-
turbances could be shown to be vibrations in nervous
protoplasms, and that we could actually see them under
the microscope. Would we now have any better
knowledge of the ultimate nature of mind than at
present, — aside from tiie fact, of course, of the physical
motions having been demonstrated ? I hold not. Why
should the seeker after the ultimate nature of things be
content to rest satisfied with these? He should logi-
cally ask, " What is the ultimate nature of vibrations ?"

64 THE NATURE OF MIND.

and the answer to this would bring him back again to
where he started, for he would be told that they were
mind. Consciousness I conceive to be an ultimate, at
least as far as physical processes are concerned, and
hence the question as to its further ultimate nature
must be an absurdity. This point, as well as the sub-
ject-matter of the last chapter, has been dwelt upon
at the expense of considerable repetition because of the
importance of clearly recognizing what we mean by
mind. When thus viewed, we get rid of the difficulty
of conceiving how a mental and a physical process can
be one and the same thing, and how a transition is
effected between the physical change in the body and
the subjective world of thought, — the passage between
mind and body. This has been a difficulty which has
been a stumbling-block in the way of all schools of
philosophy, both spiritual and material. It matters
not whether mind be a spirit or a manifestation of
matter, tiie difficulty has been found the same. This
has already been pointed out. Even so advanced a
writer as Dr. Carpenter, a writer of the physiological
school, makes this admission. "Now in what way,"
he says, " the physical change thus excited in the sen-
sorium is translated, so to speak, into that psychical
change which we call seeing the object whose image was
found upon our retina, we know nothing whatever." '
Ferrier recognizes a similar puzzle, but just misses
grasping what, I think, must eventually be recognized
as the true solution.

" But how it is that molecular changes in the brain-

' Mental Physiology, p. 13.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 65

cells coincide with modifications of consciousness ; how,
for instance, the vibrations of light falling on the retina
excite the modifications of consciousness termed a visual
sensation is a problem which cannot be solved. We
may succeed in determining the exact nature of the
molecular clianges which occur in the brain-cells when
a sensation is experienced, but this will not bring us
one whit nearer the ultimate nature of that which con-
stitutes the sensation. The one is objective, the other
subjective, and neither can be expressed in terms of the
other. We cannot say that they are identical, or even
that the one passes into the other ; but only as Lay cock
expresses it, that the two are correlated, or with Bain,
that the physical changes and the psychical modifica-
tions are the objective and subjective sides of a double-
faced unity." ' Even such an extreme materialist as
Biichner, who has been more soundly abused for his
writings than any other materialist of the age by
people, who either could not, or more generally would
not, understand him, does not even attempt to explain
the connection between mind and matter. He contents
himself with merely stating the existence of the con-
nection. This connection becomes apparent now that
the problem is found really to be not how molecular
changes become transformed into consciousness, but
how consciousness comes to be apprehended as physical
changes. If the views that have been advocated above
are accepted, this can readily be understood. It must
be distinctly understood that it is not a question of
translation or transformation at all, but of identification.

' The Functions of the Brain, 1876. The italics are mine.
e 6*

66 THE NATURE OF MIND.

Physical changes are not transformed into states of
consciousness, nor are there "two processes" which oc-
cur " side by side" in the same person. There is only
one process.

The common expression that " every state of con-
sciousness is accompanied with a molecular change in
the substance of the brain," which was for tiie sake
of argument provisionally accepted in the preceding
pages, must be regarded as unfounded and as leading to
great confusion and misconceiMon. A feeling is not ac-
companM by a molecular cliangein the same brain; it is
" the reality itself of that change." You may say, if you
prefer, that a feeling in you may be ideally perceived
by me as a molecular ciiange, or that your feeling is
ideally accompanied by my notion of molecular changes.
But you cannot correctly say thai a feeling is accompanied
by a molecular change in the same organism, because this
implies two distinct existences and leads to all the fallacies
of materialism.

" It is not only inconceivable," writes Mr. Fiskc,
" how mind should have been produced from matter,
but it is inconceivable that it should have been produced
from matter, unless matter possessed already the attri-
butes of mind in embryo, an alternative which it is
difficult to invest with any real meaning."^

Here we have a capital illustration of the ambiguous
use of the word matter; for when we clearly define to
ourselves in which sense we employ the term the diffi-
culty vanishes. Does Mr. Fiske here refer to sub-
jective, actual, or phenomenal matter?^ Not, cer-

1 North Am. Kev., Jan. -Feb., 1878. ' See page 33.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 67

tainly, to the first, for subjective matter being a form of
mind the statement loses all force, as it becomes equiva-
lent to saying that mind could not have been produced
from mind.

If by matter is meant phenomenal matter, the propo-
sition is undoubtedly correct, for phenomenal matter,
being only the product of an artifice, has no real ex-
istence. But with this admission it is difficult to see
much point to the statement, as I do not know as any
one has ever imagined that phenomenal matter could
produce mind. The supposition is mere nonsense,
being equivalent to saying that something which does
not exist can produce something that does.

Finally, if by matter Mr. Fiske has in mind the
notion of actual matter, then the proposition assumes
an intelligible meaning, but at the same time can
readily be shown to be untrue. By actual matter we
mean the unknown reality underlying phenomena, the
thing-in-itself. It comprises all those unknown forces
or activities which constitute the essence of the uni-
verse. If it is unknown, then we certainly are pre-
cluded from setting limitations to its possibilities. It
may be inconceivable how mind should have been pro-
duced from this great unknown universe, because such
a conception would require an intimate knowledge of
the nature of that which, by its very definition, is un-
known. But, on the other hand, nothing forbids our
conceiving that mind should be produced from such a
universe; and the alternative, that in this case matter
must have possessed the attributes of mind in embryo,
instead of being devoid of meaning, becomes invested
with the deepest signification. It is not only possible,

68 THE NATURE OF MIND.

but in the highest degree probable, that those activities,
the sum of which we call consciousneas, are of a kindred
nature to those activities which are the reality of phe-
nomenal matter. Just as organic matter is made up
of the same physical atoms and molecules which make
up inorganic matter, combined and recombined in vary-
ing proportions, so there is every reason to believe that
states of consciousness are the resultant of the combi-
nation and recombination of the elementary activities
which are the realities of the physical atoms and mole-
cules. The atom of hydrogen is the same, whether it
occur in a free state by itself or combined with two
atoms of oxygen in the form of water, or with a great
many other atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and
hydrogen in the living organic substance called proto-
plasm ; and there is also every reason to believe that
the " force," if we may employ a term which derives its
signification from our experience to denote that of which
we have no experience, — there is every reason to be-
lieve, I say, that the force, which is the reality of the
hydrogen atom, is the same whether that atom be in a
free state, or in water, or in living protoplasm.
Further, as the different combinations of the forces or
Realities lying behind the atoms of inorganic substances
exhibit themselves in the varying properties of such
substances, so the various and more complicated combi-
nations of the same forces in living protoplasm exhibit
themselves in its properties or vital functions. Bv a
still further combination of the activities underlying
the properties of the simplest form of living substance,
a lump of protoplasm, and manifesting themselves in
its vital functions, the primitive germs of consciousness

THE AATURE OF MIND. 69

arise, and we obtain for the first time a glimpse of what
these forces nf tlie unknown universe m;iy be.^ All
higher states of consciousness are but combinations of
the simpler forms.

' This identiflcation of the Reality of matter with the elements
of <:onwjioiiniic,-s was clearly recognized by Clifford, and set forth
by him with that brilliant felicity of expression and clearness of
conception which was pre-eminently his.

This Reality he calls mind-stuff. "That element," he says,
"of which, as wo have seen, even the simplest feeliriLjis a com-
plex, X shall call mind-stuff. A moving molecule of inorganic
matter does not possess mind or consciousness ; but it possesses a
small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined to-
gether as to form a film on the under side of a jelly-Hsh, the ele-
ments of mind-stuff' which go along with them are so combined
as to form the faint beginnings of sentience.'' .\gain; "The
universe, then, consists entirely of mind-stuff. Some of this is
woven into the complex form of human minds containing im-
perfect representations of the mind-stuff outside of them, and of
themselves, as a mirror reflects its own imaj^e in another miri-or
adinfinitum. Such an imperfect representation is called a ma-
terial universe. It is a picture in a man's mind of the real uni-
verse of mind-stuff. The two chief points of this doctrine i,,ay
bo thus summed up:

" Matter is a mental picture in which mind-stuff is the thing
ri'prcsented.

" Ucason, intelligence, volition are properties of a complex
which is made up of elements themselves not rational not intel-
ligent, not conscious." Tliiiiys-hi-lln'inxftoea.

Mr. Sjiencer seems also to have come round to this idea, and
clearly expressed it in a late article, which has given rise to con-
siderable discu.ssion. "Consequently," he says, "the final out-
come of that speculation commenced by the primitive man is
that the power manifested throughout the universe distinguished
as matei-ial, is the same power which in ourselves wells up under
the form of consciousness." — Religion — a Retrospect and Pros-
pect. Nineteenth Century, Jan., 1884.

70 THE NATURE OF 'MIND.

Thus it becomes intelligible how matter, meaning
thereby actual matter, may possess the " attributes of
mind in embryo." But such use of language is meta-
phorical, and is justifiable only on the recognition of
the fact that it is metaphor we are using.

But after admitting that consciousness is the reality
of physical processes, the question may be asked ; Is
there still something more underlying consciousness,
some substance of which consciousness may be (as Mr.
Spencer holds) a mode or manifestation ? Mr. Spencer's
view, I take it, is that consciousness is not the reality
of physical processes, but an aspect or manifestation of
this reality. This reality he then calls the substance
of mind, and argues that it is the unknown.

I confess that after a careful and patient study of
Mr. Spencer's arguments I am unable to admit their
force.

Grant the existence of this substance of mind, and
it necessarily follows, as he has so ably argued, tliat we
can know nothing of it. But what is this hypothetical
" Substance of mind," and what are its relations, on the
one hand, to the cerebral vibrations which " underlie
thought," and, on the other, to Thought itself? The
minute we ask these questions and seek for answers that
will enable us to form a clear conception of what sort
of part this substance is supposed to play, its mystic
nature at once becomes apparent. For any hypothesis
to be comprehensive and satisfactory it is essential
that we should be able to form a definite and clear
picture in our minds of the conditions which we sup-
pose to be present, but I doubt very much whether
any one can form such a picture from Mr. Spencer's

THE NATURE OF MIND. 71

exposition of the subject, whatever Mr. Spencer's own
condition of mind may be. Nay, more, I do not see
how different passages in his writings can be reconciled
one with another.

In the first place, what evidence can be adduced in
favor of this Substance. " Let us yield," he says, " to
the necessity of regarding impressions and ideas as
forms or modes of a continually existing something.
Failing in every effort to break the series of impres-
sions and ideas in two, we are prevented from think-
ing of them as separate existences. While each par-
ticular impression or idea can he absent, that which
holds impression and ideas together is never absent,
and its unceasing presence necessitates, or indeed con-
stitutes, the notion of continuous existence or reality."

I am unable to see in this more than a subtle play-
ing with thought, if not with words. Admitting that
while consciousness is present we cannot have an idea
or impression isolated from every other idea or impres-
sion, which is, I presume, what is meant by failure
to break the series in two, I fail to see this logical
necessity which compels us to thus look upon ideas
as " modes of a continually existing something" and
which prevents us from regarding them as separate
existences ; or at any rate, whether we do the latter or
not depends upon what is meant by existence, a ques-
tion which, if entered into here, would prolong too far
this discussion already grown to great length. The
argument also contains a manifest petitio prindpii.
" That which holds impressions and ideas together is
never absent," it is said. This can only be asserted
on the assumption that there is something more than

72 THE NATURE OF MIND.

and in addition to consciousness, which holds every
state of consciousness together. But the only proof
of this is the assertion, or a possible inference from
our failure "to break the series of ideas and impres-
sions.in two ;" an inference which ignores all other pos-
sible explanations. The existence of this substance of
mind is first assumed, and then said never to be absent.
It would not be irrelevant to ask what becomes of this
substance during sleep and similar states of uncon-
sciousness, and how it is known that here it is not ab-
sent. When we analyze our thougiits, we find that we
know only successive and coexisting states of conscious-
ness, — nothing more, — and though we may infer there
is something more underlying them and holding them
together, such a conclusion would be an inference which
may or may not be true, and, as Mr. Spencer argues,
we can know nothing about its nature whatsoever. It
seems somewhat strange, then, that Mr. Spencer should
assume that, "by the definition, it [the substance of
mind] is that which undergoes the modification pro-
ducing a state of mind." For, as we can know nothing
about it, it would seem evident that we cannot know
whether or not it is capable of " undergoing a modifi-
cation." This seems a curious assumption regarding
the qualities of a thing which it is one's endeavor to
show is absolutely unknowable, which Mr. Spencer
proceeds to do.

But admitting the existence of this substance of
mind, what is it, and what are its relations to .states
of consciousness and to the physical vibrations of the
brain? At first sigiit it would seem — and this inter-
pretation is most in harmony with other passages in

THE NATURE OF MIND. 73

Mr. Spencer's writings — that the substance of mind is
identified with the Unknown Reality lying beiiiiid the
phenomena of physical motion ; so tiiat this great
Unknown " Fbrce" is capable of being presented to
our consciousness under two forms; namely, when
viewed through the senses as physical vibrations, when
otherwise viewed [hoiof) as states of consciousness; but
in either case the Reality always remains unknown.
This seems to be clearly enough meant in the passage,
" For what is objectively a change in a superior nerve-
centre is subjectively a feeling, and the duration under
the one aspect measures the duration of it under the
other." * And again in the passage, " When with
these conclusions that matter and motion, as we think
them, are but symbols of unknowable forms of exist-
ence, we join the conclusion lately reached that mind
also is unknowable, and that the simplest form under
which we can think of its substance is but a symbol of
something that can never be rendered into thought;
we see that the whole question is at least nothing more
than the question whether these symbols should be ex-
pressed in terms of those, or those in terms of these, a
question scarcely worth deciding, since either answer
leaves us as completely outside the reality as we were
at first." ^ This view of the case is essentially the same
as that which was held by Lewes.

The objections to regarding states of consciousness as a
mode of apprehending or as symbols of an Unknown
Substance will be presently given. I may briefly say
here tiiat any such conception makes the relation be-

1 Loc. cit. 2 Op. cit , p. 159.

74 THE NATURE OF MIND.

tween the states of consciousness we call cerebral motions
(subjective matter) and the Unknown Reality (actual
matter) similar to the relation between that conscious-
ness which is said to be correlated with those motions
and this same Unknown Reality, which is impossible.

But, on the other hand, if this be the intent of Mr.
Spencer's position, why should consciousness be re-
garded as a mode or manifestation of the substance of
mind ? As has been said, this substance being something
far beyond the possibility of our knowledge, we cannot
even say it is capable of having modes or manifestation.

The radical distinction between Mr. Spencer's po-
sition and mine is this : He supposes an unknown
Reality, which, when apprehended through the senses,
is recognized as physical motions, but which, after
having undergone certain modifications, becomes known
as mind. (How ?)

The view here maintained is that every state of
consciousness is not a " mode or manifestation" of an
unknown Reality, but is the Reality itself, which is
therefore known, and which becomes recognized as a
physical motion of some kind when apprehended by a
second person through the senses.

Mr. Spencer's views have led him to the conclusion
that " Though mind and nervous action are the sub-
jective and objective faces of the same thing, we re-
main utterly incapable of seeing and even imagining
how the two are related." On the other hand, the
views here maintained show clearly and satisfactorily
how the two are related.

Mr. Spencer describes consciousness indifferently as
" modes or manifestations," " symbols," and " aspects"

THE NATURE OF MIND. 75

of an underlying substance. But no such language
can be used to describe the conditions we have endeav-
ored to prove.

In only one sense can there be said to be an Un-
known Substance of Mind, and this we can arrive at
only by objective inquiry. The molecular motions
which correspond to any state of consciousness take
place in a very highly organized substance, the proto-
plasm of the brain-cells. Now this substance is of a
very complex composition, being made up of a very
great number of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
and oxygen. But to each atom there is a correspond-
ing unknown " force," which is the Reality of it, while
the Reality of a molecule of protoplasm may be re-
garded as the result of the combination of Realities
of the atoms. Going further, whether we adopt the
vortex theory of Thompson or not, as there is reason
to believe the atoms of different chemical elements
are compounds of some simpler substance, which for
the sake of illustration we may call hydrogen, so the
Realities of these different chemical atoms will be the
combination in varying proportions of the centres of
force lying behind the hydrogen atom. The Reality,
then, which is the unknown " force" lying behind and
corresponding to that ^roup of sensations we call a
molecule of cerebral protoplasm, will be a compound
of the Realities of its ingredient atoms, which in turn
are a compound of the Reality of the primitive (hydro-
gen ?) atom.

Now as the interaction of the Realities of the proto-
plasmic molecules constitutes consciousness, we may
imagine different states or kinds of consciousness to

76 THE NATURE OF MIND.

correspond to the interaction of varying groups of
molecules of the same or different chemical compo-
sition, these molecules being contained in a varying
number of cells of the brain.

The Reality, then, of the molecule of protoplasm in
contradistinction to the Reality of the interaction of
the molecules might in this sense be regarded as the
substance of mind, though the same process of reason-
ing would compel us, perhaps, not to rest here, but to
continue our analysis until we had arrived at the reality
or force underlying the group of sensations called the
atom of hydrogen, or whatever the primitive substance
may be. This would then be the Substance of Mind.

This brings us to another matter which has already
been touched upon, but on which it was promised that
something more would be said. I refer to the matter
of " Aspects." We have seen how physical processes
and consciousness have been spoken of by some as dual
properties of matter. So, in the same way, conscious-
ness is often referred to, so far as the reality is concerned,
as facts of the same order as physical processes ; that
is, as " phenomena" and " symbols of the unknown."
Thus, to requote Mr. Spencer : " When with these
conclusions, that matter and motion, as we think them,
are but symbols of unknowable forms of existence, we
join the conclusion lately reached, that mind also is un-
knowable, and that the simplest form under which we
can think of its substance is but a symbol of something
that can never be rendered into thought, we see that
the whole question is at least nothing more than the
question whether these symbols should be expressed in
terms of those, or those in terms of these, — a question

THE NATURE OF MIND. 77

scarcely worth deciding, since either answer leaves us
as completely outside of the reality as we were at first." '

Now it may very properly be questioned whether a
state of mind, as a feding, can be conceived of as a
symbol of its own substance. We can say an idea of
anything external to us, as of a tree, is only a symbol
of the actual something which exists there ; for the idea
of a tree is only the effed, which the actual object pro-
duces on the mind, just as the impression in wax of a
seal is a representation or symbol of the seal ; or better,
as the printed word is a symbol of the idea it repre-
sents, but, as a printed form, has nothing in common
with that idea.

But in this case there are required and present two
things, — one, the something to be symbolized, the tree-
in-itself, and the other, the something in which the
symbol is to be formed, the mind, and one is distinct
from the other. But for a state of mind to be a symbol
of its own substance, it is requisite that this particular
state of mind should have an existence separate from
that underlying substance, or, in other words, separate
from itself. Otherwise the state of mind could not be
acted upon by the substance. But if it is separate, it
is a distinct entity, and then this underlying something
cannot be the substance of mind. In brief, to quote
Mr. Spencer himself in another connection, " A thing
cannot at the same instant be both subject and object
of thought, and yet the substance of mind must be this
before it" can be both the symbol and the thing sym-
bolized.

Whatever view be taken regarding the existence and

' Op. cit., p. 159.
7*

78 THE NATURE OF MIND.

nature of a something underlying consciousness, it is
quite evident tiiat the latter cannot be regarded as facts
of the same order as its "accompanying" physical
changes, as is done when both are regarded as symbols
of something else.

This same looseness of thought and language has led
to physical and mental processes being regarded as
different "aspeots" of the same thing.

Even so acute a thinker as Mr. Lewes has described
mind and physical changes as different "aspects of one
and the same process." This cannot be the correct
conception, for it also makes matter and feeling facts
of the same order. If mind and matter are to be re-
garded as "aspects," it must be that either they are
aspects of each other or of a third thing, as of Spencer's
substance of mind.

In the former case matter might be regarded as an
aspect of mind, but mind cannot be imagined as an
aspect of matter, as appears to be meant when Lewes
says, "a mental process is only another aspect of a
physical process."' Now a physical process may cer-
tainly be looked upon as an aspect of a mental process,
because it is the effect of the mental process on another
organism, but the mental process being the actuality of
the physical process, — the physical process in itself, —
there is nothing for it to be an effect or aspect of.
What has been said in regard to the conception of
mind as a symbol is equally applicable here.

Under the second alternative, that they are different
aspects of an underlying substance, physical processes
may also be aspects, but mental processes not. For,

1 Physical Basis of Mind, p. 386.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 79

ill order that the latter may be an aspect of this sub-
stance, there must be another substance or mind on
which the underlying substance can work to produce
the effect or aspect called consciousness. But where is
there such another substance? We each of us have
only one mind apiece.

This may be expressed in another way. To speak
of anything as an aspect of something else implies
something perceived and something perceiving, and the
effect of the former upon the latter is the aspect of the
former, the thing perceived. Now for consciousness
to be an aspect of the substance of mind there is re-
quired, in addition to this substance, another thing or
mind to perceive it, and consciousness must be the
effect of the former upon the latter. But where is this
second mind? There is none. Such an assumption
would require a second entity, as a spirit. Therefore,
if matter is an aspect, or the reaction of an organism to
something else, consciousness cannot be aspect. The
two can never be spoken of as facts of the same cla=s.
Besides, as was said in Chapter I., if these two classes
of facts could be regarded as simply the subjective and
objective aspects of one and the same thing, it would
fall far short of offering us an adequate explanation,
and would involve us in many difficulties such as have
been pointed out. '

Exception may be taken to that meaning of the term
"aspect" which I have employed. But if aspect is
not to be taken in its ordinary and exact sense, then it
must mean very little or anything that one may choose,
and is still more objectionable as an interpretation of
the question.

80 THE NATURE OF MIND.

The same objection holds to the expression that
matter and mind are only " different modes of appre-
hending the same thing." Consciousness cannot be a
mode of apprehending something else, because this
also implies the existence of something else that
apprehends. What is it?

Again, if by the term matter be meant the con-
scious states by which things-in-themselves are known
to us, then matter and mind are plainly not two differ-
ent aspects of the same fact. On the contrary, they
are clearly different psyohioal facts. The sensation of
mental tremors is one fact, the conscious state which is
the reality of those tremors is another fact. Each is a
subjective fact occurring in separate organisms. The
conscious state called a sensation of color takes place in
organism A, for example, and the conscious state called
neural tremors in organism B, which is observing A.
But the conscious state in A is the cause of the con-
scious state in B, which latter can, in this sense only, be
said to be an aspect of the state of A, but not viae versa.

If by matter be meant not phenomena, but the thing-
in-itself, then still less can matter and mind be regarded
as different aspects of the same fact. For by cerebral
tremors we now mean the reality of these tremors, and,
as I have endeavored to demonstrate, this reality and
consciousness are one and the same fact. This will
become intelligible if the reader will refer to what was
said regarding the meaning of the term matter in
Chapter II.

On pursuing this mode of inquiry further, certain
important results follow, which it will be necessary for
us to consider.

THE NATURE OF MIND.

81

Let us suppose a complicated apparatus, as of micro-
scopes, by which B observes what takes place in A's
brain when he has a sensation of color, for example;
and C observes what occurs in B's brain at the same
instant. Then it would happen that at the moment
when A has the sensation of redness, B has the sensa-
tion of cerebral tremors, and also C has a sensation
of tremors. This may be graphically represented as
follows :

We have then the following as a result of these con-
ditions :

In organism A : Sensation of color ; an actuality and

the reality of.
In organism B : Cerebral tremors ; a conscious state,
and as such also a reality, but also
commonly known as phenomena or
matter when projected outside of
the organism and given objective
existence in A. It is the form in
which color in A is symbolized in B.
In organism C : Cerebral tremors ; a conscious state,
and as such an actuality, and the
form in which the conscious state in
B is symbolized in C.
Cerebral tremors, then, are a conscious state, which
may be a form of apprehending in a second organism
either,
/

82 THE NATURE OF MIND.

1st. An unlike conscious state, — sound, color, thought,
etc.

2d. A similar conscious state or cerebral tremor.

In this instance of C, then, we are brought to what
seems at first the surprising fact, that that conscious state
called cerebral tremors, which is the cognition of the
thing-in-itself, and known as phenomena, and thething-
in-itself, also cerebral tremors in B, are similar though
separate facts. And under the conditions just men-
tioned it might almost be said that neural tremors exist
outside of us as such ; or in other words, that sueh phe-
nomena exist practically as we see them. I say prac-
tically, for although the conscious state, neural motions,
possessed by one organism, may be perceived by an-
other also as neural motions in the brain of the former,
still it does not follow that these first motions would be
perceived as the same kind of motion. They would
be perceived as motion of some kind, but not neces-
sarily as the same kind. For instance, taking the same
illustration used above, A's sensation of color might
be perceived by B as undulatory motion ; the conscious
state of undulatory motion in B might be perceived as
circular motion by C ; which again might be represented
in D's consciousness by spiral motion, and so on. I do
not mean to say that these particular motions do actually
exist. That would depend upon physical conditions
not yet understood. All I mean is that some kind of
motion or physical change may under some conditions
be the mode of apprehending a motion which may or
may not be the same in kind ; and we perceive the
thing-in-itself as it really exists.

CHAPTER V.

THE CORRELATION OP FORCES.

We have now arrived at a position to consider an-
other element in this problem, and one for which it is
essential to find a satisfactory explanation. I refer to
the law of the Correlation of Forces. If states of mind
are simply states of matter, it is insisted they must be
brought into harmony with all those general laws which
govern the phenomena of matter. The difficulty of find-
ing an application of this law to mental conditions has
been generally recognized, and this difficulty has been
taken advantage of by those styling themselves "anti-
materialists," and urged with considerable force as an
objection. Unless this objection can be met, material-
ism must admit a vulnerable point. For those who are
unfamiliar with physical science, it will be necessary
for a thorough comprehension of the argument to state
witii some fulness the meaning and application of the
phrase "correlation of forces." I cannot do this
better than in the words of Mr. Fiske, who at the
same time forcibly states the objections we are obliged
to meet : " Let us now apply these principles to the
case of an organism, such as the human body. All of
the ' force' — i.e., capacity of motion — present at any
moment in the human body is derived from the food
that we eat and the air that we breathe. As food is

84 THE NATURE OF MIND.

turned into oxygenated blood and assimilated with
tlie various tissues of tlie body, whicli themselves rep-
resent previously assimilated food, the molecular move-
ments of the food material become variously combined
into molecular movements in tissue, — in muscular tissue,
in adipose, in cellular, and in nerve tissue, and so on.
Every undulation that takes place among the molecules
of a nerve represents some simpler form of molecular
motion contained in food that has been assimilated ;
and for every given quantity of the former kind of
motion that appears, an equivalent quantity of the
latter kind disappears in producing it. And so we may
go on, keeping the account strictly balanced, until we
reach the peculiar discharge of undulatory motion be-
tween cerebral ganglia that uniformly accompanies a
feeling or state of consciousness. What now occurs ?
Along with this peculiar undulatory motion there ooours
a feeling, — the primary element of a thought or of an
emotion. But does the motion produce^ the feeling
in the same sense that heat produces light? Does a
given quantity of motion disappear, to he replaced by an
equivalent quantity of feeling ? By no means. The
nerve-motion in disappearing is simply distributed into
other nerve-motions in various parts of the body, and then
other nerve-motions, in their turn, become variously
metamorphosed into motions of contraction in muscles,
motions of secretion in glands, motions of assimilation
in tissues generally, or into yet other nerve-motions.
Nowhere is there such a thing as the metamorphosis
of motion into feeling, or of feeling into motion. Of

1 Italics in the ori<!;inal, but tlie other italics are mine.

THE NATURE OF MIND. §5

course I do not mean that the circuit, as thus described,
has ever been experimentally traced, or that it can be
experimentally traced. What I mean is, that if the law
of the ' correlation of forces' is to be applied at all to the
physical processes which go on within the living organ-
ism, we are of necessity bound to render our whole
account into terms of motion that can be quantitatively
measured. Once admit into the circuit some element
— such as feeling — that does not allow of quantitative
measurement, and the correlation can no longer be es-
tablished ; we are landed at once into absurdity and
contradiction. So far as the correlation of forces has
anything to do with it, the entire circle of transmuta-
tion, from the lowest physico-chemical motion all the
way up to the highest nerve-motion and all the way
down again to the lowest physico-chemical motion,
must be described in physical terms, and no account
whatever can be taken of any such thing as feeling or
consciousness." '

The reader will immediately perceive how the idea
of feeling, being something more than and in addition
to those activities called motion, pervades the whole
passage. This is especially evident in those passages
indicated by italics. " Along with this peculiar un-
dulatory motion there occurs a feeling, — tlie primary
element of a thought or of an emotion." " Does a given
quantity of motion disappear, to be replaced by an equiva-
lent quantity of feeling f" The idea of feeling being
something plus physical activities could hardly be
more plainly stated. With this false conception as a

• North Am. Kev., loc. cit.

86 'PSE NATURE OF MIND.

starting-point, the conclusion affirming the inapplica-
bility of the correlation of forces naturally follows.

After what has been said in the preceding chapters,
the reader will, without difficulty, recognize the fallacy
of this conception of double processes, no matter
whether the second property be looked upon as spirit-
ual or physical. It leads, as was averred on page 25,
and as Mr. Fiske has well shown, to the destruction
of the universality of this law of correlation. But
materialism must not be blamed for the shortcomings
of its interpreters or the misconceptions of its oppo-
nents. If it can be shown that materialism cannot be
reconciled with tlie law of the correlation of forces,
materialism must fall. But this is far from being the
case. When Materialism is properly understood no
such difficulty is met with. Before consigning any
doctrine to oblivion, it would be becoming in its oppo-
nents to examine once more their own interpretation
of that doctrine, and see if the fault does not lie with
themselves. Having begun by misunderstanding the
doctrine of materialism, they naturally end by finding
fault with errors which are of their own making. They
should be more careful not to mistake their own blun-
ders for those of nature.

But is this statement just quoted respecting the in-
applicability of the law of the Correlation of Forces to
Mind true of that interpretation of materialism main-
tained in these pages? Let us see. "Along with this
peculiar form of undulatory motion there occurs a
feeling, — the primary element of a thought or of an
emotion." This is not correct. There are not two
things which occur simultaneously in one organism.

THE NATURE OF MJA'D. 87

There occurs solely the Feeling, and the undulatory
motion is only the subjective expression of another
person's perception of this feeling. Therefore it obvi-
ously cannot be said that the motion produces the feel-
ing, for the two are one.

" Does a given quantity of motion disappear, to be
replaced by an equivalent quantity of feeling?" If
the term " motion" is here employed to represent that
cerebral motion which is commonly though incorrectly
said to accompany a feeling, the answer must be "No,"
for the reason just given. But if it is used to desig-
nate those motions which occur in the sensory nerves,
and if we bear in mind what we mean by such motion,
an affirmative answer may be given. Let me explain
by an illustration what I mean. Let us suppose that
we have been pricked in the arm by a pin. As a re-
sult we have a sensation of pain, which in turn causes
us to withdraw the arm. We have here what is called
a nervous circuit. In the sensory nerve going to the
brain tliere is excited some " nerve-motion," which in
turn travels to the cerebral centres, where this motion
is exchanged for cerebral motion in the cells of the
brain. From hence it issues again along the motor
nerves as nerve-motion, until it finally reaches the
muscles to become muscular motion. Here is a dy-
namic circuit. But where is feeling? Has it entered
into it? Not at all; because we have been employing
physical terms. We cannot change one term of the equa-
tion without changing all the others to correspond, any
more than we can add quarts and pounds together, but
each must be reduced to the same standard of measure-
ment. If we wish to bring feeling into the circuit, we

88 TBE NATURE OF MIND.

must employ a corresponding set of symbols. It will
then be expressed as follows : The molecular disturb-
ances in the nerves, designated by nerve-motion, must
be represented by the term " unknown x." The dif-
ficulty is that the ordinary use of language carries
with it pitfalls and dangers, which can only be avoided
by keeping constantly before the mind the reality
which is represented by the woi'd. When we talk of
nerve-motions, the most wary are liable to be misled ;
and even the more general term " physical disturb-
ance or activity" contains an idea of something that
we see or feel, and the unknown conditions for which
it stands are lost sight of. In this way terms of dif-
ferent measurement are introduced into the equation,
and the real question becomes lost in one of words.

It is better, when dealing with uUimaies, as we are
when we talk of feeling, to employ such indefinite
terms as x or y, which have no preconceived notions
attached to them, instead of speaking of motions and
undulations which are not ultimates. Letting x, then,
stand for the unknown changes in the sensory nerves,
and y for those in the motor, we can say that unknown
X becomes transformed into an equivalent amount of
consciousness ; that consciousness becomes again trans-
formed into an equivalent amount of unknown y, and
with each metamorphosis a certain amount of the one
factor disappears, to be replaced by an equivalent
amount of the succeeding factor. We have here, then,
a circuit of ultimates corresponding to and identical
with the dynamic nervous circuit, and the principle of
" correlation of forces" becomes applicable to the facts
of consciousness.

THE NATURE OF MIND. 89

But is it necessary that we should use these indefi-
nite expressions in order that this law of correlation
may be applied to the subjective world ? I think not, if,
as I have said so many times before, we are careful not
to mistake the symbol for the reality symbolized. We
can say that in traversing the nervous circuit the nerve-
motion in the sensory nerves becomes transformed into
an equivalent amount of cerebral motion, or conscious-
ness, which in turn disappears to become nerve-motion
again. But now we must remember that "cerebral
motion" and consciousness are one and the same thing.
Only the former is a symbol of the latter. Not
the gold and silver side of an iron shield, but a gold
shield, one side of which has been silvered. If we
wish to measure these motions by mechanical apparatus,
of course it must be the cerebral motions, not conscious-
ness, which are to be measured ; for mechanical methods
can only be applied to the conditions to meet which
they were designed. I have discussed the application
of this law of the correlation of forces in a very gen-
eral way, referring only to the principles underlying it.
It would take us too far out of our way to consider all
the complex conditions entering into the equation of
its application, — what amount of " nerve-motion," for
example, in a sensory nerve passes into other nerve-
motions in outgoing nerves without the intervention
of consciousness ; how much becomes transformed into
consciousness; how much finds its equivalent in dis-
turbances in the sympathetic system and in nutritive
tissue change; and, finally, how much consciousness
is balanced by the previous molecular action of the
food storing up, so to speak, mind-force in the cells of

8*

90 TEE NATURE OF MIND.

the brain, ready to be discharged like a mine of gun-
powder on lighting the fuse. These questions physiol-
ogy is not sufficiently developed to answer at present.

If the distinctions dwelt upon above are borne in
mind, the difficulty ceases to be one of mere words,
and one of the strongest objections to the materialistic
doctrine of mind is avoided. We see how movement
may be the cause of thought, and thought of movement.
The assertion of Lange,^ that " were it possible for
a single cerebral atom to be moved by ' thought'
so much as the millionth of a millimetre out of the
path due to it by the laws of mechanics, the whole
'formula of the universe' would become inapplicable
and senseless," can only be maintained on the assump-
tion that mind is something more than matter, a spiritual
entity.

Thought can move an atom, for it can move the un-
known ultimate which is the basis of that group of
phenomena we call an atom. But to insist upon this
precision of statement is a mere quibble over words,
though the superficial criticisms of Lange^ may some-
times render it necessary,

1 History of Materialism.
^ Ibid., vol. iii. p. 9.

PART II.

HUMAIsr AUTOMATISM.

" Whekepore, as men owe all their true ratiocination in the
right understanding of speech, so also they owe their errors to
the misunderstanding of the same; and as all the ornaments of
philosophy proceed only from men, so from man also is derived
the ugly absurdity of false opinions. For speech has something
in it like to a spider's web (as it was said of old of Solon's laws),
for by contexture of words tender and delicate wits are ensnared
and stopped, but strong wits break easily through them."

HOBBES.

91

CHAPTER I.

THE KEFLEX CHAKACTEE OF IDEAS.

Having thus far been occupied with the considera-
tion of the nature of mind, we are now prepared to
enter upon the second part of our subject, or Human
Automatism. But as what will follow consists only
of deductions from the principles laid down in the
preceding chapters, it was absolutely essential that we
should first see that these principles were well estab-
lished and clearly understood. It is to be hoped that this
has been done, and that that interpretation of material-
ism has been given which is both consistent with the
facts and affords a complete explanation of the mystery
of consciousness. It is because proper pains have not
always been taken to establish the correctness of the
fi.rst principles, that such extraordinary and indefensible
deductions have sometimes been drawn.

We have seen how consciousness is nothing more
than the reality of those physical processes we call un-
dulations, and that the latter are only the means by
which consciousness becomes known to us when appre-
hended by a second person through the senses, — in fact,
the symbols of consciousness.

But this doctrine involves logical consequences from
which there can be no escape, and which we cannot
avoid considering.

93

94 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

As physical processes are symbols and equivalents of
consciousness, we can, through the physical method, let
them stand for mental processes, study them as such
equivalents, and investigate the conditions under which
they arise. Afterwards we can translate the results
into terms of consciousness.

Now that matter, of which consciousness is the re-
ality, must be subject to the laws which govern matter.
One of these laws is the law of inertia. According to
this, matter cannot of itself change its own state. Mat-
ter at rest must forever remain at rest, unless some-
thing outside of itself disturbs it and puts it in motion.
Matter in motion must forever persist in motion till
something outside of it checks it. Matter exhibited
under one property must forever be exhibited under
that property, unless some external force causes it to
be exhibited under another. Whatever be the state of
matter at a given moment, it must always remain in
that state till outside agencies effect a change. This
is a universal law ; it has no exception. To this law,
then, the " matter of the mind" must be subject. Let
us apply it and see what it means. It means this : that
no change of any kind, chemical or physical, can occur
in the protoplasm of the brain without the interference
of outside agencies; that no vibration or pulsation can
occur among the protoplasmic molecules of any cell
unless some cause external to that cell acts upon them;
that for the undulations of the molecules — of which
consciousness is the reality — to occur, some external
force is requisite to start them into activity ; in other
words, for consciousness to be present it is necessary
that each cell should be stimulated by something exter-

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 95

nal to that cell.' The activity of the molecules of no
cell can appear spontaneously, and hence neither can
the reality of that activity, or consciousness. Conscious-
ness, then, is passive, not active; it is conditioned exist-
ence, not unconditioned ; it is a link in a series of
events.

Such is the inevitable result to which our reasoning
leads us. If consciousness depends on matter being
distui'bed, it must be passive. This is a logical conse-
quence of our premises, from which there is no escape.
But if our thoughts are passive, — if they are merely
the molecular disturbances in themselves and cannot
arise spontaneously, — it must be that the stimulus re-
quired for their production cannot be applied in any
indefinite manner at haphazard, but only through the
anatomical mechanism of the brain, — only through the
nerve-conductors developed for the purpose. The
channels by which stimuli from without reach the cells
of the brain are the centripetal nerves; and any succession
of ideas can only occur by reason of the neural " cur-

1 Objection may be made to this on the ground that, conscious-
ness being the reality, the laws which govern phenomena cannot
be applied to it. But I have already shown (Chapter V.) that by
a change of all the terms in the series the law of correlation of
forces may be extended to mental processes. Furthermore, the
physical process being the equivalent and symbol of the mental
process, we can substitute the one for the other ; and having
worked out the problem, retranslate the results back again into
the original terms. It is not possible to conceive of the neural
vibrations being absent or present without its reality, conscious-
ness, being similarly absent or present; and anything which,
from a physical point of view, causes the occurrence of the
vibrations must, from a psychological point of view, have an
equivalent result in consciousness.

96 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

rents," wherever originated, being reflected from one
cell to another along the anatomical connections whicli
join the cells; and any objective expression of an idea
can only take place by reason of the current passing
again from the brain to the organs of expression, which
are the muscles. In other words, under normal con-
ditions, every muscular action, every idea, sensation, or
amotion requires for its production some stimulus origi-
nating outside of its own nervous centre, — tJuit is, it is
nfie.v}

I thiuk it is possible to show, by reference to the
facts of physiology and pathology, that from the sim-
plest muscular act, such as the winking of the eyelid,
to the most complex muscular actions and trains of
thought, there is never a difference in kind, only one of
degree ; tiiat we can pass from one to the other by a
series of gradations, step by step, and find them all of
the same nature, reflex in character.

Tiiere is one objection to this conclusion respecting
the reflex character of ideas which, at first sight, ap-
pears plausible, but yet, whatever validity it may have,
does. essentially affect the principle of the hypothesis.
It may be urged (and, from a philosophical point of
view, correctly) that, even if the physical process in the
brain be a reflex one, this term, which derives its mean-
ing from physical conditions, cannot be applied to de-

1 There is one probable exception to this, and that is when
ideas under abnormal conditions are caused by direct irritation of
the blood, as in delirium, or by foreign substances, as opium. But
in this case the ideas are still passive, and it is probable that only
some of these ideas are due to direct irritation and the remainder
are reflected, as shown by the association of allied ideas.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 97

note the character of psychical facts. When we say, for
instance, that certain nervous processes are reflex, we
mean that the neural current passes along certain in-
going nerves to certain groups of neural cells in the
brain ; that then the current, after having started cer-
tain reactions in the molecules of the cells, is reflected
from cell to cell, a similar effect being produced in each;
and, finally, that the current is reflected outwards along
certain outgoing paths to the muscles, to end in action
of some kind. We can even form a picture in the
mind of all this, and perhaps graphically represent it
on paper. But no such picture can be drawn to illus-
trate the relation of the psychical facts, the ideas, which
are the reality and correspond to this process. We
can see that one idea is invariably associated with an-
other idea ; that one follows another according to cer-
tain laws of thought, which we can formulate from our
former experience. But this association is nothing like
the picture we formed of the reflex physical process.
All this is undoubtedly true, but nevertheless it cannot
be regarded as a fatal objection to the hypothesis ad-
vanced, nor as irreconcilable with all the facts. Ideas
are the reality of the physical process, and though they
cannot, by a strict use of terms, be said to be reflex,
still the relations between them ai'e of a nature that
correspond to the reflex physical process ; so that ideas
in some way, which possibly cannot be translated into
thought, are bound together in a fashion which has its
counterpart in the reflected neural current and cellular
commotions. The reality of the cellular commotions
are ideas, and the reflected physical process is the man-
ner in which these realities are recognized by us when
^ g 9

98 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

apprehended through the senses. This use of physical
terms to describe subjective conditions need not be fal-
lacious or regarded as unphilosophical if we only have
in mind the conditions for which the terms stand.'

1 See also note to page 96.

CHAPTER II.

CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN AGENT IN THE DETERMI-
NATION OF BODILY ACTION.

The outcome of our inquiry thus far ha-s resulted
in a theory which both explains the " relationship of
the mind to the body," and also the mechanism by which
mental action takes place. This theory at once satis-
fies all the conditions of the case, and explains the
mysteries which have so long hung about the problem.
We have seen how the very question, " How is the
mind related to matter?" involves erroneous assump-
tions regarding the nature of each, which make the
question itself an absurd one. In the reflex theory of
ideas we find a mechanism by which the human mind
carries on all its manifold operations, from the sim-
plest mental act, like the sudden start of the body
at the sound of a cannon, to the most complex train
of thought. In passing from the more simple to the
more complex the paths of thought become more cir-
cuitous and more complicated, but the process does not
change. The difference is in degree, not in kind. On
the physical side the current is reflected from cell to
cell till it finally ends in the outgoing current which
terminates in muscular action ; and on the mental side,
each thought, which is the reality of the physical process,
is attached, so to speak, in some unknown way to each
succeeding thought in such a manner that one necessa-

99

100 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

rily ensues upon the other, according to certain psycho-
logical laws. Every idea calls up the particular idea
which is associated with it in the same chain of ideas,
to end finally, also, in muscular action ; though, as each
chain is linked with hundreds of other chains which
cross its paths, fresh stimuli may switch the current of
ideas along these connecting chains into fresh circuits.

To this reflex view there are logical consequences from
which I see no escape. From the theory that a mental
process is the reality of the reflex physiological process
to the doctrine of automatism is a step which we are
compelled by the force of logical necessity to take, or
rather, the two doctrines are essentially the same. For
any doctrine which removes our thoughts from the
control of a hypothetical agent which is independent
of external influences, and confines them to certain
channels in which they are propelled, directly or indi-
rectly, by stimuli (external or internal) is practically
automatism. Under the reflex view, spontaneity, in the
sense that any idea or state of mind can arise except as
the resultant of some other idea by which it is condi-
tioned, is impossible. Reflex is, consequently, equiva-
lent to automatic.

On the other hand, the automatism which we are
compelled to adopt is modified in a most important
particular by the discovery of the relation which mind
bears to matter. By this modification the principal
objection to automatism is removed. As we have
already seen (Chapter I.), and as we shall presently see
more fully, some automatists, from a failure to take into
account the testimony of direct consciousness, have
given expression to a theory according to which all

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. IQl

our actions are accomplished by the physiological mech-
anism of the brain, without being influenced in any
way by volition or feeling. These latter are limited
to the part of indicators to tell how the physical ma-
chinery beneath is working, nothing more. Any such
notion of automatism can only arise from an ill-
digested consideration of the facts and a total miscon-
ception of the problem in question. Now, on the con-
trary, the form of automatism which is the outcome of
the reflex theory we have formed takes into account
the testimony offered directly by consciousness, and
. recognizes fully the part played by volition in acting
on the bodily mechanism and determining our actions.
The great merit of the doctrine of the nature of mind
which has been adopted in these pages is that it har-
monizes our subjective and objective knowledge, and
not only allows to consciousness the power of acting
on the molecules of matter, but renders intelligible
how it acts. Consciousness is as much an agent in
determining physical action as molecular motion is, —
nay, it is more.

That I do this or that because I feel so and so is a
psychological fact beyond dispute. No amount of
reasoning can argue me out of the belief that I drink
this water because I am thirsty. But this is only stating
the problem in other terms, — in psychological instead
of physiological terms, — and does not in any way con-
tradict our hypothesis. We can indifferently say that
any action is dependent upon the organic connection
of the nervous elements, or say it is dependent upon
our feelings. It must be remembered that a subjective
process and a neural disturbance are, at bottom, one

102 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

and the same thing, and either may be said to be the
cause of the ensuing action, if we bear in mind the
terms in which the fact is expressed. But in one sense
it is more correct to speak in terms of feeling and
thought than in those of matter. Ideas, sensations,
etc., are the ultimates, the final terms to which phe-
nomena can be reduced. They are actualities, and
well known to us, while physical undulations, etc., are
not, being merely phenomena. Hence it is more cor-
rect to use psychological terms, in speaking of mental
"phenomena," than physical terms.

It was shown in a preceding chapter how, from a
misunderstanding of the real relation between mind
and physical changes, — liow, from the conception of
consciousness being something in addition to neural
undulations, — the conclusion naturally follows that, as
muscular action was only in direct connection with the
physical changes of the brain, consciousness, which was
something more and outside the former, could have
nothing to do with the production of our actions, and
must be merely a collateral product. This conclusion
followed logically from the premises, but was also
drawn unwarrantably from certain experiments on
animals. The bearing of these experiments upon the
point at issue will be discussed presently. We are now
considering this conclusion as a logical deduction from
the premises referred to. The adversaries of the mod-
ern doctrine, as well as its disciples, were not slow to
point out that it is a psychological /aci that our feelings
are the cause of our actions, — that when we rub a spot
where we have been bitten by a mosquito, we do it
because we feel uncomfortably at that spot. This is a

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 103

fact which every one can verify as often as he pleases.
This being so, the logical inference which should be
drawn is that there is some fallacy in the premises.
But the opponents went further, and inferred that if
our feelings are the cause of our actions, then we can-
not be automata. This is an unjustifiable inference
because there is no evidence that one excludes the
other. It has been thought that we could only be
automata on the supposition that our feelings were
collateral products. Now, on the contrary, I main-
tain ; first, that our feelings are not collateral products;
second, that they are the active agents ; and, third, that
nevertheless we are automata.

This conception that feeling as agent necessarily ex-
cludes automatism is expressed by G. H. Lewes in the
following paragraph :

" The question of automatism, which has been argued
in the preceding chapters, may, I think, be summarily
. disposed of by a reference to the irresistible evidence
each man carries in his own consciousness that his
actions are frequently, even if not always, determined
by feelings. He is quite certain that he is not an
automaton, and that his feelings are not simply collat-
eral products of his actions, without the power of
modifying and originating them."

Now in this passage there is really contained a
syllogism which may be expressed as follows :

" If Feeling determines action, and is not a collateral
product, we are not automata. Consciousness proves
that Feeling does determine action ; ergo, we are not
automata."

Now the point maintained here is, that the first

104 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

premise is incorrect; hence the conclusion is invalid.
Feeling may be the cause of physical action, and the
whole be still automatic.

If our hypothesis regarding the nature of the mind
be the correct one, and feeling and physical changes
be practically the same thing, it follows that one is as
much the cause of physical actions as the other, and
one is as automatic as the other.

It is proper to state that these are not the main
reasons which Mr. Lewes gives for rejecting the
theory of automatism. On the contrary, a large por-
tion of his work is devoted to an elaborate exposition
of his views on this question. It would carry us too
far out of the way to enter into an examination of
them, involving as they do questions which are far
beyond the limits set for this work. Suffice it to say
that Mr. Lewes devotes considerable space to a discus-
sion of the functions of automata, and to the question
whether unconscious and reflex actions are governed by <
Sensibility. Finding that automata have not Sensi-
bility, and also holding that all our actions, those that
ai'e conscious and unconscious, as well as those ordi-
narily called reflex, are governed by Sensibility, he
concludes that the human organism is not an automaton.
We cannot enter into the question as to how far sensi-
bility enters into so-called unconscious actions, as it is
not essential to our argument. From our point of
view it makes no difference whether the so-called
unconscious actions are guided by Sensibility or not;
in either case our answer would be the same. I am
ready, however, to follow Mr. Lewes some distance,
and allow sensibility to many "unconscious" actions.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 105

As, for instance, when walking through the crowded
streets we avoid the passers-by though our thoughts
are deeply intent on something else. We certainly
have the optical sensations of the passing crowd, and
are guided by them, though at the time we are un-
conscious of the sensations. On the other hand, there
are many reflex actions to whicli no subjective quality
can be attached, and which cannot be governed by any-
thing of the nature of sensibility, unless by sensibility
is merely meant a neural reaction as opposed to other
physical reactions, in which case the question becomes
one only of terms.

Even if conscious and unconscious actions be gov-
erned by Sensibility, they may still be automatic. To
be sure, a sentient action is not in one sense of the term
a mechanical one, for no mechanical toy has conscious-
ness or sensibility of any kind. If it be maintained
that nothing is automatic which has consciousness and
is worked by sensations, then we are not on this defi-
nition automata. But this limitation of the word
automatism is not in my opinion essential.

When it is said that mental processes are automatic,
I do not conceive that it is necessarily meant that we
are identical with or like machines in every particular.
For instance, human beings grow and generate other
human beings, functions not possessed by machines.
When it is said that we are automata, or that our men-
t il processes are automatic, I understand that all that
is meant is that our thoughts, sensations, volitions, and
actions follow in certain grooves or channels which
have their analogies and equivalents in the anatomical
mechanism of the brain, and that the presence of every

106 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

state of mind is conditioned by the anatomical struc-
ture and physiological working of the brain. Automa-
tism is then synonymous with reflex action.^ The
theory of automatism is antithetical to the spiritual
doctrine which postulates a central unconditioned Ego
holding undisputed sway over our actions.

" But," says Mr. Lewes, " it [organized experience]
cannot be made to enter into the mechanism of an au-
tomaton, because, however complex that mechanism
may be, and however capable of variety of action, it
is constructed solely for definite actions on calculated
lines; all its readjustments must have been foreseen,
it is incapable of adjusting itself to unforeseen circum-
stances. Hence every interruption in the prearranged
order either throws it out of gear, or brings it to a
standstill. It is regulated, not self-regulating. The
organism, on the contrary, — conspicuously so in its more
complex forms, — is variable, self-regulating, incalcu-
lable. It has selective adaptation responding readily
and efficiently to novel and unforeseen circumstances,
acquiring new modes of combination and reaction.
An automaton that will learn by experience, and adapt
itself to conditions not calculated for in its construction,
has yet to be made ; till it is made we must deny that
organisms are machines."^ Using the same method of
reasoning we may answer, such a machine has been
made, not by man, it is true, but by nature. In the
human organism we find such an automaton made by
natural forces.

' Mr. Lewes admits that all mental action is reflex.
' Physical Basis of Mind, p. 43 'i.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 107

The part which feeling plays in our action is a point
of great importance, and it seems to me that it is from
a failure to thoroughly grasp it that many materialists
have been led into error and have laid themselves open
to criticism. And, if I am right, even such an acute
thinker as Professor Huxley seems to have become in-
volved in this fallacy. "The consciousness of brutes,"
he says, "would appear to be related to the mechanism
of their body simply as a collateral product of its work-
ing, and to be as completely without the power of modi-
fying that working as the steam whistle, which accom-
panies the work of a locomotive engine, is without
influence upon its machinery." Their volition, if they
have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes,
not a cause of such changes.'

Again, " It seems to me that in men as in brutes
there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the
cause of change in the motion of matter of the organ-
ism. If these positions are well based, it follows that
our mutu al conditions are simply the symbols in con-
sciousness of the changes' which take place automatic-
ally in the organism : and that to take an extreme
illustratiou, the feeling we call volition is not the cause
of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the
brain which is the immediate cause of that act."^

I must be pardoned if I dissent from so distinguished
a writer. I cannot agree with the statement " that
consciousness is related to the mechanical working of
the body simply as a collateral product of its working ;"
nor can I admit the slightest analogy between it and

1 Fortnightly Eeview, November, 1874. * n,id.

108 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

the steam whistle of a locomotive. It seems to me, if
the theory of consciousness which has been adopted in
these pages be the correct one, that consciousness has
the greatest power of modifying the worliing of the
body. That I rub my arm because I have pain there,
and because I have in my mind an idea that I shall
relieve that pain if I rub it, seems to me to be an
incontrovertible fact. You may employ the physio-
logical method, if you please, and by using an artifice
state the fact in physical terms instead of psychological.
You may then say that the muscular action requisite
for the act of rubbing is the consequence of molecular
disturbances in the brain. This is absolutely true.
But these so-called molecular disturbances are in reality
consciousness, and hence consciousness is just as much
the cause of the " working of the body" as these mo-
lecular disturbances. Any other conception than this
involves a paradox.

I am unable to quite understand how it can be said
that " our mental conditions are simply the symbols in
consciousness of the changes which take place automatic-
ally in the organism," if that idea of the nature of
consciousness which I have endeavored to make intelli-
gible in the preceding pages is clearly borne in mind.

There are only two liypotlieses respecting the nature
of consciousness which are compatible with this notion
of its being a "collateral product," and neither of these
can be logically established. First, it may be supposed
that consciousness is a distinct entity existing beyond
the physiological changes in the brain. That when an
idea is present, there are brought into existence two
things, — that which we call a physical change plus

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 109

something more, an idea, and this idea is something
produced or secreted. I have already shown that this
is impossible; that if it were the case this idea, the
second entity, must be either material or immaterial,
neither of which conditions are within the bounds of
probabilities. If my reasoning be not false, conscious-
ness is nothing more than the reality of these physical
changes. When the brain is irritated we have feeling
as a result, while physical changes are only the mode
by which another person ideally perceives it.

The second hypothesis offers the most legitimate
interpretation of the doctrine we are considering, and
it is the one which I believe is in harmony with Pro-
fessor Huxley's views. I do not wish to misrepresent
him, but I am unable to discover in his expressed
opinions any other meaning which is logically compati-
ble with the view of " our mental conditions being
only symbols in consciousness," etc.

According to this second hypothesis feeling is a
"property" or "function. of matter," but it must be a
second function which has an existence in addition to
and parallel with that function we call physical change.
Whenever physical change occurs, then the function of
consciousness appears side by side with it. Tliis view
has already been discussed in Chapter I., and reasons
given to show its want of validity. It has been shown
that there is nothing in the second function which can-
not be as well explained through the first (physical
change) ; it is not applicable to the law of the correla-
tio;i of forces; it leads to the denial of feeling being an
a'tive agent in the production of our actions. Any
such conclusion as this last must be an absurdity on the

10

110 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

face of it. The objections urged by Dr. Carpenter and
Mr. Martineaii ' are well founded, namely, that it ren-
ders consciousness superfluous, and it would necessarily
follow that all our acts and doings, both mental and
physical, the greatest works of poets, the paintings of
artists, and the labors of statesmen could be as well per-
formed without consciousness as with it. This reduces
such a conception to a paradox and absurdity.

This opinion, to which Professor Huxley has given
expression, was apparently based on some well-known
experiments on animals, and soon aroused considerable
opposition and discussion. It has not appeared that
the results of these experiments would warrant any
such inference being drawn from them. But as what-
ever is said or written by this distinguished scientist
has necessarily very great weight, and as these expres-
sions in particular attracted much attention, I do not
think it will be considered superfluous to take the time
to consider the bearing which these experiments above
referred to have on the question at issue. They, together
with the phenomena of hypnotism, somnambulism, and
kindred states, have thrown more light on the problems
of consciousness than all other discoveries in nervous
physiology.

A frog, from which the cerebral hemispJieres have been
removed, that is to say, that portion of the bi'ain which is
concerned with intelligence, volition, and the other higher
faculties, is still capable of executing all the movements
natural to it, under certain conditions. If such a frog,
for example, be placed on the palm of the hand, and the

^ Modern Materialism, by Eev. James Martineau.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. HI

hand then gently turned, the frog w.ll crawl upwards
on the palm till it reaches the edge, and then as the
hand is still turned, it will crawl over upon the back
of the hand, when this becomes uppermost, where it
will remain quietly at rest if the hand is held in
this horizontal position. If the hand be again slowly
turned back to its original position, the frog will reverse
the process till it reaches the palm where it was first
placed. If again the frog be thrown into the water, it
will swim like a natural frsg, but will keep on swim-
ming until exhausted or till it strikes an obstacle, when
it will stop. If it strikes a board, it will crawl out
of the water on to it. If the creature be pinched, it
will hop, and if something be placed in its path, it will
jump one side out of the way and avoid it. If its
flanks be stroked, it will croak once for each stroke.
This it will do as regularly and without fail as an en-
gine will whistle when you pull the steam-valve. But
if the creature be left alone, it will remain quiet for an
indefinite period and make no effort to eat or move.
All desire to do anything is lost. Whatever it does is
done only after having been prodded.

Similar experiments have been made on other ani-
mals, on pigeons, fishes, rats, etc., and with similar
results. A pigeon from which the cerebral hemi-
spheres (including even the corpora striata and optic
thalami, two important centres at the base of the brain)
have been removed, is able still to stand on one leg
like an unmutilated bird which has gone to sleep. If
left alone, it remains quiet like a dull and sleepy bird.
If disturbed, it shifts its position. It dresses its
feathers and tucks its head under its wing. If food

112 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

be placed before it, it will not notice it, and will starve
if not artificially fed ; but if food be placed in its mouth,
it will swallow and chew like a natural bird. If the
pigeon be thrown into the air it will fly, and its flight
can scarcely be distinguished from that of a normal
bird. It will fly for a considerable distance and avoid
obstacles. A fish thrown into the water swims like a
natural fish, and avoids obstacles with considerable
precision. The rabbit and rat which have been simil-
arly mutilated run and leap. A pigeon was observed
by Flourens, who was first to experiment in this man-
ner, to open its eyes on a pistol being fired ofF, " stretch
its neck, raise its head, and then fall back into its former
torpid attitude," but it showed no signs of fear. It
sometimes followed the movements of the candle in
front of it. Vulpian severed all connection between
the brain and spinal cord just above the medulla oblon-
gata in a rat ; on pinching the foot the animal uttered
a sharp cry of pain. " In another experiment he re-
moved the cerebral hemispheres, the corpora striata,
and the optic thalami of the rat, when it remained
perfectly quiet ; but immediately a sound of spitting
was made in imitation of that which a cat makes
sometimes, it made a bound away and repeated the
jump each time that the noise was made."

The actions of animals from which the brain has
been removed have been thus summarized by Onimus.

" As a summary, in the inferior animals, as in the
superior animals, the removal of the cerebral hemi-
spheres does not cause to disappear any of the move-
ments that previously existed, only these movements
assume certain peculiar characters. In the first place.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. II3

tliey are more regular, they have the true normal type,
for no psychical influence intervenes to modify them ;
the locomotive apparatus is brought into action without
interferences, and one could almost say that the en-
semble of movements is the more normal than in the
normal condition.

" In the second place, the movements executed take
place inevitably after certain excitations. It is a neces-
sity that the frog placed in water should swim, and tiiat
the jjigeon thrown into the air should fly. The physi-
ologist can then, at will, in an animal without the brain,
determine such and such an act, limit it, arrest it; he
can anticipate the movements and affirm in advance
that they will take place under certain conditions,
absolutely as the chemist knows in advance the reac-
tions that he will obtain in mixing certain bodies.

"Another peculiarity in the movements that take
place, when the cerebral lobes are removed, is their con-
tinuation after a first impression. Ou the ground, a frog
without the brain when irritated makes, in general,
two or three jumps at the most; it is rare that he
makes but one. Placed in water, it continues the
movement of natation until it meets with an obstacle ;
it is the same in the carp, eel, etc. The pigeon contin-
ues to fly, the duck and goose continue to swim, etc.
We should say that there is a spring which needs for
its action a first impression, and which is stopped by the
slightest resistance. But, what is striking, is precisely
that continuation of the condition once determined, and
we cannot refrain from connecting the facts observed
in an animal deprived of the cerebral lobes with those
which constitute the characteristic properties of inor-
h 10*

114 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

ganic matter. Brought into movement, the animal
without a brain retains the movement until there is
exhaustion of the conditions of movement, or until it
meets with resistance ; taken in repose, it remains in
the state of inertia until an exterior cause intervenes to
bring it out of this condition. It is living, inert maMer." *
It is hardly necessary to enter into any extended
discussion of these experiments. Wliat they show is,
that the movements habitual in the lower animals, as
walking, running, flying, etc., as well as similar move-
ments in man, are or may be performed without the
continuous intervention of consciousness,^ by a mechan-
ism at the base of the brain. In the gray ganglia at the
base is contained a clock-work which is capable of carry-
ing on these movements when once the spring has been
touched which sets it into action. The modes by which
this spring may be touched are various. It may be di-
rectly through the sensory nerves without the interven-
tion of the brain, as in the case of these experiments;
in which case all movements will be performed without
the influence of volition or consciousness : or it may be

' Flint's Physiology.

'^ To avoid misunderstanding, it should be stated that the term
"consciousness" is used here in connection with these experi-
ments to indicate that special mode of consciousness called self-
consciousness, by which we are conscious of our sensations. It
is not necessary for us to enter into the question whether these
animals have any sensations or sensibility at all. What I am
contending for is, that even granting they have no sensations or
anything that can be imagined as a subjective state, that still
they do not negative the conclusion that in the normal state con-
sciousness, either in its general or special form, is a causative
factor in our actions.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. II5

through the brain and intellect; in which case this
clock-work will be directly under the control of voli-
tion. In the former case the response will naturally
be machine-like after the cerebrum has been removed,
for there will remain no force capable of modifying
the reaction once begun ; inasmuch as with the brain all
volition and higher forms of consciousness have been
destroyed. When the automatic mechanism has once
begun to work, it will continue till eitlier the clock has
run down or a new stimulus to the sensory nerves has
started a new reaction. But the movements which are
carried on in this way are Only those which are habitu-
ally performed by animals under normal conditions.
The part which is normally played by that special
form of consciousness called volition in all such move-
ments, is to touch the spring and to regulate the work-
ings of the mechanism, so as to adapt the latter to the
changing wants of the organism.

While volition can interfere and direct each move-
ment of the body, it habitually does so only when
some new or unusual movement is to be performed,
or some old combination of movement is to be
adapted to altered conditions. We all know that
even in man for such habitual movements as walk-
ing, speaking, writing, sewing, knitting, etc., con-
sciousness of the muscular action employed is not
necessary. We are accustomed to perform these actions
mechanically, as we say, without being aware of each
movement we make. Consciousness simply sets in
motion the mechanism at the base of the brain. In
this way a division of labor is effected. If we were
obliged to keep our thoughts intent upon every move-

116 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

ment we make, our brains would soon tire, and we
would have little opportunity for thought and reflection
upon the matter which the movements were intended to
efl^ect. If I were obliged to keep my mind intent upon
the formation of each letter as I write, I should have
little opportunity for thought concerning the matter
about which I write.

In this important particular, then, the animal with-
out a brain differs from the normal animal. Though
all possible movements can be performed, they are not
performed in the same manner as before. The animal
has lost the faculty which in the normal condition mod-
ifies his movements; he has no intelligence or volition.
He may be said to know nothing. The customary
agency which guides him is gone. That agency is
feeling. His past experience can serve him only so
far as it has impressed itself in the mechanism at the
base of the brain, and can become manifest only as a
mechanical resultant to external impressions. Though
all normal movements are performed, they are so only
as necessary reactions to external stimuli, and in a
stereotyped manner. While the animal reacts to a
stimulus, it does not recognize what the stimulus is ; it
shows no fear or pleasure.

Though it is true that notwithstanding the loss of the
brain, and also, therefore, of consciousness, the animal
is capable of movements of a complicated character, yet
with this loss of consciousness there is also lost that very
modification of the movements which is peculiar to the
animal possessing consciousness, and which is effected by
consciousness. With the loss of consciousness there is
lost also the especial manifestations of consciousness.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 117

These experiments, then, plainly cannot be cited in
evidence of the theory that volition has no influence in
modifying bodily action. When properly examined
they are capable of no such interpretations. On the
contrary, they show that with the removal of the brain
there is brought about just such a profound derange-
ment of bodily functions as would be expected to
follow from the withdrawal of consciousness ; and the
results harmonize completely with our knowledge of
the functions of the brain.

In these experiments it is very probable that all the
actions of the animals were not only performed auto-
matically, but without the co-operation or even pres-
ence of any kind of consciousness, that is, anything like
a subjective state ; for the cerebral hemispheres had been
removed. But in the following extraordinary case a dif-
ference of opinion has existed, and Professor Huxley in
particular was led to believe from analogy with the above
cases of frogs and other animals, that consciousness was
not present. The case is well known and has been
frequently quoted, and I should not venture to repeat
it here were it not that it has an important bearing on
the question under discussion, and apparently is the
principal evidence upon which Professor Huxley rests
his conclusions. In this case not only were all move-
ments present which occur normally, but they were
modified and adapted to changing conditions as in the
normal state. If it can be shown, then, that they took
place without being accompanied by consciousness, a
strong case is made out for Professor Huxley's side.

The case was reported by Dr. E. Mesnet in the
Union Midicale of July 21 and 23, 1874. The follow-

118 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

ing account of it is taken from Maudsley's " Physiology
of the Mind" :

"A sergeant in the French army, aged 27 years,
was wounded at the battle of Bazeilles by a bullet,
which fractured the left parietal bone. He had power
enough to thrust his bayonet into the Prussian soldier
who wounded him, but almost at the same instant his
right arm, and soon afterwards his right leg, became
paralyzed. He lost consciousness, and only recovered
it at the end of three weeks, when he found himself in
the hospital at Mayence. Right hemiplegia was then
complete.

"By the end of a year he had regained the use of
his side, a slight feebleness thereof only being left.
Some three or four months after the wound, peculiar
disturbances of the brain manifested themselves, which
have recurred since periodically. They usually last
from fifteen to thirty hours, the sound intervals be-
tween them varying from fifteen to thirty days. These
alternating phases of normal and abnormal conscious-
ness have continued for four years.

" In his normal condition, the sergeant is intelligent,
and performs satisfactorily the duties of a hospital
attendant. The transition to the abnormal state is in-
stantaneous. There is some uneasiness or heaviness
about the forehead, which he compares with the press-
ure of an iron band, but there are no convulsions, nor
is there any cry. He becomes suddenly unconscious
of his surroundings and acts like an automaton. His
eyes are wide open, the pupils dilated, the forehead is
contracted, there is incessant movement of the eyeballs
and a chewing motion of the jaws. In a place to

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. Hg

which he is accustomed he walks about freely as usual,
but if he be put in a place unknown to him, or if an
obstacle is put in his way barring his passage, he
stumbles gently against it, stops, feels it with his hand,
and then passes on one side of it. He offers no resist-
ance to being turned this way or that, but continues his
walk in the way in which he is directed. He eats,
drinks, smokes, walks, dresses and undresses himself,
and goes to bed at his usual hours. He eats voraciously
and without discernment, scarcely chewing his food at
all, and devours all that is set before him without
showing any satiety. General sensibility is lost, pins
may be run into his body, or strong electric shocks sent
through it, without his evincing the least pain. The
hearing is completely lost ; noises made close to his ears
do not affect him. The senses of taste and smell are
lost ; he drinks indifferently water, wine, vinegar, assa-
foetida, and perceives neither good nor bad odors. The
sense of sight is almost, but not quite lost; on some
occasions he appears to be in some degree sensible to
brilliant objects, but he is obliged to call the sense of
touch to his aid in order to apprehend their nature,
form, and position ; they produce only vague visual
impressions, which require interpretation into the lan-
guage of touch. The sense of touch alone persists in
its integrity; it seems, indeed, to be more acute than
normal, and to serve almost exclusively to maintain his
relations with the external world. \A"hen he conies out
of the attack he has no remembrance whatever of what
has happened during it, and expresses the greatest sur-
prise when told what he has done.

" Through the tactile sense, trains of ideas may be

120 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

iiroused in his mind, which he immediately carries into
action. Ou one occasion, when wallving in the garden
under some trees, lie dropped his cane, which was picked
up and put into his hand. He felt it, passing his hand
several times over the carved handle, became attentive,
seemed to listen, and suddenly cried out, ' Henri,'
and a little while afterwards, 'There they are, at least
twenty of them ; we shall get the better of them !' He
then put his hand behind his back, as if to get a car-
tridge, went through the movements of loading his
musket, threw himself full length upon the grass, and
concealing his head behind a tree, after the manner of
a sharpshooter, followed, with his cane to his shoulder,
all the movements of the enemy whom he seemed to
see. This performance, provoked in the same way, was
repeated on several occasions. It was probably the
reproduction of an incident in the campaign in which
he was wounded. ' I have found,' says Dr. Mesnet,
' that the same scene is reproduced when the patient is
placed in the same conditions. It has thus been possi-
ble for me to direct the activity of my patient in ac-
cordance with a train of ideas which I could call up,
by playing upon his tactile sensibility at a time when
none of his other senses afforded me any communication
with him.'

" All the actions of the sergeant, when in his abnor-
mal state, are either repetitions of what he does every
day, or they are excited by the impressions which
objects make upon his tactile sense. Arriving once at
the end of a corridor where there was a locked door,
he passed his hands over the door, found the handle,
took hold of it and tried to open the door. Failing in

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 121

this, he searched for the key-hole, but there was do
key there ; thereupon he passed his fingers over the
screws of the lock, and endeavored to turn them, with
the evident purpose of removing the lock. Just as he
was about to turn away from the door, Dr. Mesnet
held up before his eyes a bunch of seven or eight keys ;
he did not see them; they were jingled loudly close to
his ears, but he took no notice of them ; they were
then put into his hand, when he immediately took hold
of them, and tried one key after another in the key-
hole without finding one that would fit. Leaving the
place, he went into one of the wards, taking on his way
various articles, with which he filled his pockets, and
at length came to a little table which was used for
making the records of the ward. He passed his hands
over the table, but there was nothing on it; however,
he touched the handle of a drawer, which he opened,
taking out of it a pen, several sheets of paper, and an
inkstand. The i)en had plainly suggested the idea of
writing, for he sat down, dipped it in the ink, and
began to write a letter, in which he recommended him-
self to his commanding officer for the military medal on
account of his good conduct and his bravery. There
were many mistakes in the letter, but they were exactly
the same mistakes in expression and orthography as he
was in the habit of making when in his normal state.
From the ease with which he traced the letters and
followed the lines of the paper, it was evident that his
sense of sight was in action, but this was placed beyond
doubt by the interposition of a thick screen between
his eyes and his hand; he continued to write a few
words in a confused and almost illegible mariner and
F ■ 11

122 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

then stopped, without manifesting any impatience or
discontent. When the screen was withdrawn, he fin-
nished the uncompleted line and began another.
Another experiment was made : water was substituted
for ink. When he found that no letters were visible,
he stopped, tried the tip of his pen, rubbed it on his
coat-sleeve, and then began again to write with the
same results. On one occasion he had taken several
sheets of paper to write upon, and while he was writ-
ing on the topmost sheet, it was withdrawn quickly.
He continued to write upon the second sheet as if
nothing had happened, completing his sentence without
interruption, and without any other expression than a
slight movement of surprise. When he had written
ten words on the second sheet it was removed as rap-
idly as the first ; lie finished on the third sheet the
line which he had begun on the second, continuing
it from the exact point where his pen was when the
sheet was removed. The same thing was repeated
with the third and fourth sheets, and he finished
his letter at last on the fifth sheet, which contained his
signature only. He then turned his eyes toward the
top of this sheet, and seemed to read from the top what
he had written, a moventent of the lip accompanying
each word ; moreover, he made several corrections on
the blank page, putting here a comma, there an e, and
at another place a, t ; and each of these corrections cor-
responded with the position of the words that required
correction on the sheets which had been withdrawn.
Dr. Mesnet concludes from these experiments that sight
really existed, but that it was only roused at the in-
stance of touch, and exercised only upon those objects

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 123

with which he was in relation tiirough touch. After
he had finished his letter the sergeant got up, walked
down to the garden, rolled a cigarette for himself,
sought for his match-box, lighted his cigarette, and
smoked it. When the lighted match fell upon the
ground, he extinguished it by putting his foot upon it.
When the cigarette was finished he began to prepare
another, but his tobacco-pouch was taken away, and he
sought in vain for it in all his pockets. It was oifered
to him, but he did not perceive it; it was held up be-
fore his eyes, but he took no notice of it; it was thrust
under his nose, but he did not smell it ; when, however,
it was put into his hand he took it, completed his
cigarette directly, and struck a match to light it. This
match was purposely blown out, and another lighted
one was offered to him, but he did not perceive it; even
when it was brought so close to his eyes as to singe a
few eyelashes he did not notice it, neither did he blink.
When the match was applied to his cigarette, he took
no notice and made no attempt to smoke. Dr. Mesnet
repeated this experiment on several occasions, and
always obtained the same results. The sergeant saw
his own match, but saw not the match which Dr. Mes-
net ofifered to him. There was no contraction of the
pupil when the lighted match was brought close to the
eye. He had once been employed as a singer at a caf6.
In one of his abnormal states he was observed to hum
some airs which seemed familiar to him, after which he
went to his room, took from a shelf a comb and look-
ing-glass, combed his hair, brushed his beard, adjusted
his collar, and attended carefully to his toilet. When
the glass was turned round so that he only saw the

124 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

back of it, he went on as if he still saw himself in it.
On his bed there were several numbers of a periodical
romance. These he turned rapidly over, apparently
not finding what he wanted. Dr. Mesnet took one of
these numbers, rolled it up so as to resemble a roll of
music, and put it in his hand, when he seemed satisfied,
descended the stairs, and walked across the court of the
hospital towards the gate. He was turned round, when
he started oif in the new direction given to him, enter-
ing the lodge of the door-keeper, which opened into
the hall. At this moment the sun shone brightly
through a window in the lodge, and the bright light
evidently suggested the foot-lights of the stage, for he
placed himself before it, opened the roll of paper, and
sang a patriotic ballad in an excellent manner. When
he had finished this he sang a second and a third, after
which he took out his handkerchief to wipe his face.
A wine-glass containing a strong mixture of vinegar
and water was offered to him, of which he took no
notice, but when it was put in his hand he drank it off
without exhibiting any sign of an unpleasant sensation.
Dr. Mesnet propounds the question whether in this
perfect rendering of the three ballads he heard his own
voice, or whether the singing was purely as automatic
as his other actions. The attack came to an end before
they could make an experiment to test this question.
When the sergeant is in his abnormal state, it is im-
possible to awaken him to his normal state, whatever
efforts be made. No effect is produced either by stim-
ulation or by strong electrical currents. On one occa-
sion he was seized suddenly by the shoulders and
thrown violently upon the grass. He manifested no

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 125

emotion, but, after feeling the turf with his hands,
raised himself ngain, calm and impassive.

" A remarkable feature in the case is that the sergeant
becomes a veritable kleptomaniac during the attacks.
He purloins everything that he can lay his hands on,
and conceals what he takes under the quilt, the mat-
tress, or elsewhere. This tendency to take and hide has
shown itself in each attack. He is content with the
most trifling articles, and if he finds nothing belonging
to some one else to steal, he hides, with all the appear-
ance of secrecy, although surrounded at the time by
persons observing him, various things belonging to
himself, such as his knife, water, pocket-book. His
other actions during an attack are repetitions of his
former habits ; these acts of stealing are not so."

Professor Huxley raises the question whether this
man possessed consciousness during all these perform-
ances, — i.e., whether his actions were accompanied with
a corresponding train of ideas ; or whether the " mind
is a blank," and he is in the condition of the frog de-
prived of ills brain, — an automaton, "a mechanism
worked by molecular changes in the nervous system."
Professor Huxley, reasoning from the analogy which
he finds in the frog, inclines to the latter supposition.
That the man is an automaton there can be no doubt ;
but I cannot agree in thinking that ideas do not accom-
pany his muscular movements, but, on the contrary, must
believe they govern them. In the first place, as Huxley
admits, there is nothing to "prove that he is abso-
lutely unconscious;" and in the second place, a much
stronger analogy, as Dr. Mesnet and Dr. Carpenter have
pointed out, can be drawn between the performances

11*

126 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

of this man and those of somnambulists — who certainly
do possess ideas, for they remember them afterwards —
than between them and the phenomena of the brainless
frog. If the former comparison be made, the one will
be found to resemble in important particulars the other ;
while if the sergeant be compared with the brainless
frog, an essential difference in the movements of the two
becomes at once apparent. In the frog deprived of his
hemispheres, the actions of its muscles are confined to
such simple movements as swimming, jumping, and
balancing itself, nearly all the motions performed by a
frog in its lifetime. Consequently the lower centres
are perfectly capable of regulating them. It is similar
with fishes which simply swim, and pigeons which fly
and dress their feathers. These actions have been so
frequently repeated that the lower ganglionic centres
carry them out automatically without the intervention
of consciousness, just as a woman knits or sews without
being conscious of what she is doing, and while her
thoughts are engaged on something else. And there is
furtlier this peculiarity about the brainless frogs and
birds: they are absolutely machine-like in character.
The pigeon thrown into the air will continue to fly until
it strikes some obstacle or falls exhausted to the grour.d ;
the fish will swim in the same manner, and even the
pigeon will starve though food be placed before it,
unless artificially fed like an infant. There is lacking
that quality in its actions which we call intelligence.
To be sure, — a point upon which Huxley lays consid-
erable stress, — the frog, if a book be placed before him
and he be made to hop, will jump aside, carefully
avoiding the obstacle. But this is one of the simplest

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 127

of reflex actions, and similar to unconscious knitting,
when sight directs the hands ; though we do not per-
ceive the stitches, an irritation is conveyed direct from
retina to the optic thalamus and otiier centres for the
co-ordination of sight and movement ; from here the
nervous current is reflected to the muscles of the limbs,
and the animal springs in the required direction. This
is a mechanism as simple as that observed in the well-
known experiment on the amputated leg of a frog, and
one which has been performed thousands of times in
the frog's lifetime, and thus become impressed as it
were in the nervous centres.'

In man there are very few movements performed
unconsciously without previous education. There are
some, but they are of the simplest kind, such as wink-
ing, sucking in the infant, crying, and possibly dodging
the head before an expected blow, etc. Even walking
is only with difficulty acquired, and it is only after it
is skilfully learned that it can be performed uncon-
sciously. It may be said that if a child were prevented
. from using its legs till after the age at which children
usually walk, his " walking-centres" might be suffi-
ciently developed by the natural processes of growth,
as with flying in birds, to allow him to walk without
education. But even so, this is not the case with such
muscular actions as, for instance, are performed by

' It may be that education is not necessary for the develop-
ment of the mechanism in the lower centres required for such
simple movements. It has been shown, I believe, that birds, for
instance, do not learn to fly. If they are confined so that they
cannot use their wings till after the time when birds usually fly,
they can fly as well as other birds who have gone through the
so-called process of education.

128 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

telegraph operators. They sometimes acquire the art
of telegraphing with such precision, that some are
euabled to transmit a message while their thoughts are
fixed upon something else ; ^ tliat is, they do it uncon-
sciously. A lady told me that sometimes when she
finds difficulty in playing correctly on the piano a piece
of music, she is enabled to accomplish it by fixing her
mind upon other things. But this is only after long
and hard labor at practising. In fact, it is the case
with all associated movements of any degree of com-
plexity in man, and probably also to a great extent in
animals, that they first must be acquired consciously
with the aid of the higher centres of ideation, before
they can be performed unconsciously^ by the lower
ones. Applying this to the case of the French sergeant,
we must suppose, if consciousness were not present,
that he had repeatedly practised those actions he per-
formed wiien he fancied the enemy in sight; and when
he wrote his letter, he must have written those same
sentences a great number of times in order to have
done it unconsciously, and especially to have gone over
it again to correct his mistakes, when only blank sheets
of paper lay before him.

It was found that a certain amount of sight was
present when associated with the sense of touch, and
that it was necessary for guidance in writing. Now if
he wrote without any ideas being present in his mind
corresponding to what he wrote, that is, absolutely un-

' Carpenter's Mental Physiology.

* An unconscious act and an automatic act must not be con-
fused. They are not co-extensive. An act may be automatic
and unconscious, as in walking, or it may be automatic and
conscious, as is all mental action.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 129

consciously, the muscular movements of his hand must
have been guided by the preceding associated move-
ments, and by the optical excitations from the letters
and words he had -written. The exact part played by
each it is impossible to distinguish. In the case of
the telegraph operator, there is required merely an asso-
ciation of the optical appearance of each letter with
the muscular movements required to telegraph the same
letter, an association which has been cemented by every
telegraph operator thousands of times. But with the
sergeant, for the letter to have been written uncoiv-
seiously, the optical appearance of, and muscular move-
ment necessary fpr, each letter must have been firmly
associated with the muscular movement needed to write
each succeeding letter; in this way each word must have
been united with each word, and phrase with phrase,
and sentence with sentence. To have formed such an
association, that same letter to his commanding officer
must have been written hundreds of times.

In the case of the operator it is copying, in the other
case it is composition. The latter is a most complicated
affair, and never could have been done by the lower
centres without long previous training. If ideas of
what he was writing were present to his mind, there
is no great difficulty in understanding the case. He
wrote as a somnambulist writes, though he was not in
possession of all his senses. Nor is there any great
difficulty in the fact that he remembered what he wrote,
when he read and corrected his letter on a blank sheet.

Further analysis would show many other facts to
prove the presence of consciousness.

But there is one point which hitherto seems to have

130 EVMAN AUTOMATISM.

escaped notice, and which, to my mind, conclusively
proves that the man had consciousness, and that his
actions were governed by ideas when he read his letter,
and corrected and punctuated the blank shed of paper.
What was going on in his cerebrum during this time
which could have caused him to have made the correc-
tions? If there was not an image there, in idea, of the
past composed letter, what directed the corrections ? It
could not have been the sight of the misspelt words,
because the paper before him was blank. It may be
said the movements of his lips, which accompanied the
re-reading of the letter, by association, regulated the
correction. But this is merely suspending the world
upon the elephant, for we have then to account for the
movement of the lips. But admitting it for the mo-
ment as sufficient, it is hardly possil)le that such mus-
cular movements could have indicated the misspelling
of a word unless the idea of the word was present to
his mind. Nor would this be a satisfactory explana-
tion for the insertion of the punctuation marks. There
is no movement of the lips corresponding to a comma.
How could the lips indicate there was no comma there?
The only satisfactory explanation that can be oflFered is
that the ideas which were expressed on paper actually
■were present to his mind ; or, in other words, he pos-
sessed consciousness.

But if consciousness was present, there is nothing to
show that it was not the active agent in the production
of his actions. On the contrary, there is every evidence
to prove that it was. All evidence, then, on the experi-
mental side, tending to show that feeling is not the cause
of our actions, falls to the ground.

CHAPTER III.

SELF-DETERMINATION.

There is one objection wliich is sure to be raised
against the views which have been argued in the pre-
ceding pages, to the consideration of whicii I propose
to devote this chapter. This objection is one which has
been urged, and it must be confessed with much truth,
against every other theory of automatism. It arises
from a fear that in some way or otlier a limitation will
be set to the freedom of human thought. If any doc-
trine of automatism is inconsistent with any fact that
is established directly by consciousness, it is evidence
that tlfere is a flaw somewhere in the logic. A doctrine
to be sufficient must explain all the facts, whether those
facts be physical or mental. If it does not do so, it is
not sufficient.

I propose now to consider whether there is any fact
on the side of "self-determination" with which that
view of automatism which has been adopted in this
work is opposed, and if there are any grounds for the
fear that our mental liberty is in some way abridged
by it. I may say here, in parenthesis, that any mental
freedom we may have, we have ; and no doctrine, as a
doctrine, can abridge it, and no asseveration can give
us what we have not got.

It will be my purpose to show that automatism after
all is not a very terrible thing, and that when propeily

131

132 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

understood it contains nothing that is not reconcilable
with popular notions regarding mental freedom. Its
apparent inconsistency with that power, which each
individual feels and knows he has, will be found to be
only a bugbear with which to frighten the unthought-
ful, and when carefully examined will be made to reveal
its skeleton nature.

If by self-determination is meant the ability to direct
our attention in one way more than another, to keep
onr thoughts occupied with one class of facts to the
exclusion of others, and to make a choice wlien two
courses of action are open to .us, I know of no evi-
dence which could be more cogent than that which we
already possess pointing to the possession of such a
power. I agree with Dr. Carpenter that the evidence
of our own consciousness in this respect is sufficient
and decisive. That I can direct my attention on any
particular subject to the exclusion of other subjects,
provided, of course, the circumstances under which I
make the trial are not those of great excitement, is a
fact of consciousness, which I can demonstrate as often
as I choose to try. Each one has sufficient evidence
in his own consciousness to show not only that he has
the power to direct his attention, and to make a choice,
when two courses of action are open to him, but that
he does direct his thoughts, and does make such choice;
pj-ovided, however, and this proviso is of great impor-
tance, he has a sufficient motive to do so. For the evi-
dence of consciousness is equally cogent in deciding
that in thus directing the course of his thoughts and
making his choice it is the preponderance of motives
which determines him. In this there is nothino- that

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 133

is incompatible either with the view herein maintained
of the nature of mind, nor of the automatic character
of ideas. It is only inconsistent with that cruder form
of automatism which regards our actions as simply the
resultant of the bodily mechanism, and makes our
thoughts mere by-products, without influence upon sucli
actions. Such a theory of automatism could only arise
from the crudest notions of the relation between the
mind and the body.

But after having established the power of self-deter-
mination, the agency by which this is accomplished is
a second and further question. We say that we have
this power of determining our actions; but what do we
understand by this term wef If by it is meant, as
seems to be by Dr. Carpenter, Archbishop Manning,
and others, not only "another faculty, but, more than
this, another agent, distinct from the thinking brain,"
which directs the working of our mind and body, tlien
something is assumed which our conscious experience
can no longer be evoked to establish. We know by
direct consciousness that our thoughts can be deter-
mined in this or that direction, according to certain
previous desires. But I know of no consciousness
which directly informs us of the manner in which this
is done, and still less of an extra Ego over and above
our states of consciousness, which plays with our
thoughts as it would at ninepins. I can imagine a
distinct " faculty" of the mind, which is associated with
and regulates the other states of mind, but such a
faculty must be only some state of the mind itself; so
that the conditions would simply be equivalent to a
state of consciousness acting on all other states. The

12

134 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

probability of there being such faculty is another ques-
tion, which I am not discussing. I know of no evi-
dence for it, and still less for an extra independent Ego.
In my judgment, the only way in which we can ascer-
tain the mechanism by which this self-determination
is accomplished is to study and analyze that feeling
of personality commonly called the Ego, which each
individual has. When we make use of the expres-
sions "we," "you," etc., for the ordinary purposes of
social life, our meaning is plain enough, and it would
be mere pedantry to ask for a precise definition ; we
should undoubtedly set any one down for an unmiti-
gated bore who should interrupt us with a demand for
a philosophical explanation. But in questions of this
kind involving tiie deeper strata of human knowledge,
it is not only not superfluous, but absolutely essential to
define exactly what is meant by every term used, when
susceptible of different interpretations. Now there are
several conceptions which may be formed of the Ego.

There is the idea of an "agent distinct from the
thinking brain," which directs our processes of thought
and bodily actions, and to which a sort of ownership
is given over all the individual portions of the body,
and the mental faculties. For any such agent as this
there is no evidence whatsoever. It is merely an ab-
stract notion, the result of an artifice of thought, and
has no existence. Therefore, under sucli a conception,
the phrase " we have a self-determining power" is
philosophically empty of meaning.

Another idea of the Ego comprehends the body and
the mind united together into a whole. No particular
state of mind is thought of as differentiated from the

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. ]35

■est, but all possible states of mind united as an abstract
lotion to a body. This is much like the conception
ve form of another person's personality, a sort of ob-
jective Ego. We have a notion of his body, and we
magine an abstract mind, similar to our own, connected
vith it. We have in our thoughts no particular state
)f mind, as an agent, acting on the individual's body,
)ut an abstract mind.

Another similar but less comprehensive notion of
his personality is mind as a wliole in distinction from
he body. Both of these conceptions of the Ego are too
ibstract to serve the purposes of this inquiry.

That interpretation of this feeling of personality,
vhich I conceive to be the correct one, is, that it is a
iompound of any given dominant state of consciousness
hat may be present at any moment, and other faint
■evived former states, and a whole stream of faint im-
)ressions more or less simultaneously coming from the
)eriphery of the body. These last are more or less con-
tant. I take it that consciousness at any given moment
if time, where the feeling of personality is present, is
,lways partly made up of these impressions streaming
n from the periphery and constituting our consciousness
if the body. On the other hand, there are times when
ve have absolutely no feeling of an Ego. Such times
re those of deep thought or revery. In studying my
iwn consciousness at such times (by recalling tiiem of
ourse afterwards to memory) I cannot recall any feeling
if personality whatever. All consciousness of surround-
iigs, of my own body, of my own Ego, disappears. I
an afterwards only recall successive ideas following
ne another automatically without reference to the sur-

136 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

roundings, without even any sensations from my body.
Afterwards wlien I come to myself, as the saying goes,
these successive ideas are revived faintly as memory
and become joined with my now dominant state of
consciousness. This latter now is also reinforced by
the stream of sensations from the different portions of
the body. These sensations are identical with those
which have been nearly constantly experienced, and
constitute my knowledge of my body. With the domi-
nant active state of consciousness are also associated
many other faint ideas or remembrances of former
states. Consequently every state of consciousness where
this feeling of personality is present is a compound one,
consisting partly of former states revived and partly of
new ones, and in many cases the new ones are but re-
combinations of old ones. It is from this that the
feeling of personality arises, as it seems to me. Every
state of consciousness being connected with other states,
some of which (sensations) are constantly or nearly
constantly present, they all seem to belong to each
other and to constitute a whole or Ego, and this Ego
is always felt to be the same Ego, because part of its
complex composition always is the same, and its ele-
ments as elements are the same.'

The whole mental process is undoubtedly a very
complex one, with many variations, and it is almost
impossible to completely analyze it. An illustration
will give an idea of the principle which I conceive
underlies this sense of the Ego.

' I have an impression that a somewhat similar explanation has
been given by Clifford, but I have not his works by me to verify it.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 137

I am sitting in my study of a hot day, writing. I
soon feel thirsty. This feeling grows on me till I think
of satisfying my desire. It becomes my dominant idea.
I now remember a pitcher of water standing on the
table opposite, and impressed by this idea and the effect
which I imagine will result if I pour out a glass of
water and drink it, I proceed to carry the latter into
effect. Here is a comparatively simple and yet very
complex state of affairs. Now how does the sense of
the Ego arise out of these various states of conscious-
ness? I conceive it to be in this way.

The dominant and vivid idea "in my mind," that is,
among a complex group of ideas, is the sensation of
thirst. This sensation does not stand alone, but is
joined to other sensations from my mouth and throat,
which are the same sensations as have been constantly
present before. (For that matter, the sensation of thirst
is the same sensation often previously present in con-
sciousness, but now re-excited, just as the molecular
disturbances underlying it are re-excited in the same
manner that they have been before.) Other- sensations
from the surface of the body, the same that have been
experienced before, now reinforce the others. Besides
this, sensations from my surroundings in my study, the
same that have time and again, like the others, formed
a portion of my states of conscience, are now added to
my present complex state. Most of these sensations
are not only like but identical with previously present
sensations, which latter are simply revived. Now all
these different sensations compounded together give the
sense of personality, or the Ego, and the now dominant
sensation of thirst being added, I say, I am thirsty.

12*

138 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

This new sensation becomes incorporated in tlie group,
to which other sensations, to be in turn dominant, may
be added, as, again, warmth. I say, I am warm, the
feeling of warmtli being added to a group, in which
the feeling of thirst now forms an element as a faintly
revived state.

Such being the complex oat of which the sense of
personality is formed, it becomes requisite to ask which
is the active agent in all this in determining action. It
is undoubtedly the vivid, active state, modified more or
less by the circumstances of the case. The sensation
of thirst, for example, is the active agent determining
me to drink some water and to the performance of the
requisite actions. The method I employ to satisfy my
thirst would be modified by the other elements of my
complex state of consciousness, these varying with the sur-
roundings, the time of day, and other associated ideas.

It is this complex state, then, which constitutes the
Ego, and hence, as a whole, the determining agent,
though some of its elements are more active than others
in accomplishing the result. The most vivid and dom-
inant element, as the feeling of thirst in the above illus-
tration, might be regarded as the driving power, while
tlic associated elements are the steering-gear which, reg-
ulates the action.

Now in this matter of self-determination, if it be said
that the Ego — being a complex state of consciousness —
determines another state of consciousness that may be
associated with it, with or without, as the case may be,
its accompanying muscular action, the proposition is a
truism which cannot be gainsaid. In this sense we
certainly have self-determination, for the inducing state

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 139

of consciousness is as much a part of self as the succeed-
ing one that is determined by it.

But if, on the other hand, it be asserted that the state
of consciousness called the Ego can determine any other
state which is not in any way associated with it, and
irrespective of all former experience by which ideas are
associated, then something is maintained which is en-
tirely contrary to all experience and indefensible. It
cannot be denied that it is possible for us to act in any
particular manner, provided that that idea, which is di-
rectly connected with and the precursor of the action in
question, is present in consciousness, howsoever it may
arise. In this sense we have self-determination, for
this idea determines action. But manifestly no idea
can occasion another idea, or bodily action, which is
not connected with it; nor can any given state of mind
or bodily action occur when the state of consciousness
present is one far removed from the one in question.
Furthermore, it is self-evident that no idea can arise
spontaneously. Every idea is conditioned by some
previous idea or stimulus, and forms a link in a chain
of events.

Now if an idea which determines an action is itself
determined by a preceding idea, which in turn can be
traced to a still earlier one, and so on back through a
chain of such ideas, until finally we arrive at a sensory
stimulus of some kind, it would seem plainly evident
that the final action is determined indirectly through
a succession of ideas by the primary stimulus. Fur-
thermore, it would seem that, if no disturbing element
came in, tiiat particular succession of ideas and ensuing
action must result, and no other. Now this is all the

140 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

reflex theory demands, and in this there is nothing that
the mpst extreme defender of self-determination may
not concede. But if the still further claim be made
that self-determination is effected by an "agent distinct
from tlie thinking brain," by something that is in-
dependent of our other conscious states, and is not
governed by the same laws as other states of conscious-
ness, then something is asserted which cannot be sub-
stantiated, and which must lie outside the region of
experience, and be therefore unknowable. For there
is nothing in our conscious experience which directly
gives us cognition of this agent, nor anything that
necessitates one hypothecating it as an explanation of
known facts. Whether that interpretation of the sense
of personality which I have offered be the coi'rect one,
or whether this sense arises from some other combina-
tion of mental factors, there are no more grounds for
the assumption of an autocratic Ego than there for-
merly was for assuming a spiritual entity for an expla-
nation of mind.

The question may very pertinently be asked, What
manner of thing is this Ego? Is it something akin
to that consciousness which we know is the reality
of the phenomena of matter, or is it something essen-
tially foreign in its nature ? If the former, why, it may
be asked, is it not subject to the same laws that govern
other states of consciousness ? if the latter, it must be far
beyond our ken, and the old problem becomes practically
reproduced, how can it act upon the reality of matter?

From a physiological point of view, this extreme
form of self-determination is equivalent to saying that
"we" can divert the neural current which naturally

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 141

would flow in one circuit into a different circuit, irre-
spective of the intensity of the molecular action, and
the anatomical and physiological connections in the
brain. This seems to me incomprehensible..

There is one thing which must not be overlooked,
and this is, that whatever powers of self-determination
we may have, every action is determined by the strong-
est motive. However we may act, we cannot act con-
trary to the strongest motive ; for the moment we
conclude to act in opposition to what was the strongest
motive, the new motive, whatever it be, if it be only the
desire to show that we have the power to do so, becomes
the strongest motive, overwhelming the preceding and
determining action. Whatever motive determines,
action is the strongest, — else it would not so determine
us, — and we are compelled to act according to it.

When we analyze our thoughts it is not always easy
to make out their automatic character, so complicated
is any mental action which involves any reasoning pro-
cess except of the simplest kind. If we examine those
mental actions which are admitted to be automatic, as
when one suddenly cries out on being struck, or, to
take a more elaborate example, when a school-boy
recites long rules which he has learned by heart from
his Latin grammar, we shall find the distinguishing
characteristic to be the absence of deliberation. In fact,
in many such cases the moment we deliberate we are
lost. The school-boy, too, often cannot tell whether
any given word is contained in a list without beginning
with the first and repeating them in order.

When one idea follows another without conscious
effort on our part, without that special feeling called

142 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

volition, the mental action is, said to be automatic;
while when we have a feeling of volitional effort, or
are conscious of what is called deliberation, our thoughts
are declared to _be automatic.

Bat if the reasoning which has been adduced in
these pages be correct, this distinction is merely arti-
iicial ; from the lowest form of mental action to the
highest a gradual transition may be traced, showing
that there is no difference in kind, but only one of
degree. Examples of this action of the mind, when
the automatic character of the ideas is plainly discern-
ible, are more or less common in every individual,
though to some they are to a large extent habitual.
When we fall into day-dreams and reveries, it is very
easy to recognize the automatic character of our
thoughts, one follows another in natural succession,
according to a previous association. On the other
hand, it requires considerable introspective skill to
recognize the same principle in that state of mind called
deliberation, wherein the ideas, instead of following
one another in progressive series without return to
the original and fundamental thought, continually di-
verge from and return to this as a centre ; thus en-
circling, as it were, the latter, approaching it on all
sides only to leave it again by every path of ideas that
may be joined by the bonds of association with it.
Each " lead" of thoughts is followed, as if to see
whither it goes and if it will bring us to the desired end.
Just as in trying to disentangle a snarl of thread we
follow each loop in turn, hoping to find the one which
will unbind the whole, so in deliberation we follow
each train of ideas that is associated with the central

II V MAN AUTOMATISM. I43

thought in the endeavor to find the one that will solve
the problem.

Between tiiese two modes of activity — Revery and
Deliberation — there is every possible degree of tran-
sition, one gradually shading into the other, and it is
impossible to say where one begins and the other ends.

The exalted form of the plainly discernible auto-
matic action may often be seen in the mental activity
of men of genius, in whom it is more or less habitual.
Coleridge and Mozart were particularly interesting
examples. The former's flow of talk has been described
as only thinking aloud, and his whole life as only a
waking dream. His thoughts ran on without regard
to anything or anybody, heedless of interruption, while
his words were only the expression of every associated
and reflected idea. Mozart's genius was essentially
automatic, as can be seen from the following account
of his method of working :*

" You say you should like to know my way of com-
posing, and what metiiod I follow in writing works of
some extent. I can really say no more on the subject
than the following, for I myself know no more about
it, and cannot account for it. When I am, as it were,
completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer,
say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good
meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on
such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abun-
dantly. Whence and how they come I know not, nor
can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain

^ See Dr. Carpenter's " Mental Physiology" for an interesting
account of the automatic character of Coleridge and Mozart's
minds.

144 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

in my memory, and am accustomed (as I have been
told) to hum them to myself. If I continue in this
way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that
moraeau to account, so as to make a good dish of it, —
that is to say, agreeably to the rules of counter-point,
to the peculiarities of the various instruments, etc.

"All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not dis-
turbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes method-
ized and defined, and the whole, though it be long,
stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that
I can survey it like a fine picture, or a beautiful statue,
at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the
parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at
once. What a delight this is I cannot tell ! All this
inventing, this pondering, takes place in a pleasing,
lively dream. Still the actual hearing of the tout
ensemble is, after all, the best. What has been thus
produced I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps
the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.

" When I proceed to write down my ideas, I take
out of the bag of my memory, if I may use that phrase,
what has previously been collected into it in the way I
have mentioned. For this reason the committing to
paper is done easily enough, for everything is, as I have
said before, already finished, and it rarely differs on
paper from what it was in my imagination. At this
occupation I can therefore suffer myself to be dis-
turbed; for, whatever may be going on around me, I
write and even talk, but only of fowls and geese, or of
Gretie or Barbie, or some such matters. But why my
productions take from ray hand that particular form
and style that makes them Mozartish, and different from

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. ]45

the works of other composers, is probably owing to the
same cause which renders my nose so, or so large, so
aquiline, or, in short, makes it Mozart's, and different
from that of other people. For I really do not study
or aim at any originality; I should, in fact, not be able
to describe in what mine consists, though I think it
quite natural that persons who have really an indi-
vidual appearance of their own are al.so differently
organized from others, both externally and internally.
At least I know that I have not constituted myself
either one way or another." — Holmes's Life of llozart,
p. 318.^

This necessary dependence of the brain upon external
stimuli for thought is well observed in social society.
It is this need which draws human beings together and
makes man a social animal. It is to these influences
that are due the charms of conversation and the pleas-
ures to be obtained from lectures and at the theatre ;
and it may be said that it is upon its emotional influ-
ence that religion depends for its power. It is through
this' stimulation of the mind, the awakening into life
of the dormant cells of the brain, that we find delight
in books, in works of art, and music. It is for the
want of this that the horrors of solitude consist ; we
need something to stimulate our minds. This we find
in our friendship with men, in literature, in science.
They awaken a reaction within us and give us life. By
their help we can elevate the mind to the highest stages
of development; by their complete withdrawal it is
possible to produce perfect idiocy. And just as our

^ Quoted by Carpenter. Op. cit., p. 272.
k 13

146 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

muscles, from lack of use, will wither away aud become
useless, so will our minds under the same circumstances
degenerate and become vacant ; and it may be said in
general that as the brain in its lowest form of develop-
ment recognizes only sensation, and in its highest
evolves ideas, that brain is, cseteris paribus, the most
highly developed which is capable of responding to
few thoughts of others with many of its own.

It may not be unnecessary to caution the reader not
to confound this question of self-determination with
that of moral responsibility. It may be thought, at
first sight, that they are identical. But this is not the
case. Responsibility depends upon many other factors,
which are beyond my purpose to consider here.

There are, undoubtedly, many persons who, simply
from conservative habits of thought, will be unable to
accept the views which have been set forth in the pre-
ceding chapters. The opinions of many such are too
firmly moulded by time and education to allow them
to change, no matter how irrefrangible the evidence
offered, and they must die in the beliefs in which
they were born. Others there are who, though anxious
for truth and ready to inquire into all domains of
knowledge, may likewise be deterred, not so much from
conservatism as by a fear that in some way tiie accept-
ance of a doctrine may lead to a limitation of mental
freedom. Just as there are many persons who refuse
to accept the demonstrated truths of evolution, not
because of the insufficient evidence of the truth, but
from a fear that some of their religious creeds may be
overthrown. This sensitiveness from religious scruples

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 147

in the acceptance of scientific doctrines, which is so
marlied in all departments of science, is particularly
active in inquiries into the problems offered by the
Mind. For myself, while I am able to recognize the
force of conservatism, I am unable to understand how
any right-minded person, how any one who truly seeks
after knowledge, can have any sympathy with those
who refuse to accept a doctrine, however strong may
be the evidence on which it is based, simply from
fear that when carried to its logical consequences, it
may antagonize preconceived notions. The only thing
to be dreaded in all such inquiries is that self-deception
to which the human mind is prone. I believe our aim
should be to seek the truth, and as long as we can be
assured we are on the right road, we should pursue it
wherever it may lead, and whatever may be the result.
And if it should happen that the conclusions to which
we are led are not in harmony with the popular views
of the day, though the fact may be regretted, our
results should not for that reason be discarded.

In advocating that explanation of nervous phe-
nomena which has been maintained in the preceding
chapters, I have been actuated by the conviction that
" that theory is most deserving of credence which ex-
plains the greatest number of known facts," and I be-
lieve it has at least the merit of being free from the
mysticism with which all other doctrines are obscured.
One by one the old supernatural agents have been
weeded out of our philosophies. Formerly, whatever
in nature was beyond the comprehension of the times
was considered to have a spiritual cause. Whatever
could not be understood was accounted for by au es-

148 HVMAN AUTOMATISM.

sence. Wood burned because the essence fire entered
into the substance. Water was fluid because the es-
sence aquosity permeated matter. Gradually, however,
as science advanced, these essences have been gotten rid
of one by one, and now but one remains. This is mind.
This, in its turn, must go. It only remains to decide
whether it shall be to-day or to-morrow.

CHAPTEE IV.

"WHAT IS MATERIALISM?

"But, as I have endeavored to explain on other
occasions," says Professor Huxley, "I really have no
claim to rank myself among fatalistic, materialistic, or
atheistic philosophers. Not among fatalists, for I take
the conception of necessity to have a logical and not a
physical foundation ; not among materialists, for I am
utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if
there is no mind in which to picture that existence ; not
among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause
of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly
out of reach of my poor powers." ' And " we anti-
materialists," cries Mr. Fiske, in the midst of his un-
called-for vituperation against materialism. Yet Hux-
ley remarks that " thought is as much a function of
matter as motion is," ^ and Mr. Fiske's position is very
much the same as that of others who call themselves
materialists. What, then, is materialism ?

The term materialism has no definite and deter-
mined meaning. As soon as the spiritualistic hypothe-
sis was abandoned as untenable, and it was seen, on
scientific as well as philosophical grounds, that the
forces of nature were sufficient to account for the facts
of consciousness as well as for that which is unconscious

' Fortnightly Review, November, 1874.
2 Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 338.

13* 149

150 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

in nature, all sorts of interpretations sprung u]) and
were adopted as explanations of mental facts. While
the thoughtful were slow to formulate any positive
opinions as to the exact conditions of the problem,
others, more hasty and less philosophical, have not hes-
itated to advance crude and ill-digested dogmas as ex-
planations of the mental world. But all opinions,
those of the vulgar and ignorant as well as those of
the learned, have been classed together, without dis-
crimination, as modern materialism. What is still
worse, the opponents of the new philosophy, without
stopping to distinguish between the good and the bad,
the sound and the unsound, have at times seized upon
the most extreme and unsound doctrines, advanced by
the hasty and irresponsible followers of the leaders in
thought, and held them up to the public gaze as repre-
sentative of modern materialism. Not only such un-
founded doctrines as these, but their own illogical de-
ductions from scientific truths, which they could not,
or, what is to be feared is often the case, they would
not understand, have been ascribed to those who do
not hold them. Nor have the opponents of materi-
alism taken the trouble to properly study and under-
stand the true position of modern science, but falling
upon some accidental inexactness of expression, have
employed it as a text to assail opinions which were
never maintained. It does not make the mode of at-
tack any the less dishonest that those who have made
it have stood high in public estimation. A false ma-
terialism has thus been created, the origin of which is
to be found alone in the minds of those who have set
themselves up as the champions of the public virtue.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 151

The term materialism has come to be clothed with a
meaning which does not belong to it, and has been used
simply as a term of vituperation and abuse. This has
led the real exponents of the doctrine to repudiate
opinions to which false meanings have been attached,
and which have been often wilfully misunderstood.

What, then, is a materialist ?

I conceive that there are two positions upon either
one of which we must sland, and between which there
is no half-way resting-place. Either all the facts of
nature with which we are conversant — -both those of
the subjective world of thought and of the objective
world of things about us — are to be referred to natural
forces for their explanation, or one class of facts, the
subjective, are to be ascribed to a supernatural agent,
leaving the objective world of things for natural forces
alone. The former, under whatever interpretation it
is presented, is materialism ; the latter is spiritualism.
We must accept either one or the other.

To show that matter is not what it is supposed to be
by the vulgar and ignorant, that it is something far
removed from the ordinary conception of it, is not to
remove it in any way from the field of materialism.
Nor by arbitrarily limiting the term " matter" to the
appearances of objects, and identif}'ing those facts
which we call mind with that substratum underlying
these appearances, have we in any way avoided the
consequences of materialism. Showing that this sub-
stratum is not tables and chairs and sticks and stones
as we know them, is not to remove it from the material
world and place it in the spiritual world ; to do so is
to invest spiritualism with a meaning which it does not

152 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

possess ; and yet this, if I do not misunderstand him, is
practically the position of Mr. Fiske. I dislike very
much to ascribe opinions to any writer for fear of
misrepresenting him, and therefore I speak, as Mr.
Fiske himself lias said, " subject to correction," and I
am the more timid in this respect because the history
of philosophy has shown that it is the peculiar fate of
writers on abstruse subjects to be misunderstood.

As long as anything is the resultant of the forces
of nature it belongs to materialism. Spiritualism, on
the other hand, has always been understood to refer to
something that is supernatural and is not conditioned
by the laws of nature. To show, then, that matter is
something else than what we have supposed it to be, is
not to remove it to the realms of spiritualism, for it is
still something which is conditioned by natural laws.
And consequently because we have reason to believe
that mind is identical with this real matter (or an
" aspect" (?) of it), and is not identical with the vulgar
conception of matter, we do not in any way escape
from the bonds of materialism. Every one knows that
thought is not stones, or sticks, or horses, or dogs, or
even physical vibrations, or neural undulations; "it
needs no ghost (or philosopher), my lord, to tell us this."
But thought may be identical with the substratum un-
derlying certain physical vibrations, and any doctrine
which accepts this, express it in any words you please,
is materialism. Any doctrine which rests content with
nature, and does not introduce any supernatural element,
is materiali-m.

By showing that there is something in nature more
potent than we have ever conceived of, something

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 153

which is beyond the powers of our poor senses to ap-
prehend in its reality, materialism elevates our concep-
tion of matter and our appreciation of the powers of
nature. This is a sufficient task. Unfortunately, we
have all been taught to look upon matter as something
inert and base. In this we have seen only with our
eyes, and have not looked behind the appearances of
things. Behind them nature herself lies concealed,
and when she has shown herself to us in her nakedness
and without disguise in the form of our thoughts, we
have failed to recognize her, and mistaken her for a
supernatural goblin.

We now know, thanks to science and philosophy,
that matter is no longer the dead and senseless thing it
is popularly supposed to be. We know that the so-
called properties of matter, the shape, the color, the
hardness, and other qualities of objects, do not exist
outside of our own minds, but that objects as known
to us are merely forms of our own consciousness. Yet,
though this be true, we also know that besides these
forms of our own consciousness, there is something
else, which exists outside of them, and is the cause
of them; that this something else consists of "ac-
tivities" or "forces" of an unknown nature, and that
these activities constitute the real object, the thing-in-
itself. Objects, as we know them, are only sensations
or modes of consciousness by which we apprehend these
external activities, or, in other words, the reaction of
our organism to these forces.

Matter, then, may embrace at least two conceptions
(page 33), subjective matter and objective matter, —
the latter being the real thing, though unknown.

154 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

Though we cannot picture to our minds the nature of
these external forces, which must be forever unknown
to us, Evolution teaches us that they must be allied in
nature to consciousness. The elemental forces which
underlie the functions of the organic world are the same
as those which underlie the properties of the inorganic
world. The reality of the carbon atom is the same
whether it occur combined with two atoms of oxygen
simply in the form of carbonic acid gas, or whether it
be joined with many atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydro-
gen, and nitrogen in the form of a molecule of vital
protoplasm. And the difference of properties and
functions depends upon the greater or less complexity
of the groupings of the elemental Realities. Finally,
as we ascend in the scale of animal life, by more com-
plex grouping of these elemental forces the first germs
of consciousness arise, which reaches its highest devel-
opment in the brain of man.*

The whole universe, then, instead of being inert is
made up of living forces; not conscious, because con-
sciousness does not result till a certain complexity of
organization appears, but, using figurative language, it
may be said to be pseudo-conscious. It is made up of
the elements of consciousness. It is to these forces that
are due the phenomena of the inorganic world, of life and
of Mind. And when we reduce the problems of life
and mind to terms of this matter, we deal with mate-
rialism. Any doctrine which recognizes these truths
in this or some modified form still remains, in my

1 See note to page IJ9. Clifford, I think, was the first to clearly
recognize and formulate this principle, though glimpses of it may
have been caught by others.

HVMAN AUTOMATISM. I55

judgment, materialism. Matter is elevated to a higher
rank, but it is still matter.

But after everything has been reduced to its lowest
terms, after everything has been shown to be dependent
upon the inherent forces of nature and the resultant
of material conditions, have the dignity and attributes
of anything that exists been in any way detracted from ?
Because man has been shown to be the last and iiigliest
expression in the order of development of nature, and
the final resultant of those natural forces which have
produced all other forms of life, have his dignity and
powers as man been in any way impaired? And be-
cause mind, the chef d'oeuvre of creation and final
product of vital forces has been shown to be the out-
come of the same material conditions as other vital
phenomena, have its qualities been in any way im-
paired V Though science and philosophy may discover
the causation and origin of phenomena, it cannot by so
doing alter by a hair's breadth those phenomena them-
selves and make them what they are not. We may
determine the elements of which any given product is
composed, and ascertain the conditions by which it has
arisen, but we cannot through such an analysis show
that product to be anything else than what it is. The
direction and energy of any force is not in any way
changed by the discovery of the elementary forces of
which it is the resultant.

Is the sparkle of a diamond any the less brilliant,
or is the stone less valuable, because the chemist tells
us, as a result of his analysis, it is nothing but carbon?
The pessimist may tell us from the gloom of his half-
fledged materialism that Raphael's great picture, tiie

156 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

Sistine Madonna, is after all nothing but paint and
canvas, nothing but a conglomeration of yellow ochre,
and Prussian blue, and copper green and red, spread
upon some twisted and interwoven strands of flax.
But after he has told us this, interesting possibly from
a technical point of view if we did not know it before,
he has not in any way detracted from the beauty of
the picture. Tlie picture is not yellow ochre nor
Prussian blue, nor any other of these elements he has
detailed, but the resultant of their combined prop-
erties, so combined that the final product is the ma-
terialized image of the great artist's conception fixed
indelibly for all time. You may analyze the substance
of the work till you have reduced it to its lowest
chemical and physical terms, to a final conglomeration
of atoms, but when you have finished there stands the
picture as beautiful and as grand as e%'er, unaltered in
a single line by your analysis and its color undimmed
in a single spot. The picture is what it is, no matter
what the elements may be which compose its sub-
stance; the resultant of all these forces is the picture,
the finished whole.

And so it is with man. By showing that man has
been slowly evolved through natural forces from the
lowest forms of animal life, his powers and qualities as
man have not been impaired in a single respect. There
are some who fear, because the tradition has been out-
grown whereby man came upon the earth as a sudden
and miraculous act of creation and was deposited in
a paradise where everything was prepared for his
wants, that thereby his dignity as man is in some way
detracted from. Just as there are some people who,

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 157

though by their superior abilities they have raised
themselves above their fellow-beings and surpassed
them in the race of life, are nevertiieless ashamed of
the lowly position from which they started ; forgetting
that this very fact proves their superiority and renders
their talents more conspicuous. It is this very disad-
vantage at the beginning which should make them
more proud of their success at the end. And so in tlie
progress of evolution ou this world, the fact that man
is the highest and culminating expression of nature
should render us proud of our pre-eminence and of tiie
exalted position we occupy.

And when we pass to those faculties which distin-
guish man from all other forms of creation, and make
him facile princeps, — his mental characteristics, — are
his intellectual or moral qualities in any way belittled
when it is discovered that these qualities are also the
products of natural forces, and are the result of the
laws of evolution ? Though we may show that the
highest flights of the intellect, the dramas of Shake-
speare, the great Cathedral of St. Peter of Michael
Angelo, and the Madonna of Raphael, are but the ex-
pression of natural forces, we do not in any way detract
from the grandeur and beauty of the work. Nor is
the greatness of moral laws in any way impaired by
the discovery that they also owe their existence to the
slow forces of evolution, and have been dependent upon
the organic development of the brain. Though their
germs may be found in the psychological and physio-
logical laws governing the lowest races of mankind,
nay, further, in the lower orders of animals, the moral
laws themselves are as dominant and sublime as though

14

i58 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

they were the express laws of a Creator giveu alone to
man in his most developed state.

"Do not unto others what ye would not that they
should do unto you" is no less grand in its conception
because it is the resultant of material conditions. The
lover will not sigh any the less " like a furnace" be-
cause you inform him his love is only the reality of
molecular disturbances in his brain. We do not in any
way soften the grief of the mother who mourns the
loss of her first-born by telling her that her grief is the
product of material factors, nor is our sympathy in any
way lessened by the knowledge. She will tell you she
knows nothing of all this, only that the life that is gone
will never return again.

Our thoughts, our feelings, our hopes, our griefs, our
pleasures, and our pains are the same and as we know
them, whether their origin be found in matter or in a
spirit.

But there is one respect in which materialism is far
more elevating than any other doctrine. It is this.
Though materialism may, in the opinion of some
people, degrade man from the lofty position which, in
his pride and arrogance, he had assumed for himself,
and relegate him to a lowlier one at the head of the
brute creation, it, on the other hand, elevates the latter
to a higher station and extends the hand of sympathy
to suffering, whether in man or animal. Materialism
teaches us that the animals, though not so highly de-
veloped as ourselves, still differ from us only in degree,
however great that degree may be. It teaches us that
though their thoughts may not be as complex and ex-
tensive as our own, they still have thoughts. That

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 159

they have emotions and sensations, pleasures and pains,
like ourselves, and the lash of the whip stings as smartly
as when applied to our owp backs.

Materialism teaches us that, however lowly, they
belong to our kith and kin, and though it may be
necessary and proper that man should hold dominion
over them, it should be exercised with clemency and
discrimination. There can be no doubt that the belief
that man is not only superior to the brute, but belongs
to a supernatural order of beings, has tended to lessen
our sympathy for these lower forms of creation, and
blunt our sensibilities regarding them. The belief has
become too general that the animal is not only a
machine, but an insensible machine, and it too often
happens that our sympathy remains untouched, even
though the dog may lick the hand that slays it with the
knife.

Nor will the morality of materialism compare un-
favorably with that of any other philosophy. Materi-
alism does not destroy morality, it merely seeks a new
source for its origin. It is a fact, which no amount of
analysis or scientific investigation can negative, that we
have in us certain ideas and feelings, which we call
principles, — moral principles. You may call these
laws of thought if you please, but the class to which
they belong we call moral. Under any other name
they would be as real and as influential in determining
our actions as that designated by the term morality.
It is an interesting study to inquire into the conditions
which have given rise to these laws of thought, and
this science does, by investigating not only human
nature as it existed in historic and, so far as is pos-

IgO HVMAN AUTOMATISM.

sible, in preliistoric times, and attempting to follow its
development step by step to the present time, however
imperfectly this can be done, but also by a compara-
tive study of the lower animals, and of the numerous
savage and lower races of men which inhabit the
various portions of the earth to-day. As moral laws
are really psychological laws, this becomes a compara-
tive and historical psychology.

While the spiritualist accounts for these laws on the
principle of intuition, or, in other words, by presup-
posing the existence of innate ideas of right and
wrong, duty, etc., which, already developed and per-
fected, have been implanted in the mind by a Creator,
the scientific inquirer after truth, rejecting any such
lazy and unintelligent method of explaining the origin
of phenomena, seeks an explanation in natural con-
ditions alone. We will not here notice the miscon-
struction and personal abuse to which the latter thus
exposes himself, and that, too, simply because he pre-
fers truth, however shocking it may be to his earlier
sentiments and beliefs, to the superstitious and igno-
rant dogmas of passionate partisans. I do not pro-
pose to enter here into anything of a polemical nature,
and, least of all, to say anything which may jar upon
the sentiments of any one, but to. discuss the matter
before us in a straightforward and philosophical
way, without regard to preconceived opinions and
feelings.

But while the scientific investigator seeks in this
direction an explanation of these moral facts, he does
not in any way attempt to deny the existence of the
facts themselves. On the contrary, his very inquiries

HUMAN AUTOMATISM l(jl

presuppose their existence, for which indeed he en-
deavors to account.

That the individual does possess moral principles is
a psychological fact, and the belief in their validity is
as cogent in regulating and governing our conduct,
whether the origin of such moral beliefs shall be found
in a slow psychological evolution through the force of
the principle of utility, sympathy, or other equally
efficient force, or in a special act of creation by which
they become attributes of a spiritual essence. And it
is perfectly evident that a moral principle, which has
become evolved and recognized as desirable, may be
impressed upon the mind by education, and so firmly
implanted there through the law of association of ideas
as to become a dominant factor in modifying the con-
duct of the individual. "When once ideas have become
strongly bound together by association, — and this is
what moral principles are, — they exert a powerful influ-
ence over our actions and thoughts, and are not easily
overcome by other feelings. In this respect they are
like all other associations of ideas, the influence of
which may be seen in political and religious beliefs, in
our prejudices and other notions. And so strong may
the influence of moral principles become from this
cause that they may still continue to direct the conduct,
though other processes of reasoning may logically con-
vince us of the want of validity of the principles. Thus
even those who are honestly convinced of the absence
of anything obligatory in duty and other principles of
ethics, still allow their conduct to be influenced by these
notions, for the reason that by the time they have reached
an age to think about such matters, their character has
I 14*

Ig2 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

become so formed that they can only act in opposition
to it at the expense of their mental happiness. These
moral principles have then become automatic, as it were.
When this is the case, the same tendency to similar
thought becomes transmitted to the offspring, who thus
tends to inherit the same association of ideas or moral
principles possessed by the parents, just as children
inherit the ordinary peculiarities of character of the
parents. In tiiis respect, then, moral laws become in-
nate or intuitive. However, it is a fact which cannot be
gainsaid, that for the existence of moral principles it is
requisite that the brain shall have acquired a certain
degree of development. I thinlj it will be found that
moral principles become recognized as standards, even
if not realized in practice, in direct proportion to the
capacity of the mind to originate abstract ideas, and
that in the lower races only a very low standard of
ethics can prevail among those people whose minds do
not rise above the conception of specific objects. Some
of the tribes of Oceanica and Australia have words for
particular trees, as walnut-tree or beech-tree, etc., but
none for a tree in the abstract. Such people cannot
possess any abstract notion of a tree or any other object
or quality.

It has been said that the " lowest among the Ocean-
eans and Africans (as the aboriginal Australians, the
South Sea negroes, Bushmen, Central Africans, etc.)
are entirely destitute of general ideas or abstract notions.
Past and future concern them not. The Australian
has no words to express the ideas of God, religion,
righteousness, sin, etc. He knows almost no other
sensation than the need of food, which he endeavors in

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 163

every way to satisfy, and makes known to the traveller
by grimaces. 'In them the capability of considering
and inferring,' says Hale (Natives of Australia, 1846),
' appears to be very imperfectly developed. The reasons
which the colonists use in order to convince or persuade
them are mostly such as are employed- with children
and half imbeciles.'"^

To have any code of ethics which shall approach the
standard set by civilized nations, whether these nations
be composed of Christians or Buddhists, it is essential
that the mind shall be sufficiently developed to conceive
of abstract notions, such as ideas of right and wrong,
etc., and no religion can arise till the mind is capable
of entertaining the idea of causation, etc.

The animals are probably content with the simple fact
of existence, and never seek to know the reason or cause
for that existence, the why or the how. They accept
the fact without the idea ever entering their minds of
inquiring further. The lowest races of men differ from
the brutes very slightly in this respect. "I frequently
inquired of the negroes," says Park, " what became of
the sun during the night, and whether we should see
the same sun or a different one in the morning, but I
found that they considered the question as very childish.
Tiie subject appeared to them as placed beyond the reach
of human investigation ; they had never indulged a con-
jecture nor formed any hypothesis about the matter." ^

" A friend of Mr. Lang's ' tried long and patiently
to make a very intelligent, docile, Australian black

1 Biichner, Man in the Past, Present, and Future. Eng.
Trans., p. 313.
' Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, Amer. ed., p. 5.

Ig4 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

understand his existence without a body, but the black
never could keep his countenance, and generally made
an excuse to get away. One day the teacher watched,
and found that he went to have a hearty fit of laughter
at the absurdity of the idea of a man living and going
about without arms, legs, or mouth to eat ; for a long
time he could not believe that the gentleman was serious,
and when he did realize it, the more serious the teacher
was, the more ludicrous the whole affair appeared to the
black.' "^ With a mind of such a character it is appa-
rent that no religion worthy of the name could be con-
ceived of, nor could we expect to find any moral prin-
ciples of an exalted nature in force among such people.
Whatever principles they may have must conduce only
to the gratification of the appetites and passions.

" The aborigines of New Caledonia, akin to the Feji-
Islanders, and belonging to the Papuan group, have,
according to Van Rochas, no shame, go quite naked,
and indulge in a number of excesses of the basest kind.
They have intelligence as tiie beasts, but no moral emo-
tions, are faithless in the highest degree, perjured, crafty,
will strike any one down from behind, are cannibals,
eating not merely tiieir enemies, but even their own
relatives, can only with difficulty count the lowest
numbers, use strong abortives, and bury the aged alive.
If a chief is hungry, he straightway knocks down one
of his subjects." ^

"The Australians," says a lady who emigrated to
Australia, "live quite naked in huts of bark, in which

' Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, Amer. ed., p. 245.
* BUchner, op. oit., p. 315.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 165

they sleep with their dogs. They eat anything, — in-
sects, serpents, worms, roots, berries, etc., — have no
fixed dwelling-place, and are quite incapable of civili-
zation. The missionaries iiave long given up every
attempt to civilize them, for if one baptize them it has
no more effect than the baptism of a dog or a horse ;
they understand nothing of tlie signification of the act.
Marriages are very loose, infanticide is universal, the
aged are put to death. They live only in the present,
and think neither of the past nor the future. They
cannot be taught any principles. They are dead to
all morality. They know no sentiment, no spiritual
life, no love, no gratitude, but only unbridled passion,
and the sense of their nothingness against the white
races." ^

But there is one mistake easy to fall into in consider-
ing the state of morality of communities, and this is to
assume, because of the absence in the lower races of the
moral laws which prevail among highly civilized na-
tions, that therefore the former are totally lacking in
morality. On the contrary, they often have laws
which though to us seemingly absurd and without rea-
son, and not existing among civilized peoples, yet be-
long to the moral class, and prohibit, under the most
stringent punishment, practices which are perfectly
justifiable under our systems of government and codes
of ethics. For example, among those nations which
practice exogomy, that is, marriage only with individ-
uals of a foreign tribe, marriage within the tribe is re-
garded as incest, and is punishable with death. This

^ Biichner, op. oit. , p. 314.

IQQ HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

is the case among the Kurnai* in Australia. Such
people would regard our practice of marrying within
our own caste or nationality as highly immoral and in-
cestuous. One rather amusing custom among these
people and, strangely enough, quite commonly diffused
among similar tribes throughout the globe, is that of
forbidding all social intercourse between mother-in-law
and son-in-law.^ After marriage the son-in-law is not
allowed even to speak to his mother-in-law.

Numerous other customs of a more important char-
acter, and which exert considerable influence upon the
character of the race, might be mentioned as prevalent
among various races low in the scale of development.

Mr. Galbraith, who lived for many years, as Indian
agent, among the Sioux (North America), thus describes
them : they are " bigoted, barbarous, and exceedingly
superstitious. They regard most of the vices as vir-
tues. Theft, arson, rape, and murder are among them
regarded as the means of distinction ; and the young

' " The Kamilaroi and Kurnai," by Lorimer Howitt and A. W.
Fison.

'^ " A Brabotung, who is a member of the Church of England,
was one day talking to me. His wife's mother was passing at
some little distance, and I called to her. Suffering at the time
from cold, I could not make her hear, and said to the Brabotung,
' Call Mary, I want to speak to her.' He took no notice what-
ever, but looked vacantly on the ground. I spoke to him again
sharply, but still without his responding. I then said, ' What do
you mean by taking no notice of me?' He thereupon called out
to his wife's brother, who was at a little distance, ' Tell Mary
Mr. Howitt wants her.' And turning tome, continued, reproach-
fully, ' Tou know very well I could not do that ; you know
I cannot speak to that old woman.' " — Kamilaroi and Kurnai,
p. 203.

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 167

Indian from childhood is taught to regard killing as
the highest of virtues. In their dances, and at their
feasts, the warriors recite their deeds of theft, pillage,
and slaughter as precious things ; and the highest, in-
deed, the only ambition of a young brave is to secure
'the feather,' which is but a record of his having
murdered or participated in the murder of some human
being, — whether man, woman, or child, it is immaterial .
and after he has secured his first 'feather,' appetite is
whetted to increase the number in his cap, as an Indian
brave is estimated by the number of his feathers." '

These Indians it is evident had moral laws, though
they were of a very opposite standard from our own.
It was probably a moral law which induced the Spar-
tans as well as savages to destroy the sickly children.

The extent to which some of the lower races will
sacrifice their own feelings to their sense of duty, how-
ever distorted the latter may appear to us, is not often
surpassed by more civilized people.

" The Feejeeans believe that ' as they die such will
be their condition in another world ; hence their desire
to escape extreme infirmity.' The way to Mbulu, as
already mentioned, is long and difficult ; many always
perish, and no diseased or infirm person could possibly
succeed in surmounting all the dangers of the road.
Hence as soon as a man feels the approach of old age,
he notifies to his children that it is time for him to die.
If he neglects to do so, the children after a while take
the matter into their own hands. A family consulta-
tion is held, a day appointed, and the grave dug. The

' Lubbock's Origin of Civilization.

168 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

aged person has his choice of baiiig sti angled or buried
alive. Mr. Hunt gives the following striking descrip-
tion of such a ceremony once witnessed by him. A
young man came to him and invited him' to attend his
mother's funeral, which was just going to take place.
Mr. Hunt accepted the invitation and joined the proces-
sion, but surprised to see no corpse, he made inquiries,
when the young man ' pointed out his mother, who was
walking along with them as gay and lively as any of
those present, and apparently as much pleased. Mr.
Hunt expressed his surprise to the young man, and
asked him how he could deceive him so much by say-
ing his mother was dead, when she was alive and well.
He said, in reply, that they had made her death-feast,
and were now going to bury her; that she was old,
that his brother and himself had thought she had lived
long enough, and it was time to bury her, to which she
had willingly consented, and they were about it now.
He had come to Mr. Hunt to ask his prayers, as they
did those of the priest.

" ' He added that it was from love for his mother that
he had done so ; that in consequence of the same love,
they were now going to bury her, and that none but
themselves could or ought to do such a sacred office!
Mr. Hunt did all in his power to prevent so diabolical
an act ; but the only reply he received was that she
was their mother, and they were her children, and they
ought to put her to death. On reaching the grave, the
mother sat down, when they all, including children,
grandchildren, relations, and friends, took an alfection-
ate leave of her ; a rope made of twisted tapa was then
passed twice around her neck Iby her sons, who took

HVMAN AUTOMATISM. Igg

hold of it and strangled her; after which she was put
in her grave, with the usual ceremonies.

" So general was this custom that in one town contain-
ing several hundred inhabitants Captain Wilkes did
not see one man over forty years of age, all the old
people having been buried." '

On the other hand, as Lubbock has pointed out, a
state of society where vice and crime are absent do not
necessarily indicate a high moral standard. It may
simply be due to negative virtue, to an absence of any
inducement to commit crime, or to a mind so imper-
fectly developed as to be devoid of appetites or a desire
to gratify tliem. Sucii persons can no more be praised
for virtue than can the domestic cow be deserving of
reward for refraining from murder or other human
vices.

For the conception of a code of morality similar to
that embraced by Christianity and Buddhism, there is
required a brain of high organization. Though the
converse is not true, that a highly organized brain im-
plies a high standard of morality, it oidy signifies the
possibility of such a standard. There are large num-
bers of other conditions, those embraced under the
social and political forces which determine the nature
of the moral code in force among any people at any
particular epoch. These conditions are beyond our
purpose to consider here, but I would call attention to
the fact that a distinction must be drawn between tiie
theoretical and practical morality of a community, be-
tween the moral principles exemplified in the life of

' Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, p. 248.
15

170 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

the masses of the people and that standard advocated
and practised only by the moral specialists. Just as
at a time when the pagan Greeks were worshipping
their false gods, the philosopher wise above his time,
six hundred centuries before the birth of Christ, smiled
at the simplicity and credulity of his fellows while he
sang:

" There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,
Whose form Is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature ;
" But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are be-
gotten ,
With human sensations and voice and corporeal members ;
" So, if oxen or lions had hands that could work in man's
fashion,
And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of god-
head.
Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
Bach kind the divine with its own form and nature endow-
ing.'"

In estimating the moral condition of a people, as
Lecky has well remarked, it is necessary to consider
both the moral code advocated as a standard and the
actual habits of the people themselves.^

' Xenophanes of Colophon.

' " In estimating, however, the moral condition of an age, it
is not sufficient to examine the ideal of moralists. It is neces-
sary, also, to inquire how far that ideal has been realized among
the people. The corruption of a nation is often reflected in the
indulgent and selfish ethics of its teachers ; but it sometimes
produces a reaction, and impels the moralist to an asceticism
which is the extreme opposite of the prevailing spirit of society.
The means which moral teachers possess of acting upon their
fellows vary greatly in their nature and efficacy, and the age of
the highest moral teaching is often not that of the highest gen-

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 171

For a high standard of morality not only is it es-
sential that the brain should be highly developed and
capable of forming abstract conceptions, which shall
be so firmly implanted in it, as it were, as to automat-
ically govern our thoughts and actions, but the ac-
quisition of extended experience and knowledge is
necessary for the development of these moral concep-
tions. When this latter is lacking we find either the
moral standard is low, or, if high, is only in practice
of limited application. Thus the Indian, who regards
the murder of one of his own tribe as a moral crime,
considers the killing of an individual of a foreign
tribe as the highest virtue. And even among nations
boasting of Christian civilization, we find different
standards of ethics in force within the nation from
that which it practises between itself and foreign na-
tions. National and international ethics are two dif-
ferent things. When our knowledge becomes so far
extended that each nation shall perceive that the results
of a high degree of morality will be as beneficial to a
nation in its relations to another as in the relations be-
tween individuals, a much. higher international moral
code will be established than exists to-day, and as the
principles become ingrained in the mind, they will
tend by inheritance and education to become automatic
and dominant in regulating international conduct.

After those modes of thought called moral principles
have become established and automatic, it makes no

oral level of practice. ... In addition, therefore, to the type
and standard of morals inculcated by the teachers, an historian
must investigate the realized morals of the people." — Lecky'a
Bisiory of European Morals. Preface.

172 HUMAN AUTOMATISM.

difference by what process they have become evolved.
Whatever it may be, their influence in dominating the
conduct is the same. We refrain from doing any act
because we think it is wrong, and we do something else
because we think it is right, and we judge it is right or
wrong according as it is or is not in harmony with cer-
tain fixed principles which have been formulated as
standards.

But while this is the case, the different schools of
philosophy markedly differ in the incentives which each
offers to induce an adherence to moral principles.

In the theological school a system of rewards and
punishments plays a very important part at least, and in
the past has played a greater part. People have been
taught to act honestly and uprightly in order that they
may hereafter be rewarded, and warned against immor-
ality by the fear of future punishment. We are urged
to a certain course of action for our own good and for
our own benefit. Compare such a code with that
offered by materialism and see if the latter loses by
the comparison. Instead of being reminded of reward
and punishment, we are told to act uprightly for the
common benefit of humanity and of the human race,
not for the sake of benefiting ourselves alone. The
individual is educated to regard the good of the many
as that for which the individual should strive, and his
reward and punishment is to be found in the happiness
or unhappiness of his fellow-beings.

An Italian Jesuit priest, who made it his duty to
attend those dying in one of our hospitals and help
their souls onwards as they started on their final jour-
ney, once fell into argument with me on the subject of

HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 173

religion. Becoming finally heated with the argument,
he exclaimed, with more candor than caution, " I do
not care for the broken arms and the broken legs ; the
hospital might burn up, I would not care. It is a little,
comer for myself in the beautiful land I wish to make."
I suppose that he regarded each soul saved as scoring
one for himself.

Though no one would impute such selfish motives to
the majority of mankind, still it is hard to deny that
they enter into theological morality.

Though this system may be justified by the fact that
the world is not yet prepared for a higher code, such
as that offered by materialism, the system is not thereby
elevated. It is a fact, and a melancholy one, that
human nature is weak, and in its present state of de-
velopment requires to be stimulated by the promise of
reward, and to be checked by the threat of punishment;
and so-called moral philosophers would, if they were
really philosophers, recognize this fact with its neces-
sary consequences, and cease to rail at the existing
order of things, and refrain from thrusting their own
systems of philosophy, however elevating tlieoretically,
upon a world unprepared for them.

Theological ethics is that best suited for the control
of man as he now exists. Whether mankind will in
the future attain to a degree of development which wil I
enable the individual to perform a duty for duty's sake,
without hope of reward or fear of punishment, is a
question which belongs to the domain of speculation.

At present, however humiliating may be the though!,
man, like the brute, can only be tamed and morally edu-
cated by the alternate use of sweetmeats and the lash.

15*