An Introduction to Philosophy Part 13

43. THE DOCTRINE OF MIND-STUFF.--Nevertheless, there have been those who have attributed something like consciousness even to inorganic matter. If the doctrine of evolution be true, argues Professor Clifford,[4] "we shall have along the line of the human pedigree a series of imperceptible steps connecting inorganic matter with ourselves. To the later members of that series we must undoubtedly ascribe consciousness, although it must, of course, have been simpler than our own. But where are we to stop? In the case of organisms of a certain complexity, consciousness is inferred. As we go back along the line, the complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason to think that the complexity of consciousness insensibly diminishes also. But if we make a jump, say to the tunicate mollusks, we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness at all. Yet not only is it impossible to point out a place where any sudden break takes place, but it is contrary to all the natural training of our minds to suppose a breach of continuity so great."

We must not, says Clifford, admit any breach of continuity. We must a.s.sume that consciousness is a complex of elementary feelings, "or rather of those remoter elements which cannot even be felt, but of which the simplest feeling is built up." We must a.s.sume that such elementary facts go along with the action of every organism, however simple; but we must a.s.sume also that it is only when the organism has reached a certain complexity of nervous structure that the complex of psychic facts reaches the degree of complication that we call Consciousness.

So much for the a.s.sumption of something like mind in the mollusk, where Clifford cannot find direct evidence of mind. But the argument does not stop here: "As the line of ascent is unbroken, and must end at last in inorganic matter, we have no choice but to admit that every motion of matter is simultaneous with some . . . fact or event which might be part of a consciousness."

Of the universal distribution of the elementary const.i.tuents of mind Clifford writes as follows: "That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I 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 together as to form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of Sentience.

When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say, changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked together that the repet.i.tion of one implies the repet.i.tion of the other. When matter takes the complex form of a living human brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having intelligence and volition."

This is the famous mind-stuff doctrine. It is not a scientific doctrine, for it rests on wholly unproved a.s.sumptions. It is a play of the speculative fancy, and has its source in the author's strong desire to fit mental phenomena into some general evolutionary scheme. As he is a parallelist, and cannot make of physical phenomena and of mental one single series of causes and effects, he must attain his end by making the mental series complete and independent in itself. To do this, he is forced to make several very startling a.s.sumptions:--

(1) We have seen that there is evidence that there is consciousness somewhere--it is revealed by certain bodies. Clifford a.s.sumes consciousness, or rather its raw material, _mind-stuff_, to be everywhere. For this a.s.sumption we have not a whit of evidence.

(2) To make of the stuff thus attained a satisfactory evolutionary series, he is compelled to a.s.sume that mental phenomena are related to each other much as physical phenomena are related to each other. This notion he had from Spinoza, who held that, just as all that takes place in the physical world must be accounted for by a reference to physical causes, so all happenings in the world of ideas must be accounted for by a reference to mental causes, _i.e._ to ideas. For this a.s.sumption there is no more evidence than for the former.

(3) Finally, to bring the mental phenomena we are familiar with, sensations of color, sound, touch, taste, etc., into this evolutionary scheme, he is forced to a.s.sume that all such mental phenomena are made up of elements which do not belong to these cla.s.ses at all, of something that "cannot even be felt." For this a.s.sumption there is as little evidence as there is for the other two.

The fact is that the _mind-stuff_ doctrine is a castle in the air. It is too fanciful and arbitrary to take seriously. It is much better to come back to a more sober view of things, and to hold that there is evidence that other minds exist, but no evidence that every material thing is animated. If we cannot fit this into our evolutionary scheme, perhaps it is well to reexamine our evolutionary scheme, and to see whether some misconception may not attach to that.

[1] "Collected Essays," Vol. I, p. 219, New York, 1902.

[2] "On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves," in "Lectures and Essays,"

Vol. II.

[3] "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," Chapter XII.

[4] "On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves."

CHAPTER XI

OTHER PROBLEMS OF WORLD AND MIND

44. IS THE MATERIAL WORLD A MECHANISM?--So far we have concerned ourselves with certain leading problems touching the external world and the mind,--problems which seem to present themselves unavoidably to those who enter upon the path of reflection. And we have seen, I hope, that there is much truth, as well as some misconception, contained in the rather vague opinions of the plain man.

But the problems that we have taken up by no means exhaust the series of those that present themselves to one who thinks with patience and persistency. When we have decided that men are not mistaken in believing that an external world is presented in their experience; when we have corrected our first crude notions of what this world is, and have cleared away some confusions from our conceptions of s.p.a.ce and time; when we have attained to a reasonably clear view of the nature of the mind, and of the nature of its connection with the body; when we have escaped from a tumble into the absurd doctrine that no mind exists save our own, and have turned our backs upon the rash speculations of the adherents of "mind-stuff"; there still remain many points upon which we should like to have definite information.

In the present chapter I shall take up and turn over a few of these, but it must not be supposed that one can get more than a glimpse of them within such narrow limits. First of all we will raise the question whether it is permissible to regard the material world, which we accept, as through and through a mechanism.

There can be little doubt that there is a tendency on the part of men of science at the present day so to regard it. It should, of course, be frankly admitted that no one is in a position to prove that, from the cosmic mist, in which we grope for the beginnings of our universe, to the organized whole in which vegetable and animal bodies have their place, there is an unbroken series of changes all of which are explicable by a reference to mechanical laws. Chemistry, physics, and biology are still separate and distinct realms, and it is at present impossible to find for them a common basis in mechanics. The belief of the man of science must, hence, be regarded as a faith; the doctrine of the mechanism of nature is a working hypothesis, and it is unscientific to a.s.sume that it is anything more.

There can be no objection to a frank admission that we are not here walking in the light of established knowledge. But it does seem to savor of dogmatism for a man to insist that no increase in our knowledge can ever reveal that the physical world is an orderly system throughout, and that all the changes in material things are explicable in terms of the one unified science. Earnest objections have, however, been made to the tendency to regard nature as a mechanism. To one of the most curious of them we have been treated lately by Dr. Ward in his book on "Naturalism and Agnosticism."

It is there ingeniously argued that, when we examine with care the fundamental concepts of the science of mechanics, we find them to be self-contradictory and absurd. It follows that we are not justified in turning to them for an explanation of the order of nature.

The defense of the concepts of mechanics we may safely leave to the man of science; remembering, of course, that, when a science is in the making, it is to be expected that the concepts of which it makes use should undergo revision from time to time. But there is one general consideration that it is not well to leave out of view when we are contemplating such an a.s.sault upon the notion of the world as mechanism as is made by Dr. Ward. It is this.

Such attacks upon the conception of mechanism are not purely destructive in their aim. The man who makes them wishes to destroy one view of the system of things in order that he may set up another. If the changes in the system of material things cannot be accounted for mechanically, it is argued, we are compelled to turn for our explanation to the action and interaction of minds. This seems to give mind a very important place in the universe, and is believed to make for a view of things that guarantees the satisfaction of the highest hopes and aspirations of man.

That a recognition of the mechanical order of nature is incompatible with such a view of things as is just above indicated, I should be the last to admit. The notion that it is so is, I believe, a dangerous error. It is an error that tends to put a man out of sympathy with the efforts of science to discover that the world is an orderly whole, and tempts him to rejoice in the contemplation of human ignorance.

But the error is rather a common one; and see to what injustice it may lead one. It is concluded that the conception of _matter_ is an obscure one; that we do not know clearly what we mean when we speak of the _ma.s.s_ of a body; that there are disputes as to proper significance to be given to the words _cause_ and _effect_; that the _laws of motion_, as they are at present formulated, do not seem to account satisfactorily for the behavior of all material particles. From this it is inferred that we must give up the attempt to explain mechanically the order of physical things.

Now, suppose that it were considered a dangerous and heterodox doctrine, that the changes in the system of things are due to the activities of minds. Would not those who now love to point out the shortcomings of the science of mechanics discover a fine field for their destructive criticism? Are there no disputes as to the ultimate nature of mind? Are men agreed touching the relations of mind and matter? What science even attempts to tell us how a mind, by an act of volition, sets material particles in motion or changes the direction of their motion? How does one mind act upon another, and what does it mean for one mind to act upon another?

If the science of mechanics is not in all respects as complete a science as it is desirable that it should be, surely we must admit that when we turn to the field of mind we are not dealing with what is clear and free from difficulties. Only a strong emotional bias can lead a man to dwell with emphasis upon the difficulties to be met with in the one field, and to pa.s.s lightly over those with which one meets in the other.

One may, however, refuse to admit that the order of nature is throughout mechanical, without taking any such unreasonable position as this. One may hold that many of the changes in material things do not _appear_ to be mechanical, and that it is too much of an a.s.sumption to maintain that they are such, even as an article of faith. Thus, when we pa.s.s from the world of the inorganic to that of organic life, we seem to make an immense step. No one has even begun to show us that the changes that take place in vegetable and animal organisms are all mechanical changes.

How can we dare to a.s.sume that they are?

With one who reasons thus we may certainly feel a sympathy. The most ardent advocate of mechanism must admit that his doctrine is a working hypothesis, and not _proved_ to be true. Its acceptance would, however, be a genuine convenience from the point of view of science, for it does introduce, at least provisionally, a certain order into a vast number of facts, and gives a direction to investigation. Perhaps the wisest thing to do is, not to combat the doctrine, but to accept it tentatively and to examine carefully what conclusions it may seem to carry with it--how it may affect our outlook upon the world as a whole.

45. THE PLACE OF MIND IN NATURE.--One of the very first questions which we think of asking when we contemplate the possibility that the physical world is throughout a mechanical system is this: How can we conceive minds to be related to such a system? That minds, and many minds, do exist, it is not reasonable to doubt. What shall we do with them?

One must not misunderstand the mechanical view of things. When we use the word "machine," we call before our minds certain gross and relatively simple mechanisms constructed by man. Between such and a flower, a b.u.t.terfly, and a human body, the difference is enormous. He who elects to bring the latter under the t.i.tle of mechanism cannot mean that he discerns no difference between them and a steam engine or a printing press. He can only mean that he believes he might, could he attain to a glimpse into their infinite complexity, find an explanation of the physical changes which take place in them, by a reference to certain general laws which describe the behavior of material particles everywhere.

And the man who, having extended his notion of mechanism, is inclined to overlook the fact that animals and men have minds, that thought and feeling, plan and purpose, have their place in the world, may justly be accused of a headlong and heedless enthusiasm. Whatever may be our opinion on the subject of the mechanism of nature, we have no right to minimize the significance of thought and feeling and will. Between that which has no mind and that which has a mind there is a difference which cannot be obliterated by bringing both under the concept of mechanism.

It is a difference which furnishes the material for the sciences of psychology and ethics, and gives rise to a whole world of distinctions which find no place in the realm of the merely physical.

There are, then, minds as well as bodies; what place shall we a.s.sign to these minds in the system of nature?

Several centuries ago it occurred to the man of science that the material world should be regarded as a system in which there is constant transformation, but in which nothing is created. This way of looking at things expressed itself formerly in the statement that, through all the changes that take place in the world, the quant.i.ty of matter and motion remains the same. To-day the same idea is better expressed in the doctrine of the eternity of ma.s.s and the conservation of energy. In plain language, this doctrine teaches that every change in every part of the physical world, every motion in matter, must be preceded by physical conditions which may be regarded as the equivalent of the change in question.

But this makes the physical world a closed system, a something complete in itself. Where is there room in such a system for minds?

It does indeed seem hard to find in such a system a place for minds, if one conceives of minds as does the interactionist. We have seen (section 36) that the interactionist makes the mind act upon matter very much as one particle of matter is supposed to act upon another. Between the physical and the mental he a.s.sumes that there are _causal_ relations; _i.e._ physical changes must be referred to mental causes sometimes, and mental changes to physical. This means that he finds a place for mental facts by inserting them as links in the one chain of causes and effects with physical facts. If he is not allowed to break the chain and insert them, he does not know what to do with them.

The parallelist has not the same difficulty to face. He who holds that mental phenomena must not be built into the one series of causes and effects with physical phenomena may freely admit that physical phenomena form a closed series, an orderly system of their own, and he may yet find a place in the world for minds. He refuses to regard them as a part of the world-mechanism, but he _relates_ them to physical things, conceiving them as _parallel to_ the physical in the sense described (sections 37-39). He insists that, even if we hold that there are gaps in the physical order of causes and effects, we cannot conceive these gaps to be filled by mental phenomena, simply because they are mental phenomena.

They belong to an order of their own. Hence, the a.s.sumption that the physical series is unbroken does not seem to him to crowd mental phenomena out of their place in the world at all. They must, in any case, occupy the place that is appropriate to them (section 38).

It will be noticed that this doctrine that the chain of physical causes and effects is nowhere broken, and that mental phenomena are related to it as the parallelist conceives them to be, makes the world-system a very orderly one. Every phenomenon has its place in it, and can be accounted for, whether it be physical or mental. To some, the thought that the world is such an orderly thing is in the highest degree repugnant. They object that, in such a world, there is no room for _free-will_; and they object, further, that there is no room for the _activity of minds_. Both of these objections I shall consider in this chapter.

But first, I must say a few words about a type of doctrine lately insisted upon,[1] which bears some resemblance to interactionism as we usually meet with it, and, nevertheless, tries to hold on to the doctrine of the conservation of energy. It is this:--

The concept of energy is stretched in such a way as to make it cover mental phenomena as well as physical. It is claimed that mental phenomena and physical phenomena are alike "manifestations of energy,"

and that the coming into being of a consciousness is a mere "transformation," a something to be accounted for by the disappearance from the physical world of a certain equivalent--perhaps of some motion.

It will be noticed that this is one rather subtle way of obliterating the distinction between mental phenomena and physical. In so far it resembles the interactionist's doctrine.

In criticism of it we may say that he who accepts it has wandered away from a rather widely recognized scientific hypothesis, and has subst.i.tuted for it a very doubtful speculation for which there seems to be no whit of evidence. It is, moreover, a speculation repugnant to the scientific mind, when its significance is grasped. Shall we a.s.sume without evidence that, when a man wakes in the morning and enjoys a mental life suspended or diminished during the night, his thoughts and feelings have come into being at the expense of his body? Shall we a.s.sume that the ma.s.s of his body has been slightly diminished, or that motions have disappeared in a way that cannot be accounted for by a reference to the laws of matter in motion? This seems an extraordinary a.s.sumption, and one little in harmony with the doctrine of the eternity of ma.s.s and the conservation of energy as commonly understood. We need not take it seriously so long as it is quite unsupported by evidence.

46. THE ORDER OF NATURE AND "FREE-WILL."--In a world as orderly as, in the previous section, this world is conceived to be, is there any room for freedom? What if the man of science is right in suspecting that the series of physical causes and effects is nowhere broken? Must we then conclude that we are never free?

To many persons it has seemed that we are forced to draw this conclusion, and it is not surprising that they view the doctrine with dismay. They argue: Mental phenomena are made parallel with physical, and the order of physical phenomena seems to be determined throughout, for nothing can happen in the world of matter unless there is some adequate cause of its happening. If, then, I choose to raise my finger, that movement must be admitted to have physical causes, and those causes other causes, and so on without end. If such a movement must always have its place in a causal series of this kind, how can it be regarded as a free movement?

It is determined, and not free.

Now, it is far from a pleasant thing to watch the man of science busily at work trying to prove that the physical world is an orderly system, and all the while to feel in one's heart that the success of his efforts condemns one to slavery. It can hardly fail to make one's att.i.tude towards science that of alarm and antagonism. From this I shall try to free the reader by showing that our freedom is not in the least danger, and that we may look on unconcerned.