THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL
§ 1. Matter and Spirit
We live in an age in which scientific specialization is stressed as the
most important means of advancing the interests of human knowledge; and
specialism, by reason of its many triumphs, seems to have deserved, in
large measure, the prestige which it now enjoys. It has, however, the
distinct disadvantage of fostering provincialism and separatism. This
lopsided learning of the single track mind is a condition that verges
on paranoia, leads to naïve contempt for all knowledge not reducible to
its own set of formulæ, and portends, in the near future, a Babel-like
confusion of tongues. In fact, the need of a corrective is beginning
to be felt in many quarters. This corrective can be none other than
the general and synthetic science of philosophy; it is philosophy
alone that can furnish a common ground and break down the barriers of
exclusiveness which immure the special sciences within the minds of
experts.
Scientists readily admit the advantage of philosophy in theory, but in
practice their approval is far from being unqualified. A subservient
philosophy, which accepts without hesitation all the current dogmas
of contemporary science, is one thing, and a critical philosophy
venturing to apply the canons of logic to so-called scientific proof
is quite another. Philosophy of the latter type is promptly informed
that it has no right to any opinion whatever, and that only the
scientific specialist is qualified to speak on such subjects. But the
disqualification, which is supposed to arise from lack of special
knowledge, is just as promptly forgotten, when there is question of
philosophy in the rôle of a pliant sycophant, and the works of a Wells
or a van Loon are lauded to the skies, despite the glaring examples of
scientific inaccuracy and ignorance, in which they abound.
This partiality is sometimes carried to a degree that makes it
perfectly preposterous. Thus it is by no means an infrequent thing to
find scientists dismissing, as unworthy of a hearing, a philosopher
like Hans Driesch, who spent the major portion of his life in
biological research, and combined the technical discipline of a
scientist with the mental discipline of a logician. The chemist, H.
E. Armstrong, for instance, sees in the mere label “philosopher” a
sufficient reason for barring his testimony. “Philosophers,” jeers
the chemist, with flippant irrelevance, “must go to school and study
in the purlieus of experimental science, if they desire to speak with
authority on these matters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 528.)
Such is his comment on Driesch, yet Driesch did nothing at all, if he
did not do far more than Armstrong prescribes as a prerequisite for
authoritative speaking. In James Harvey Robinson, on the contrary, we
have an example of the tendency of scientists to coddle philosophers
who assume a docile, deferential, and submissive attitude towards
every generalization propounded in the name of natural science. In
sheer gratitude for his uncritical acquiescence, his incapacitation
as a nonspecialist is considerately overlooked, and he can confess,
without the slightest danger of discrediting his own utterances: “I am
not ... a biologist or palæontologist. But I have had the privilege
of consorting familiarly with some of the very best representatives
of those who have devoted their lives to the patient study of the
matters involved in this controversy. I think I quite understand
their attitude.” (_Harper’s Magazine,_ June, 1922, p. 68.) By his own
testimony he is a scientific amateur, but this does not, in the least,
prevent him from “speaking with authority” or from being lionized in
scientific circles as an evolutionary “defender of the faith.” Clearly,
it is the nature of their respective views, and not the possession or
absence of technical knowledge, which makes Robinson a favorite, and
Driesch a _persona non grata_, with “the very best representatives”
of contemporary science. “Science,” says a writer in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ (Oct., 1915), “has turned all philosophy out of doors except
that which clings to its skirts; it has thrown contempt on all learning
that does not depend upon it; and it has bribed the sketches by giving
us immense material comforts.”
Here, however, we are concerned with the fact, rather than the justice,
of this discrimination which the scientific world makes between
philosopher and philosopher. Certain it is that Robinson has received
no end of encomiums from scientists, who apparently lack the literary
gifts to expound their own philosophy, and that his claim to represent
the views of a large and influential section of the scientific world
is, in all probability, entirely correct. It is this manifest approval
of scientific men which lends especial interest to the remarks of
this scientific dilettante, and we shall quote them as expressing the
prevalent scientific view on the origin of man, a view which, with but
slight variations, has persisted from the time of Darwin down to the
present day.
“The recognition,” says Robinson, “that mankind is a species of animal,
is, like other important discoveries, illuminating.” (_Science_, July
28, 1922, p. 74.) To refer to the recognition of man’s animality as
a _discovery_ is a conceit too stupid for mere words to castigate.
Surely, there was no need of the profound research or delicate
precision of modern science to detect the all too obvious similarity
existing between man and beast. Mankind did not have to await the
advent of an “enlightened” nineteenth, or twentieth century to be
assured of the truth of a commonplace so trite and palpable. Even the
“benighted” scholastics of medieval infamy had wit enough to define man
as a rational animal. Indeed, it would be a libel on human intelligence
to suppose that anyone, in the whole history of human thought, was ever
sufficiently fatuous to dispute the patent fact that man is a sentient
organism compounded of flesh, blood, bone, and sinew like the brute.
The “discovery” that man is a species of animal dates from the year one
of human existence, and it is now high time for the novelty of this
discovery to be worn off.
Even as a difficulty against human superiority and immortality, the
“recognition” is by no means recent. We find it squarely faced in
a book of the Old Testament, the entire book being devoted to the
solution of the difficulty in question. “I said in my heart concerning
the estate of the sons of men ... that they might see they are
themselves beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth
beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the
other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no preeminence
above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the
dust, and all return to dust. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it
goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to
the earth?” (_Ecclesiastes_, III: 18-21.) The sacred writer insists
that, so far as the body is concerned, man and the brute stand on the
same level; but what of the human soul? Is it, he asks, resolvable into
matter like the soul of a beast, or is it a supermaterial principle
destined, not for time, but for eternity? At the close of the book, the
conclusion is reached that the latter alternative is the true solution
of the riddle of human nature—“the dust returneth to the earth whence
it was, and the spirit returneth to God who gave it.” (Ch. XII, v. 7.)
Centuries, therefore, before the Christian era, this problem was
formulated by Ecclesiastes, the Jew, and also, as we shall presently
see, by Aristotle, the coryphæus of Greek philosophy. Nay, from time
immemorial man, contrasting his aspirations after immortality with
the spectacle of corporal death, has appreciated to the full the
significance of his own animality. Never was there question of whether
man is, or is not, just as thoroughly an animal as any beast, but
rather of whether, his animal nature being unhesitatingly conceded,
we are not, none the less, forced to recognize in him, over and above
this, the existence of a spiritual mind or soul, differentiating
him from the brute and constituting him a being unique, despite the
unmistakable homologies discernible between bestial organisms and the
human body. Everywhere and always mankind as a whole have manifested,
by the universal and uniquely human practice of burying the dead, their
unswerving and indomitable conviction that man is spirit as well as
flesh, an animal, indeed, yet animated by something not present in the
animal, namely, a spiritual soul, deathless and indestructible, capable
of surviving the decay of the organism and of persisting throughout
eternity.
But, if the human mind or soul is spiritual, it is clear that it cannot
be a product of organic evolution, any more than it can be a product of
parental generation. On the contrary, each and every human soul must
be an immediate creation of the Author of Nature, not evolved from the
internal potentiality of matter, but infused into matter from without.
The human soul is created in organized matter, but not from it. Nor
can the Divine action, in this case, be regarded as a supernatural
interposition; for it supplements, rather than supersedes, the natural
process of reproduction; and, since it is not in matter to produce
spirit, a creative act is demanded by the very nature of things.
Evolution is nothing more nor less than a transmutation of matter,
and a transmutation of matter cannot terminate in the annihilation of
matter and the constitution of non-matter or spirit. If nothing of the
_terminus a quo_ persists in the final product, we have substitution,
and not transmutation. The evolution of matter, therefore, cannot
progress to a point where all materiality is eliminated. Hence,
whatever proceeds from matter, either as an emanation or an action,
will, of necessity, be material. It should be noted, however, that by
material we do not mean corporeal; for material denotes not merely
matter itself, but everything that intrinsically depends on matter.
The term, therefore, is wider in its sense than corporeal, because
it comprises, besides matter, all the properties, energies, and
activities of matter. Hence whatever is incapable of existence and
activity apart from matter (whether ponderable or imponderable) belongs
to the material, as distinguished from the spiritual, order of things.
The soul of a brute, for example, is not matter, but it is material,
nevertheless, because it is totally dependent on the matter of the
organism, apart from which it has neither existence nor activity of its
own.
In the constitution of the sentient or animal soul, matter reaches
the _culmination of its passive evolution_. True, its inherent
physicochemical forces do not suffice to bring about this consummation,
wherewith its internal potentiality is exhausted. Nevertheless, the
emergence of an animal soul from matter is conceivable, given an agency
competent to educe it from the intrinsic potentiality of matter;
for, in the last analysis, the animal soul is simply an internal
modification of matter itself. But, if spirit is that which exists, or
is, at least, capable of existence, apart from matter, it goes without
saying that spirit is neither _derivable_ from, nor _resolvable_ into,
matter of any kind. Consequently, it cannot be evolved from matter,
but must be produced in matter by creation (_i.e._ total production).
_To make the human mind or soul a product of evolution is equivalent
to a denial of its spirituality_, because it implies that the human
soul like that of the brute, is inherent in the potentiality of matter,
and is therefore a purely material principle, totally dependent on
the matter, of which it is a perfection. Between such a soul and the
sentient principle present in the beast, there would be no essential
difference of kind, but only an accidental difference of degree; and
this is precisely what Darwin and his successors have spared no effort
to demonstrate. James Harvey Robinson is refreshingly frank on this
subject, and we will therefore let him be spokesman for those who are
more reticent:
“It is the extraordinarily illuminating discovery (_sic_) of man’s
animalhood rather than evolution in general that troubles the routine
mind. Many are willing to admit that it looks as if life had developed
on the earth slowly, in successive stages; this they can regard as a
merely curious fact and of no great moment if only man can be defended
as an honorable exception. The fact that we have an animal body may
also be conceded, but surely man must have a soul and a mind altogether
distinct and unique from the very beginning bestowed on him by the
Creator and setting him off an immeasurable distance from any mere
animal. But whatever may be the religious and poetic significance of
this compromise it is becoming less and less tenable as a scientific
and historic truth. The _facts_ indicate that man’s _mind_ is quite as
clearly of animal extraction as his body.” (_Science_, July 28, 1922,
p. 95—italics his.)
This language has, at least, the merit of being unambiguous, and leaves
us in no uncertainty as to where the writer stands. It discloses,
likewise, the animus which motivates his peculiar interest in
transformistic theories. If evolution were incapable of being exploited
in behalf of materialistic philosophy, Mr. Robinson, we may be sure,
would soon lose interest in the theory, and would once more align
himself with the company, which he has so inappropriately deserted,
namely, “the routine minds” that regard evolution “as a merely curious
fact of no great moment.” Be that as it may, his final appeal is to
the “facts,” and it is to the facts, accordingly, that we shall go;
but they will not be the irrelevant “facts” of anatomy, physiology,
and palæontology. Sciences such as these confine their attention to
the external manifestations of human life, and can tell us nothing of
man’s inner consciousness. It does not, therefore, devolve upon them
to pronounce final judgment upon the origin of _man_. For that which
is the distinguishing characteristic of man is not his animal nature,
that he shares in common with the brute, but his rational nature, which
alone differentiates him from “a beast that wants discourse of reason.”
We cannot settle the question as to whether or not man’s _mind_ is
“of animal extraction” by comparing his _body_ with the bodies of
irrational vertebrates. To institute the requisite comparison between
the rational mentality of man and the purely sentient consciousness of
irrational animals falls within the exclusive competence of psychology,
which studies the internal manifestations of life as they are presented
to the intuition of consciousness, rather than biology, which studies
life according to such of its manifestations as are perceptible to the
external senses. Hence it is within the domain of psychology alone,
that man can be studied on his distinctively human, or rational, side,
and it is to this science, accordingly, that we must turn in our search
for facts that are germane to the problem of the origin of man and
the genesis of the human mind. How little, indeed, does he know of
human nature, whose knowledge of it is confined to man’s insignificant
anatomy and biology, and who knows nothing of the triumphs of human
genius in literature, art, science, architecture, music, and a thousand
other fields! Psychology alone can evaluate these marvels, and no other
science can be of like assistance in solving the problem of whether man
is, or is not, unique among all his fellows of the animal kingdom.
§ 2. The Science of the Soul
As a distinct science, psychology owes its origin to Aristotle, whose
“_Peri Psyches_” is, in all probability, the first formal treatise on
the subject. Through his father, Nichomachus, who was court physician
to Philip of Macedon, he became acquainted, at an early age, with
biological lore in the form of such medical botany, anatomy, and
physiology as were commonly known in prescientific days. Subsequently,
his celebrated pupil, Alexander the Great, placed at his disposal a
vast library, together with extensive opportunities for biological
research. This enabled the philosopher to criticize and summarize the
observations and speculations of his predecessors in the field, and
to improve upon them by means of personal reflection and research. In
writing his psychology, he was naturally forced to proceed on the basis
of the facts discoverable by internal experience (introspection) and
unaided external observation. Of such facts as are only accessible by
means of instrumentation and systematic experimentation, he could, of
course, know nothing, since their exploration awaited the advent of
modern mechanical and optical inventions. But the factual foundation
of his treatise, though not extensive, was solid, so far as it went,
and his selection, analysis, and evaluation of the materials at hand
was so accurate and judicious, that the broad outlines of his system
have been vindicated by the test of time, and all the results of
modern experimental research fit, with surprising facility, into the
framework of his generalizations, revision being nowhere necessary
save in nonessentials and minor details. Wilhelm Wundt, the Father of
Experimental Psychology, pays him the following tribute: “The results
of my labors do not square with the materialistic hypothesis, nor do
they with the dualism of Plato or Descartes. It is only the animism
of Aristotle which, by combining psychology with biology, results as
a plausible metaphysical conclusion from Experimental Psychology.”
(“Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie,” 4te Auflage, II, C. 23,
S. 633.)
Literally translated, the title of Aristotle’s work signifies a
_treatise concerning the soul_. It set a precedent for the scholastic
doctors of the thirteenth century, and _de anima_ became with them a
technical designation for all works dealing with this theme. In the
sixteenth century the selfsame usage was embalmed in the Greek term
psychology, which was coined with a view to rendering the elliptic
Latin title by means of a single word. Melanchthon is credited with
having originated the term, which, in its original use as well as its
etymology, denoted a science of the _psyche_ or soul.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, however, the meaning of
the term in question began to undergo a marvelous evolution, of which
the end is not yet. The process was initiated by Descartes, under whose
auspices psychology was changed from a science of the _soul_ into a
science of the _mind_. Then, under the influence of Hume and Kant, the
_noumenal mind_ disappeared, leaving only _phenomenal consciousness_.
Recently, with the advent of Watson, even consciousness itself has
been discarded and psychology has become a science of _behavior_.
And here, for the time being, at any rate, the process has come to a
stop, just one step short of complete nihilism. Woodworth quotes the
following waggish comment: “First psychology lost its soul, then it
lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still has behavior of
a kind.” (“Psychology, the Science of Mental Life,” p. 2, footnote.)
This gradual degeneration of psychology from animism into behaviorism
is one of the greatest ironies in the history of human thought. All
of this, however, was latent in the corrosive Cartesian principle of
“scientific doubt.” _Facilis descensus Averni!_ It is easy to question
the validity of this or that kind of human knowledge, but difficult to
arrest, or even foresee, the consequences which the remorseless logic
of scepticism portends.
Disintegration set in, as has been said, when Descartes substituted
his _psychophysical dualism_ of _mind_ and _matter_ for Aristotle’s
_hylomorphic dualism_ of _soul_ and _body_. The French philosopher,
in an appendix to his “Meditations,” which dates from 1670, expressly
rejects the Aristotelian term of soul or _psyche_, and announces his
preference for mind or spirit, in the following words: “The substance
in which thought immediately resides is here called mind (mens,
esprit). I here speak, however, of mens (mind) rather than anima
(soul), for the latter is equivocal, being frequently applied to denote
what is material” (“Reply to the Second Objections,” p. 86). Henceforth
psychology ceased to be a science of the soul, and became, instead, a
science of the mind.
Descartes, one must bear in mind, divided the universe into two great
realms of being, namely: the conscious and the unconscious, the
_psychic_ world of mind and the _physical_ world of matter, unextended
substance which thinks and extended substance which moves. In man
these two substantial principles were conceived as being united by the
tenuous link of mere contact, the spirit or mind remaining separate
from, and unmingled with, its material partner, the body. The main
trouble with this dualism is that it draws the line of demarcation
at the wrong place. Reason and sense-consciousness are bracketed
together above the line as being equally spiritual; physiological
processes and processes purely physicochemical are coupled below the
line as being equally mechanical. Now, when a brain-function such
as sense-perception is introduced, like another Trojan Horse, into
the citadel of spiritualism, it is a comparatively easy task for
materialism to storm and sack that citadel by demonstrating with a
thousand neuro-physiological facts that all sensory functions are
rigidly correlated with neurological processes, that they are, in
short, functions of the nervous system, and therefore purely material
in nature. On the other hand, once we retreat from the trench of
distinction between the processes of unconscious or vegetative life
and the physicochemical processes of the inorganic world, that moment
we have lost the strategic position in the conflict with mechanism,
and nothing avails to stay its triumphant onrush. Hence, from first to
last, it is perfectly clear that the treacherous psychophysical dualism
of Descartes has done far more harm to the cause of spiritualism than
all the assaults of materialism. There is a Latin maxim which says:
_Extrema sese tangunt_—“Extremes come in contact with each other.” The
ultraspiritualism of Descartes by confounding spiritual, with organic
consciousness, leads by the most direct route to the opposite extreme
of crass materialism.
Aristotle’s dualism of matter and form, which is but a physical
application of his transcendental dualism of potency (_dynamis_) and
act (_entelechy_), is very different from the Cartesian dualism of the
physical and the psychic. According to the Aristotelian view, as we
have seen in the last chapter, all the physical entities or substantial
units of nature (both living and inorganic) are fundamentally _dual_
in their essence, each consisting of a definitive principle called
entelechy and a plastic principle called matter. Entelechy is the
integrating determinant, the source of the unit’s coherence and
of its differentiation from units of another type. Matter is the
determinable and quantifying factor, in virtue of which the unit is
potentially-multiple and endowed with mass. In the electro-chemical
reactions of non-living substances (synthesis, analysis, and
transmutation), entelechy is the variant and matter is the constant;
in the metabolic activities of living substances (assimilation and
dissimilation), matter is the variant and entelechy is the constant.
This persistent entelechy of the living unit or organism is what
Aristotle terms the _psyche_ or soul. The latter, therefore, may
be defined as the vital principle or primary source of life in the
organism.
But in using such terms as “soul” and “vital principle” we are
employing expressions against which not merely rabid mechanists,
but many conservative biologists as well, see fit to protest. The
opposition of the latter, however, is found on closer scrutiny to be
_nominal_ rather than _real_. It is the _name_ which offends; they have
no objection to the _thing signified_. Wilson, to cite a pertinent
example, rejects as meaningless all such terms as “vital principle,”
“soul,” etc. “They are words,” he avers, “that have been written into
certain spaces that are otherwise blank in our record of knowledge,
and as far as I can see no more than this.” (“Biology,” p. 23, 1908.)
Yet he himself affirms again and again the existence of the reality
which these terms (understood in their Aristotelian sense) denote.
In discussing the relation of the tissue cell to the multicellular
body, for instance, he speaks of “a formative power pervading the
growing mass as a whole.” (“The Cell,” 2nd ed., p. 59), and, in his
recent lecture on the “Physical Basis of Life,” he makes allusion
to “the integrating and unifying principle in the vital processes.”
(_Science_, March 9, 1923, p. 284.) It would seem, therefore, that
Wilson’s aversion to such terms as soul and vital principle is based
on the _dynamic_ sense assigned to them by the neo-vitalists, who, as
we have seen, regard the vital principle as a force _sui generis_ or
a _unique agent_, which operates intrusively among physicochemical
factors in the rôle of an active or efficient cause of vital functions.
That such is really the case, appears from his rhetorical question:
“Shall we then join hands with the neo-vitalists in referring the
unifying and regulatory principle to the _operation_ of an unknown
power, a directive _force_, an archæus, an entelechy or a soul?” (_Loc.
cit._, p. 285—italics mine.) The objection, however, does not apply
to these terms used in their Aristotelian sense. In the philosophy of
the Stagirite, the soul, like all other entelechies, is a cause in the
_entitive_, but not in the _dynamic_, order of things. Its efficacy is
_formal_, not _efficient_. It is not an agent, but a specifying type.
The organism must be integrated, specified, and existent _before_ it
can operate, and hence its integration and specification by the soul
is prior to all vital activity. The soul is a constituent of being
and not an immediate principle of action. The soul is not even an
entity (in the sense of a complete and separate being), but rather an
incomplete entity or constituent of an entity. It takes a complete
entity to be an agent, and the soul or vital entelechy is not an
independent existent, which is somehow inserted into the organism,
but an incomplete being which has no existence of its own, but only
coexistence, in the composite that it forms with the organism. Nor is
there any such thing as a special vital force resident in the organism.
The executive factors in all vital operations of the organic order are
the physicochemical energies, which are native to matter in general.
These forces, as we have seen, receive a reflexive orientation and are
elevated to a higher plane of efficiency by reason of their association
with an entelechy superior to the binding and type-determining
principles present in inorganic units, but they are not supplanted or
superseded by a new executive force. Wilson’s fear, therefore, that
the experimental analysis of life is discouraged by vitalism, inasmuch
as this conception _subtracts something from the efficiency of the
physicochemical forces_, is groundless in the case of hylomorphic
vitalism, but is well-founded in the case of such systems as the
neo-vitalism of Driesch and the spiritualism of Descartes.
Summing up, therefore, we may say that the soul, like other
entelechies, is consubstantial with its material substrate, the body.
True it is more autonomous than are the inflexible entelechies of
inorganic nature, inasmuch as it is independent of any given atom,
molecule, or cell in the organic aggregate. Such a degree of freedom,
for example, is not possessed by the most complex molecules, which show
no other flexibility than tautomerism, even this small readjustment
involving a change in their specificity. But this autonomy does not
preclude the essential dependence of the soul upon the body. Generally
speaking, the soul is incapable of existence apart from its total
substrate, the organism. We say, _generally speaking_, because, as
previously intimated, an exception must be made in the case of the
_human soul_, which, being, as we shall see, a self-subsistent and
spiritual entelechy, is by itself, apart from its material substrate,
a sufficient subject of existence, and is therefore capable of
surviving the dissolution of its complementary principle, the organism.
Nevertheless, even in man, the soul forms one substance with the
organism, and the organism participates as a coëfficient factor in
all his vital functions, both physiological and psychic, excluding
only the _superorganic_ or _spiritual_ functions of rational thought
and volition, whose agent and recipient is the _soul alone_. In man,
then, soul and body unite to form a single substance, a single nature,
and a single person. Apart from the body, the human soul is, indeed,
a complete entity, in the sense that it is capable of subsistence
(independent existence), but, in another sense, it is not a complete
entity, because apart from the body it cannot constitute a complete
nature or complete personality. It is this essential incompleteness of
the discarnate human soul that forms the natural basis of the Christian
doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead.
Here, however, it is important to note the difference between the
hylomorphic spiritualism of Aristotle and the psychophysical
spiritualism of Descartes. By the latter _all_ conscious or physic
functions are regarded as spiritual. The former, however, recognizes
the fundamental difference which exists between the lower or
animal, and the higher or rational functions of our conscious life.
Sense-perception and sensual emotion belong to the former class, and
must be regarded as _organic_ functions, whose agent and subject is
neither the soul alone nor the organism alone, but the soul-informed
organism or substantial composite of body and soul. Rational thinking
and willing, on the contrary, are classified as _superorganic_ or
_spiritual_ functions, inasmuch as they exclude the coägency of the
organism and have the soul alone for their active cause and receptive
subject.
The soul, in fine, is the formal principle or primary source of the
threefold life in man, namely, the metabolic life, which man shares
with plants, the sentient life, which he shares with animals, and the
rational life, which is uniquely human. The human soul is often spoken
of as the mind. In their dictionary sense, both terms denote one and
the same reality, namely, the human entelechy or vital principle in
man, but the connotation of these terms is different. The term soul
signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the primary source
of every kind of life in man, that is, vegetative, sentient, and
rational. The term mind, however, connoting conscious rather than
unconscious life, signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the
root and ground of our conscious life (both sentient and rational).
Here, however, the distinction is of no great moment, and the terms
may be regarded as synonymous. The definitions which we have given
are, of course, blasphemous in the ears of our modern neo-Kantian
phenomenalists, whose preference is for a _functional_, rather than a
_substantial_, mind or soul; but we will pay our respects to them later.
It is clear, however, from what has been said, that, for evidences of
the superiority and spirituality of the human soul, we must recur,
not to the external manifestations of our nutritive life, but to
the internal manifestations of our conscious life. The latter are
wholly inaccessible to the external senses and perceptible only to the
intuition of consciousness, introspection, or internal experience,
as it is variously called. All our self-knowledge rests on the basis
of introspection, and without it the science of psychology would be
impossible. In fact, not only psychology, but the physical sciences
as well, depend for their validity on the testimony of consciousness;
for the external world is only knowable to the extent that it enters
the domain of our consciousness. Recently, as we have seen, a tendency
to discredit internal experience has arisen among materialistic
extremists. This “tendency,” to quote the words of Keyser, “most
notably represented by the behaviorist school of psychologists (like
Professor Watson, for example), is manifest in the distrust of
introspections as a means of knowledge of mental phenomena and in the
growing dependence of psychology upon external observation of animal
and human behavior and upon physiological experiment, as if matter
were regarded ‘as something much more solid and indubitable than
mind’ (Bertrand Russell).”—C. J. Keyser, _Science_, Nov. 25, 1921,
p. 520. Since, however, all our knowledge depends on the validity of
consciousness, such a tendency is suicidal and destructive of all
science, whether physical or psychological. The attempts, therefore, of
mechanists, like Loeb, and behaviorists, like Watson, to dispense with
consciousness overreach themselves. For how can the mechanists _know_
that there are such things as tropisms, tactisms, or reaction-systems,
how can the behaviorist _study_ such things as “situations,”
“adjustments,” and S-R-bonds, how can the materialist _become aware_
of the existence of molecules and atoms, except through the medium of
their own conscious or psychic states? States of matter can be known
only by means of states of mind, and the former, therefore, cannot
be any more real than the latter. “What, after all,” asks Cardinal
Mercier, “is a fact of nature if the mind has not seized, examined,
and assimilated it? True, the information of consciousness is often
precarious. For this reason we do well to aid and control it by
scientific apparatus. These apparatus, however, can only aid, never
supplant, introspection. The telescope does not replace the eye, but
extends its vision.” (“Relation of Exp. Psych. to Philosophy,” pp. 40,
41—Trans. of Wirth.)
§ 3. The Nature of the Human Soul
Now our inner consciousness bears unmistakable witness to the existence
within us of an abiding subject of our thoughts, feelings, and desires.
In biology, the soul is revealed to us as a binding-principle, that
obstructs dissolution of the organism, and a persistent type that
maintains its identity amid an incessant flux of matter and flow
of energy. Clearer still is testimony of introspective psychology,
which reveals all our psychic activities and states as successive
modifications of this permanent “I,” “self,” “personality,” or “mind,”
according as we choose to express it. Human language proves this
most forcibly; for the intramental facts and data of our conscious
life simply cannot be so much as intelligibly expressed, much less,
defined, or differentiated from the extramental facts of the physical
world, without using terms that include a reference to this selfsame
persistent subject of thought, feeling, and volition. Even inveterate
phenomenalists, like Wundt, James, and Titchener, are obliged to
submit to this inexorable linguistic law, in common with their
unscientific brethren, the generality of mankind, although they do
so only after futile attempts at a “scientific revision” of grammar,
and with much grumbling over the “barbarous conceptions” of the
gross-headed aborigines who invented human language. Be that as it
may, no formulation of mental facts is possible except in terms that
either denote or connote this permanent source and ground of human
thought and feeling, as is apparent, for example, from such phrases
as: “_I_ think,” “_I_ wish,” “_I_ hear”; “_mental_ states” (_i. e._ of
the mind); _psychic_ functions (_i. e._ of the psyche); _subjective_
idealism (_i. e._ of the subject); a _conscious_ act (from _con-scire_:
“to know along with,” because in conscious acts the subject is known
along with the object). The phenomenalists occasionally succeed, in
their “most precise” passages, in omitting to mention the person,
knower, or thinker behind thought, but they do so only at the cost of
substituting _personal pronouns_, and of thus bringing back through
the window what they have just ejected by way of the door. Our
consciousness, therefore, makes us invincibly aware of the _existence_
of a superficially variable, but radically unchangeable, subject of
our mental life. It does not, however, tell us anything concerning the
_nature_ of this primary ground of thought, whether, for example, it is
identical with the cerebral cortex, or something distinct therefrom,
whether it is phenomenal or substantial, dynamic or entitive, spiritual
or material. To decide these questions the unanalyzed factual data of
internal experience do not suffice, but they do suffice to establish
the reality of the ego or subject of thought. Later we shall see that
the analysis of these data, when taken in conjunction with other facts,
forces us to predicate of the soul such attributes as substantiality,
simplicity, and spirituality, but here they are cited solely for their
factual force and not for their logical implications.
The phenomenalistic schools of Interactionism and Psychophysical
Parallelism deny the _substantiality_ of the soul, and seek to resolve
it into sourceless and subjectless processes. A phenomenal mind or
soul, however, could not be the primary ground of mental life, for the
simple reason that phenomena presuppose a supporting medium (otherwise
they would be self-maintaining, and therefore, substantial). Now that
which presupposes cannot be a primary principle, but only a secondary,
or tertiary principle. Consequently, a functional mind could not be
the primary and irreducible ground of mental life, but only that _of
which_ it is a function, whether that something is a material, or a
spiritual substance. For the present, we are not interested in the
nature of this ultimate substrate, we are content with the fact that
it really exists. Phenomenalists (like Wundt, Paulsen, and James)
are very inconsistent when they admit material molecules as the
extended substrate of extramental or physical phenomena, while denying
the existence of the mind or ego as the inextended substrate of
intramental or psychic phenomena. All substance, whether material or
spiritual, is inaccessible to the senses. Even material substrates are
manifested only by their phenomena, being in themselves supersensible
and “metaphysical.” If, then, the human understanding is inerrant in
ascribing a material substrate to extramental phenomena, then it is
equally inerrant in attributing to intramental phenomena the intimate
substrate called mind, whether this substrate be a spiritual substance,
or a material substance like the substrate of physical phenomena
and that of organic life. As a matter of fact, the Psychophysical
Parallelists actually do reduce mental phenomena to a material
substrate (viz. the cerebral cortex). Their phenomenalism, which we
will refute presently, is but a disingenuous attempt to gloss over
their fundamental materialism. At all events, they are willing to admit
an ultimate substantial ground of thought and volition, provided it is
not claimed that this substrate is of a spiritual nature. The _bare
existence_ of some substrate, however, is all that we assert, for the
present.
Before leaving this topic, we wish to call attention to the fact that
the subject of thought and desire is _active_ as well as _passive_.
Mind, in other words, is not merely a persistent medium wherein passive
mental states are maintained, but an active and synthetic principle
as well. Mental processes, like those of judgment, reasoning, and
recognition, require a unitary and unifying principle, which actively
examines and compares our impressions and thoughts, in order to discern
their relations to one another and to itself. Materialistic psychology,
in spite of the plain testimony of consciousness, is all for ignoring
the mind in its _active rôle_ as the percipient of the identities and
discrepancies of thought, and for regarding mind as a mere complex of
mental states or transient flux of fleeting imagery. It is well, then,
to bear in mind the indubitable facts of internal experience, to which
Cardinal Mercier calls attention. “English psychology,” he observes,
“had attempted a kind of anatomy of consciousness. It made all consist
in passive sensations or impressions. These impressions came together,
fused, dissociated under the guidance of certain laws, principally
those of similarity and dissimilarity. The whole process was entirely
passive without the intervention of any active subject. It was
psychology without a soul. Now that things are being examined a little
more closely, psychologists find that there are a lot of conscious
states that are without the slightest doubt active on the part of the
subject. There are a number of mental states upon which the subject
brings his _attention_ to bear, and attention (from _ad-tendere_)
means activity. Ordinarily we do not know the intensity of a sensation
without _comparing_ it with another preceding one. This work of
comparison, or, as the English call it, discrimination, is necessarily
_activity_. The Associationists had confounded the fact of coëxistence
with the perception of similarity or dissimilarity. Supposing even
that the coëxistence of two mental states were entirely passive, it
still remains true that the notion of their similarity or dissimilarity
requires an _act of perception_. It is absolutely impossible to
conceive psychical life without an _active subject_ which _perceives_
itself as living, _notes_ the impressions it receives, _compares_ its
acts, _associates_ and _dissociates_ them; in a word, there can be
no psychology without a perceiving subject which psychologists call
_esprit_, or with the English, ‘mind.’” (_Op. cit._, pp. 52-54—italics
his.)
The conflict between phenomenalism and the clear testimony of
consciousness is summed up in the following words of T. Fontaine: “If
all things are phenomena, then we ourselves can be nothing more than
events unknown to one another; in order, then, that such events may
appear to us united, so that we may be able to declare their succession
within us, it is necessary that something else besides them should
exist; and this something else, this link that binds them together,
this principle that is conscious of their succession, can be nothing
else than a non-event or non-phenomenon, namely, a substance, an ego
substantially distinct from sensations.” (“La sensation et la pensée,”
p. 23.)
For the phenomenalists, mind is but a collective term for the
phenomenal series of our transitory thoughts and feelings. With
Wundt, they discard the substantial or entitive soul for a dynamic or
functional one, “_die aktuelle Seele_.” (Cf. Grundz. der Phys. Psych.,
ed. 5th, III, p. 758 _et seq._) Thought antecedes itself by becoming
its own thinker; for Titchener tells us: “The passing thought would
seem to be the thinker.” (“Pr. of Psych.,” I, p. 342.) We do not think,
but thought thinks; John does not walk, but walking walks; aeroplanes
do not fly, but flight flies; air does not vibrate, but vibration
vibrates. The phenomenalist _objectivates his subjective abstractions_,
divorces processes from their agents, and substantializes phenomena.
The source of his error is a confusion of the ideal, with the real,
order of things. Because it is possible for us _to consider_ a thought
apart from any determinate thinker, by means of a mental abstraction,
he very falsely concludes that it is possible for a thought _to exist_
without a concrete thinker. It would be obviously absurd to suppose
that the so-called Grignard reaction could occur without definite
reactants, merely because we can think of it without specifying any
particular kind of _alkyl halide_; it would be preposterous to infer,
from the fact that vibration can be considered independently of any
concrete medium such as air, water, or ether, that therefore a pure
vibration can exist without any vibrating medium; and it is equally
absurd to project an abstraction like subjectless thought into the
realm of existent reality. Abstractions are ideal entities of the mind;
they can have no real existence outside the domain of thought. Hence
to assign a real or extralogical existence to actions, modalities, and
properties, in isolation from the concrete subjects, to which they
belong, is a procedure that is not legitimate in any other world than
Alice’s Wonderland, where, we are told, the Cheshire Cat left behind
his notorious grin long after his benign countenance had faded from
view. His faceless grin is a fitting comment on the neo-Kantian folly
of those who, as L. Chiesa says, “speak of phenomena without substance,
of sensations without subject, of thoughts without the Ego, to which
they belong, imitating in this way the poets, who personify honor,
virtue, beauty, etc. Now all this proceeds exclusively from a confusion
of the subjective abstraction with the reality, and from the assumption
that the phenomenon, for example, exists without substance, because we
are able (by means of abstraction) to consider the former independently
of the latter.” (“La Base del Realismo,” p. 39.) In other words, the
mind is capable of separating (representatively, of course, and not
physically) its own phenomena from itself, but this is no warrant for
transferring the abstractions thus formed from the ideal, to the real,
order of things.
So much for the soul’s substantiality, but it is a _simple_, as
well as a substantial, principle, that is to say, it is inextended,
uncompounded, incorporeal, and not dispersed into quantitative parts
or particles. In other words, it is not a composite of constituent
elements or complex of integral parts, but something really distinct
from the body and pertaining to a different order of reality than
matter. This, as we have seen, does not necessarily mean that it
is immaterial, in the sense of being intrinsically independent of
matter. In a word, simplicity does not involve spirituality (absolute
immateriality). Not only plant and animal souls, but even mineral
entelechies, are simple, in the negative sense of excluding extension,
corporeality and dispersal into quantitative parts, but they are, none
the less, intrinsically dependent on matter and are therefore material
principles.
That the soul or vital entelechy is really distinct from its material
substrate is apparent from the perennial process of metabolism enacted
in the living organism. In this process, matter is the variant and
entelechy or specific type is the constant. Hence the two principles
are not only distinct, but separable. Moreover, the soul’s rôle as a
binding-principle that obstructs dissolution is incompatible with its
dispersal into quantitative parts; for such a principle, far from being
able to bind, would require binding itself, and could not, therefore,
be the primary source of unification in the organism. Finally, the soul
must be incorporeal; since, if it were a corporeal mass, it could not
be “a formative power pervading the growing mass as a whole” (Wilson);
for this would involve the penetration of one body by another.
Consequently, the soul is a simple, inextended, incorporeal reality
undispersed into quantitative parts.
Introspective psychology bears witness to the same truth; for
consciousness reinforced by memory attests _the substantial permanence
of our personal identity_. We both think and regulate our practical
conduct in accordance with this sense of unchanging personal identity.
All recognition of the past means simply this, that we perceive the
substantial identity of our present, with our past, selves throughout
all the experiences and vicissitudes of life. There is an inmost core
of our being which is unchanging and which remains always identical
with itself, in spite of the flow of thought and the metabolic changes
of the life-cycle. It is this that gives us the sense of being
always identically the same person, from infancy to maturity, and
from maturity to old age. It is this that constitutes the thread of
continuity which links our yesterdays with today, and makes us morally
responsible for all the deliberate deeds of a lifetime. Courts of law
do not acquit a criminal because he is in a different frame of mind
from that which induced him to commit murder, nor do they excuse him on
the score that metabolism has made him a different mass of flesh from
that which perpetrated the crime. Such philosophies as phenomenalism
and materialism are purely academic. Even their advocates dare not
reduce them to consistent practice in everyday life.
Nor can the cases of _alternating personalities_ be adduced as
counterevidence. In the first place, these cases are psychopathic
and not normal. In the second, they are due, not to a modification
of _personality itself_, but to a modification in the _perception of
personality_. Since this perception is, as we shall see, extrinsically
dependent on cerebral imagery, any neuropathic affection is liable
to modify the perception of personality by seriously disturbing
the imagery, on which it depends. But (_pace_ Wundt and James) the
perception of personality is one thing, and personality itself quite
another. Perception does not produce its objects, but presupposes
them, and self-perception is no exception to this rule. Introspection,
therefore, does not create our personality, but reveals and represents
it. If then to the intuition of consciousness our personality appears
as an unchanging principle that remains always substantially identical
with itself, it follows that this perception must be terminated by
something more durable than a flux of transient molecules or a stream
of fleeting thought. Unless this perceptive act has for its object some
unitary and uniformly persistent reality distinct from our composite,
corruptible bodies, and not identified with our transitory thoughts,
this sense of permanent personal identity would be utterly impossible.
Materialism, which recognizes nothing more in man than a decaying
organism, a mere vortex of fluent molecules, is at a loss to account
for our consciousness of being always the same person. Phenomenalism,
which identifies mind or self with the “thought-stream,” is equally
impotent to account for this sense of our abiding sameness.
James’ attempt at a phenomenalistic explanation of the persistent
continuity of self, on the assumption that each passing thought knows
its receding predecessor and becomes known, in turn, by its successor,
is puerile. To pass over other flaws, this absurd theory encounters an
insuperable difficulty in _sleep_, which interrupts, for a considerable
interval, the flow of conscious thought. Thought is a transient
reality, which passes, so far as its actuality is concerned, and can
only remain in the form of a permanent effect. Unless, therefore, there
were some _persistent medium_ in which the last waking thought could
leave a permanent vestige of itself, the process of relaying the past
could never be resumed, and we would lose our personal identity every
twenty-four hours. The mind, or subject of thought, then, must be an
abiding and unitary principle distinct from our composite bodies, and
from our manifold and fleeting thoughts.
Finally, to the two foregoing attributes of the human soul
(substantiality and simplicity), we must add a third and crowning
attribute, namely, _spirituality_. It is this, and this alone, that
differentiates the human from the bestial soul, which latter is but
an incomplete complement of matter, incapable of existence apart from
matter, and doomed to perish with the dissolution of the organism, as
the cylindrical form of a candle perishes with the consumption of the
wax by the flame.
All the psychic activities of the brute, such as sensation,
object-perception, imagination, associative memory, sensual emotion,
etc., are organic functions of the sensitivo-nervous type. In
all of them the agent and recipient is not the soul alone, but
the psycho-organic composite of soul and organism, that is, the
soul-informed sensory and central neurons of the cerebrospinal system.
The sensory neurons are nerve cells that transmit centerward the
excitations of physical stimuli received by the external sense organs
or receptors, in which their axon-fibers terminate. These receptors
and sensory neurons are extended material organs proportioned and
specialized for receiving physical impressions from external bodies,
either directly through surface-contact with the bodies themselves
or their derivative particles (_e.g._ in touch, taste and smell), or
indirectly through surface-contact with an extended vibrant medium such
as air, water, or ether (_e.g._ in hearing and sight). The central
neurons of the cerebral cortex are, as it were, the tablets, upon which
the excitations transmitted thither by the sensory neurons, record the
extended neurograms that constitute the physical basis of the concrete
imagery of memory and imagination. Interior senses, then, like memory
and imagination, merely continue and combine what was preëxistent in
the exterior senses. Their composite imagery is rigidly proportioned
to the extended neurograms imprinted on the cerebral neurons, and
these neurograms, in turn, are determined both qualitatively and
quantitatively by the physical impressions received by the receptors,
and these impressions, finally, are exactly proportioned to the action
of the material stimuli in contact with the receptors. Thus the
composite images of imagination as well as those of direct perception
are proportioned to the underlying neurograms of the cortex and
correspond exactly, as regards quality, intensity, and extensity, to
the original stimulus affecting the external receptors. Hence men born
blind can never imagine color, nor can men born deaf ever imagine
sound. An inextended principle, such as the discarnate soul, cannot
receive or record impressions from extended vibrant media, or from
extended corporeal masses. For this the soul requires the intrinsic
coöperation of material receptors. Now, the highest cognitive and
appetitive functions of the brute (_e.g._ sense-perception and emotion)
are, as has been stated, of the sensitivo-nervous or psycho-organic
type, that is, they are functions in which the material organism
intimately coöperates; brute animals give no indication of having so
much as a single function, which proceeds from the soul alone and
which is not communicated to the organism. Hence the bestial soul is
“totally immersed” in matter; as regards both operation and existence,
it is “intrinsically dependent” upon its material complement, the
organism. It never operates save in conjunction with the latter, and
its _sole reason for existence_ is adequately summed up in saying that
it exists, not for its own sake, but merely _to vivify and sensitize
the organism_. Consequently, the brute soul, though inextended and
incorporeal, belongs, not to the spiritual, but to the material, order
of things.
Is the human soul equally material in nature, or does it belong to the
spiritual category of being? The state of the question has long since
been formulated for us by Aristotle: “A further difficulty,” he says,
“arises as to whether all attributes of the soul are also shared by
that which has the soul or whether any of them are peculiar to the soul
itself: a problem which it is imperative, and yet by no means easy, to
solve. It would appear that in most cases it neither acts nor is acted
upon apart from the body: as, _e.g._, in anger, courage, desire, and
sensation in general. Thought, if anything, would seem to be peculiar
to the soul. Yet if thought is a sort of imagination, or something not
independent of imagination, it will follow that not even thought is
independent of the body. If, then, there be any functions or affections
of the soul that are peculiar to it, it will be possible for the soul
to be separated from the body: if, on the other hand, there is nothing
peculiar to it, the soul will not be capable of separate existence.”
(“Peri Psyches,” Bk. I, chap. I, 9.) We shall see that the human
soul has certain operations which it discharges independently of the
intrinsic coägency of the organism, _e.g._, abstract thought (not to be
confounded with the concrete imagery of the imagination) and deliberate
volition (to be distinguished from the urge of the sensual appetite).
Hence, over and above the organic functions, which it discharges in
conjunction with the material organism, the human soul has superorganic
functions, of which it is itself, in its own right, the exclusive agent
and recipient. In other words, it exists _for its own sake_ and not
merely to perfect the body.
The Aristotelian argument for the spirituality of the human soul
consists in the application of a self-evident principle or axiom to
certain facts of internal experience. The axiom in question is the
following: “The nature of an agent is revealed by its action”; or,
to phrase it somewhat differently: “Every being operates after the
same manner that it exists.” The factual data, to which reference is
made, are man’s higher psychic functions, in which the soul alone
is the active cause and receptive subject, namely: the rational or
superorganic functions of thinking and willing. The argument may be
formulated thus: Every agent exists after the same manner that it
operates. But in rational cognition and volition the soul acts without
the co-agency of the material organism. Therefore the human soul can
exist without the coexistence of the material organism. But this is
tantamount to saying that it is a spiritual reality irreducible to
matter and incapable of derivation from matter. For we define that
as spiritual, which exists, or is, at least, capable of existing,
without matter. Consequently, the human soul is a supermaterial and
immortal principle, which does not need the body to maintain itself in
existence, and can, on that account, survive the death and dissolution
of its material complement, the organism. Such a reality, as we
have seen, cannot be a product of evolution, but can only come into
existence by way of creation.
The axiom, that activity is the expression or manifestation of the
entity which underlies it, needs but little elucidation. In the
genesis of human knowledge, the dynamic is prior to both the static
and the entitive. We deduce the nature of the cause from the changes
or effects that it produces. Action, in short, is the primary datum
upon which our knowledge of being rests. It is the spectrum of solar
light emitted by them, which enables us to determine the nature of
the chemical elements present in the distant Sun. It is the reaction
of an unknown compound with a test reagent that furnishes the chemist
with a clue to its composition and structure. It is the special type
of tissue degeneration caused by the specific toxin engendered by an
invisible disease germ that enables the pathologists to identify the
latter, etc., etc. So much for the axiom. Regarding the psychological
facts, a more lengthy exposition is required. To begin with, there
is _prima facie_ evidence against the contention that the higher
psychic functions in man are independent of the organism. Injury and
degeneration of the cerebral cortex result (very often, at least) in
insanity and idiocy. Reason, therefore, is in some way dependent upon
the organism. Babies, too, are incapable of rational thought until
such a time as the nervous system is fully developed. Obviously,
then, rational functions cannot be spiritual, inasmuch as they are not
independent of the organism.
This time-honored objection of materialists is based on a
misapprehension. It falsely assumes that spirituality excludes _every_
kind of dependence upon a material organism, and that our assertion
of the soul’s independence of matter is an unqualified assertion.
This, however, is far from being the case. It is only _intrinsic_
(subjective), and not _extrinsic_ (objective), independence of the
organism which is here affirmed. An analogy from the sense of sight
will serve to make clear the meaning of this distinction. In the act
of seeing a tree, for example, our sight is dependent upon a twofold
corporeal element, namely, the _eye_ and the _tree_. It is dependent
upon the eye as upon a corporeal element intrinsic to the visual sense,
the eye being a constituent part of the agent and subject of vision;
for it is not the soul alone which sees, but rather the soul-informed
retina and neurons of the psycho-organic composite. The eye enters as
an essential ingredient into the intimate constitution of the visual
sense. It is a _constituent part_ of the _specific cause_ of vision,
and it can therefore be said with perfect propriety that the _eye
sees_. Such dependence upon a material element is called intrinsic or
subjective dependence, and is utterly incompatible with spirituality on
the part of that which is thus dependent. But the dependence of sight
upon an external corporeal factor, like a tree or any other visible
object, is of quite a different nature. Here the corporeal element is
outside of the seeing subject and does not enter as an ingredient into
the composition of the principal and specific agent of vision. True the
tree, which is seen, is coïnstrumental as a provoking stimulus and an
objective exemplar, but its concurrence is of an extrinsic nature, not
to be confounded with the intrinsic co-agency of the eye in the act of
vision. Hence, in no sense whatever can the tree be said to see; for
the tree is merely an object, not the principal and specific cause,
of vision. When the dependence of an agent upon a corporeal element
is of this sort, it is termed extrinsic or objective dependence. Such
dependence upon a material element is _perfectly compatible with
spirituality_, which does, indeed, exclude all materiality from the
specific agent and subject of a psychic act, but does not necessarily
exclude materiality from the object contemplated in such an act. Hence
the fact that the thinking soul must abstract its rational concepts
from the concrete imagery of a cerebral sense, like the imagination,
in no wise detracts from its spirituality, because the dependence of
abstract thought upon such imagery is objective or extrinsic, and not
subjective or intrinsic.
Psychologists of the sensationalist school have striven to obscure
the fundamental distinction which exists between rational thought and
the concomitant cerebral imagery. It is, however, far too manifest
to escape attention, as the healthy reaction of the modern school of
Würzburg indicates. “It cost me great resolution,” says Dr. F. E.
Schultze, a member of this school, “to say, that, on the basis of
immediate experiment, appearances and sensible apprehensions are not
the only things that can be experienced. But finally I had to resign
myself to my fate.” (“Beitrag zur Psychologie des Zeitbewusstseins,” p.
277.)
But thought is not only distinct from imagery, often there is marked
contrast between the two, both as regards subjective, and objective,
characters. Thus our thought may be perfectly clear, precise, and
pertinent, while the accompanying imagery is obscure, fragmentary,
and irrelevant. “What enters into consciousness so fragmentarily, so
sporadically, so very accidentally as our mental images,” exclaims Karl
Bühler (also of Würzburg), “can not be looked upon as the well-knitted,
continuous content of our thinking.” (_Archiv. für die ges. Psychol._,
9, 1907, p. 317.) The same contrast exists with respect to their
objective characters. Imagination represents by means of one and the
same image what reason represents by means of two distinct concepts,
_e.g._ an oasis and a mirage; and, _vice versa_, reason represents
under the single general concept of a rose objects that imagination
is forced to represent by means of two distinct images, _e.g._, a
yellow, and a white rose. Imagery depicts only the superficial or
exterior properties of an object, whereas thought penetrates beneath
the phenomenal surface to interior properties and supersensible
relationships. The sensory percept apprehends the existence of a fact,
while the rational concept analyzes its nature. Hence sense-perception
is concerned with the _reality of existence_, while thought is
concerned with the _reality of essence_.
Certain American psychologists employ the term _imageless thought_
to designate abstract concepts. The expression is liable to be
misunderstood. It should not be construed as excluding all concomitance
and concurrence of sensible imagery, in relation to the process of
thought. What is really meant is that sensible appearances do not make
up the sum-total of our internal experiences, but that we are also
aware of mental acts and states which are not reducible to imagery.
In other words, we experience thought; and thought and imagery,
though concomitant, are not commensurable. The clarity and coherence
of thought does not depend on the clarity or germaneness of the
accompanying imagery, nor is it ever adequately translatable into terms
of that imagery. Thus the universal triangle of geometry, which is not
right, nor oblique, nor isosceles, neither scalene nor equilateral,
neither large nor small, neither here nor there, neither now nor then,
is not visualizable in terms of concrete imagery, although we are
clearly conscious of its significance in geometrical demonstrations.
Imagery differs according to the person, one man being a visualist,
another an audist, another a tactualist, another a motor-verbalist,
etc. But thought is the same in all, and consequently it is thought,
and not imagery, which we convey by means of speech. Helen Keller,
whose imagery is mainly motor and tactile, can exchange views with an
audist or visualist on the subject of geometry, even though the amount
of imagery which she has in common with such persons is negligible.
“_Eine Bedeutung_,” says Bühler, “_kann man überhaupt nicht vorstellen,
sondern nur wissen_,” and Binet, in the last sentence of his “L’Étude
expérimentale de l’intelligence,” formulates the following conclusion:
“Finally—and this is the main fact, fruitful in consequences for the
philosophers—the entire logic of thought escapes our imagery.”
Nevertheless, thought does not originate in the total absence of
imagery, but requires a minimal substrate of sensible images, upon
which it is objectively, if not subjectively, dependent. The nature
of this objective dependence is explained by the Scholastic theory
concerning the origin of concepts. According to this theory, the
genesis of our general and abstract knowledge is as follows: (1) We
begin with sense-perception, say of boats differing in shape, size,
color, material, location, etc. (2) Imagination and sense-memory retain
the composite and concrete imagery synthesized or integrated from the
impressions of the separate external senses and representing the boats
in all their factual particularity, individuality, and materiality,
as existent here and now, or there and then, as constructed of such
and such material (_e.g._, of wood, or steel, or iron, or concrete),
as having determinate sizes, shapes, and tonnages, as painted white,
or gray, or green, as propelled by oar, or sail, or turbine, etc. (3)
Then the _active intellect_ exerts its abstractive influence upon this
concrete imagery, accentuating the essential features which are common
to all, and suppressing the individuating features which are peculiar
to this or that boat, so that the essence of a boat may appear to the
_cognitive intellect_ without its concomitant individuation—the essence
of a boat being, in this way, isolated from the peculiarities thereof
and its various qualities from their subject (representatively, of
course, and not physically). (4) The imagery thus predisposed, being
no longer immersed in matter, but dematerialized by the dispositive
action of the active intellect, becomes coïnstrumental with the
latter in producing a determination in the cognitive intellect. (5)
Upon receiving this determination, the cognitive intellect, which
has hitherto been, as it were, a blank tablet with nothing written
upon it, reacts to express the essence or nature of a boat by means
of a spiritual representation or concept—the abstractive act of the
active intellect is _dispositive_, inasmuch as it _presents_ what
is common to all the boats perceived without their differentiating
peculiarities; the abstractive act of the cognitive intellect,
however, is _cognitive_, inasmuch as it _considers_ the essence of a
boat without considering its individuation. Such is the abstractive
process by which our general and abstract concepts are formed. From a
comparison of two concepts of this sort the process of judgment arises,
and from the comparison of two concepts with a third arises the process
of mediate inference or reasoning. Volition, too, is consequent upon
conception, and hence an act of the will (our rational appetite), such
as the desire of sailing in a boat, entails the preëxistence of some
conceptual knowledge of the nature of a boat. Volition, therefore,
presupposes thought, and thought presupposes imagination, which
supplies the sensible imagery that undergoes the aforesaid process
of analysis or abstraction. Such imagery, however, is a function of
the cerebral cortex, and, for this reason, the normal exercise of the
imagination presupposes the cerebral cortex in a normal physiological
condition; and anything that disturbs this normal condition of the
cortex will directly disturb the imagery of the imagination, and
therefore indirectly impede the normal exercise of conceptual thought,
which is abstracted from such imagery. Hence it is clear that the
activity of both the intellect and the will is objectively dependent
upon the organic activity of the imagination, and, in consequence,
_indirectly_ dependent upon the physiological condition of the cerebral
cortex, which is the organ of the imagination. Since, however, this
dependence is objective rather than subjective, it does not, as we have
seen, conflict with the spirituality of rational thought.
The nature of conceptual thought is such as to exclude the
participation of matter as a constituent of its specific agent
and receptive subject. The objects of a cerebral sense like the
imagination are endowed with extension, color, shape, volume, mass,
temperature, and other physical properties, in virtue of which they
can set up vibrations in an extended medium or modify an extended
organ by immediate physical contact. But, while imagination makes
us conscious of objects capable of stimulating extended material
organs, the objects, of which we are conscious in abstract thinking,
are divested of all the sensible properties, extension, and specific
energies, which would enable them to modify a material neuron, or
produce a physical impression upon a material receptor of any kind
whatever. Between an extended material receptor, like a sense-organ or
a cerebral neuron, and the nondimensional, dematerialized object or
content of an abstract thought, like science, heroism, or morality,
there is no conceivable proportion. How can a material organ be
affected by what is supersensible, unextended, imponderable, invisible,
intangible, and uncircumscribed by the limitations of space and time?
Extended receptors are necessary for picking up the vibrations of a
tridimensional medium (like air or ether), and they are, likewise,
essential for the reception of impressions produced by surface-contact
with an exterior corporeal mass. In short, sensory neurons are needed
to receive and transmit inward the quantitative and measurable
excitations of the material stimuli of the external world, and central
neurons are required as tablets upon which these incoming excitations
may imprint _extended neurograms_, that are proportionate in intensity
and extensity to the external stimulus apprehended, and that underlie
and determine the concrete imagery (of which they are the physical
basis). But when it comes to perceiving and representing the _meaning_
of duty, truth, error, cause, effect, psychology, means, end, entity,
logarithms, etc., our mind can derive no benefit from the coöperation
of a material organ. In such thinking we are conscious of that which
could not make an impression nor leave a record upon material receptors
like neurons. To employ a material organ for the purpose of perceiving
abstract essences and qualities would be as futile and pointless as an
attempt to stop a nondimensional, unextended, intangible baseball with
a catcher’s glove. Hence the services of material centers and receptors
may be dispensed with, so far as rational thought is concerned.
Rational thought cannot utilize the intrinsic coägency of the organism,
and it is therefore a superorganic or spiritual function.
That conceptual thought is in no wise communicated to the organism,
but subjected in the spiritual soul alone, is likewise apparent from
the data furnished by introspection. The conceiving mind apprehends
even material objects according to an abstract or spiritualized mode
of representation. In other words, in conceiving material objects
we expurgate them of their materiality and material conditions,
endowing them with a dematerialized mode of mental existence which
they could never have, if subjected in their own physical matter, or
in the organized matter of the cerebral cortex. Thus, in forming our
concept of a material object like a boat, we spiritualize the boat
by separating (representatively, of course, and not physically) its
nature or essence from the determinate matter (_e.g._, wood, or steel)
of which it is made, and by divesting it of the material and concrete
conditions which define not only its physical existence outside of
us, but also its imaginal existence within us as a concrete image
in our imagination. In other words, we isolate the type or form of
a given object from its material substrate and liberate it from the
limiting material and concrete individuation, which confine it to a
single material subject and localize it definitely in space and time.
Now, it is axiomatic that whatever is received is received according
to the nature of the receiver. Water, for example, assumes the form
of the receptacle into which it is poured, and a picture painted
upon canvas is necessarily extended according to the extension of
the canvas. If, therefore, our intellect endows even the material
objects, which it perceives, with a dematerialized or spiritualized
mode of representation, it follows that the intellect itself is a
spiritual power and not an organic sense immersed in concretifying
and individualizing matter. Certainly, this ideal or spiritualized
mode of existence does not emanate from the material object without
nor yet from its vicarious material image in our organic imagination
(which, in point of fact, is absolutely impotent to imagine anything
except concrete, singular things in all their determinate individuation
and quantification). Thought, then, with its _abstract mode of
presentation_, cannot, like imagery, be subjected in the animated or
soul-informed cortex, but must have the spiritual mind alone as its
receptive subject. Our abstract or dematerialized mode of conceiving
material objects is a subjective character of thought, proceeding from,
and manifesting, the spirituality of the human mind, which represents
even material objects in a manner that accords with its own spiritual
nature.
But it is not only in the process of abstraction, but also in that
of _reflection_, that rational thought manifests its superorganic or
spiritual character. The human mind knows that it knows and understands
that it understands, thinks of its own thoughts and of itself as
the agent and subject of its thinking. It is conscious of its own
conscious acts, that is to say, it reflects upon itself and its own
acts, becoming an object to itself. The thinking ego becomes an
object of observation on the part of the thinking ego, which acquires
self-knowledge by this process of reflective thought. In introspection,
that which observes is identical with that which is observed. Now such
a capacity of self-observation cannot reside in matter, cannot be
spatially commensurate with a material organ nor inseparably attached
thereto. It is possible only to an immaterial or spiritual principle,
devoid of mass and extension, and not subject to the law of the
impenetrability of matter. In virtue of the law of impenetrability,
no two material particles, no two bodies, no two integral parts of the
same body, can occupy one and the same place. One part of a body can,
indeed, act on another part extrinsic to itself; but one and the same
part or particle cannot act upon itself. To become at once observed
and observer, a material organ would have to split itself in two, so
that the part watched could be distinct from, and spatially external
to, the part watching. The power of perfect reflection, therefore, must
reside in the spiritual soul, and cannot be bound to, and coëxtensive
with, a material organ. Only in this supposition can there be a return
of the subject upon and into itself, only in this supposition can
there be that identification of observed and observer implied by the
process of reflection. H. Gründer, in his “Psychology without a Soul,”
gives a graphic _reductio ad absurdum_ of the contrary assumption:
“A fairy tale,” he says, “tells of a knight who was beheaded by his
victorious foe. But, strange to relate, the vanquished knight rose to
his feet, seized his severed head and bore it off, as in triumph. The
most remarkable part, however, of the story is that with a last effort
of gallantry he took his own head, and—kissed its brow. The climax of
this fairy tale is no more absurd than the assumption that a material
organ can know itself and philosophize on itself. Only if we admit with
the scholastics a simple soul intrinsically independent of any bodily
organism, can we explain the possibility of perfect psychological
reflexion.” (_Cf._ pp. 193, 194.)
For the rest the impossibility of introspection on the part of a
material organ is so evident that the materialists themselves freely
concede it, and being unwilling to admit the spirituality of the human
intellect, they are forced to resort to the disingenuous expedient
of denying the _fact_ of reflection on the part of the human mind.
“It is obvious,” says Auguste Comte, “that by an invincible necessity
the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own. We
understand that a man can observe himself as a moral agent, because
in that case he can watch himself under the action of the passions
which animate him, precisely because the organs that are the seat
of those passions are distinct from those that are destined for the
functions of observation.... But it is manifestly impossible to observe
intellectual phenomena whilst they are being produced. The individual
thinking cannot divide himself in two, so that one half may think
and the other watch the process. Since the organ observing and the
one to be observed are identical, there can be no self-observation.”
(“Cours de philosophie positive,” lière leçon.) But an argument is
of no avail against a fact, and, as a matter of fact, we do reflect.
It is by introspection or reflective thought that we discriminate
between our present and our past thoughts, and become conscious of our
own consciousness. Our intellect even reflects upon its own act of
reflection, and so on indefinitely, so that, unless we are prepared
to accept the absurd alternative of an infinite series of thinkers,
we have no choice but to identify the subject knowing with the
subject known. That our intellect is conscious of its own operations
and attentive to its own thoughts, is an evident fact of internal
experience, and it is preposterous to tilt against facts by means
of syllogisms. When Zeno concocted his aprioristic “proof” of the
impossibility of translatory movement, his sophism was refuted by the
simple process of walking—_solvitur ambulando_. In like manner, the
Comtean sophism concerning the impossibility of reflection is refuted
by the simple act of mental reflection—_solvitur reflectendo_. For the
rest, we readily concede Comte’s contention that an organ is incapable
of reflection or self-observation, but we deny his tacit assumption
that our cognitive powers are _all_ of the organic type. Our intellect,
which attends to its own phenomena, thinks of its own thought and
reasons upon its own reasoning, cannot be bound to, or coextensive
with, a material organ, but must be free from any corporeal organ and
rooted in a spiritual principle. In a word, reflective thought is a
superorganic function expressing the spiritual nature of the human mind.
Another proof of the superorganic nature of the human intellect as
compared with sentiency, both exterior and interior, is one adduced by
Aristotle himself: “But that the impassivity of the sense,” he says,
“is different from that of intellect is clear if we look at the sense
organs and at sense. The sense loses its power to perceive, if the
sensible object has been too intense; thus it cannot hear sound after
very loud noises, and after too powerful colors or odors it can neither
see nor smell. But the intellect, when it has been thinking on an
object of intense thought, is not less, but even more, able to think of
inferior objects. For sense-perception is not independent of the body,
whereas the intellect is.” (“Peri Psyches,” Bk. III, Ch. iv, 5.)
This temporary incapacitation of the senses consequent upon powerful
stimulation is a common experience embalmed in such popular expressions
as “a deafening noise,” “a blinding flash,” “a dazzling light,” “a
numbing pain,” etc. Weber’s law of the differential threshold tells
us that the intensity of sensation does not increase in the same
proportion as that of the stimulus. On the contrary, the more intense
the previous stimulus has been, the greater must be the increment
added to the subsequent stimulus before it can produce a perceptible
increase in the intensity of sensation. In short, stimulation of the
senses temporarily decreases their sensitivity with reference to
supervening stimuli. The reason for this momentary loss of the power to
react normally is evidently due to the organic nature of the senses.
Their activity entails a definite and rigidly proportionate process
of destructive metabolism in their bodily substrate, the organism. In
other words, the exercise of sense-perception involves a commensurate
process of decomposition in the neural tissue, which must afterwards
be compensated by a corresponding assimilation of nutrient material,
before the sense can again react with its pristine vigor. This process
of recuperation requires time and temporarily inhibits the reactive
power of the sense in question, the duration of this repair work being
determined by the amount of neural decomposition caused by the reaction
of the sense to the previous stimulus. When, therefore, a weaker
stimulus supervenes in immediate succession to a stronger one, the
sense is incapable of perceiving it. All organic activity, in short,
such as sense-perception and imagination, is rigidly regulated by the
metabolic law of waste and repair.
With the intellect, however, the case is quite different. The intellect
is neither debilitated nor stupefied by the discovery of truths that
are exceptionally profound, or unusually abstruse, or strikingly
evident; nor is it temporarily incapacitated thereby from understanding
simpler, easier, or less evident truths. On the contrary, the more
comprehensive, the more penetrating, the more perspicuous, the more
sublime our intellectual vision is, so much the more is our intellect
invigorated and enthused in its pursuit of truth, and its knowledge
of the highest truths renders it not less, but more, apt for the
understanding of simple and ordinary truths. Obviously, then, the
intellect is not bound to a corruptible organ like the senses, but has
for its subject a spiritual principle that is intrinsically independent
of the organism.