parallelism. But it shall be very brief. The sooner this cumbrous term
with its misleading suggestions is altogether eliminated from the
vocabulary of science the better. The locus of the so-called parallelism
is, we are told, the cortex of the brain. But the cortical process is
only an incident--no doubt a very important one, but still an
incident--in a much wider physiological process, the occurrence of
which, in what we may speak of as primary cognition, implies events in
the external world. It is of these events that there is direct physical,
physiological, and cognitive knowledge. Of course there are also
inter-cortical relations which underlie the relations of those ideal
cognita (Spencer's faint class) that supplement the primary cognita
which imply direct stimulation of sensory receptors (Spencer's vivid
class). It is questionable whether any form of cognition, properly so
called, is possible in their absence. Now I see no objection to
labelling the fact (if it be a fact) that the cognitive process implies
a physiological process in which, as in a larger whole, the cortex
plays its appropriate part, by the use of some such convenient
correlation-word as psycho-physical; but only so long as this does not
involve a doctrine of parallelism; so long as it merely means that
cognition implies, let us say, certain underlying cortical changes. Of
course it implies a great deal more than cortical process only; but this
may perhaps be taken for granted. My chief objection to the word
'parallelism' is that it suggests two separate orders of being, and not
two types of relationship within one order of being for scientific
study.[75] We do not speak of parallelism between physiological and
physico-chemical processes. We just say that scientific interpretation
proceeds on the working hypothesis that there is a correlation of such a
kind that physiological process implies a physico-chemical basis. So
too, I urge, we should be content to say that scientific interpretation
proceeds on the working hypothesis that there is a correlation of such a
kind that cognitive process implies a physiological basis.
It may be said that Spencer accepted the so-called identity hypothesis
which does not lie open to the objection that it suggests two orders of
being. He believed[76] 'that mind and nervous action are the subjective
and objective faces of the same thing', though 'we remain utterly
incapable of seeing or even imagining how the two are related'. Well, we
may call them in one passage the same thing, we may speak, in another
passage, of the antithesis between them as never to be transcended, and
we may try to save the situation by reference to duality of aspect. But
this kind of treatment does not help as much towards a scientific
interpretation. It is true that, in yet another passage, speaking of the
correlation of the physical and the psychical, Spencer says:[77] 'We can
learn nothing more than that here is one of the uniformities in the
order of phenomena.' Then why not leave it at that? And if there be a
constant and uniform correlation which is 'in a certain indirect way
quantitive', it would seem that we _do_ see, as far as science ever
professes to see, 'how the two are related.' We see, or conceive, how
they are related in much the same way as we do in the case of the
connexion between the physiological and the physico-chemical, and in
numberless other cases. Both parallelism and identity will have to go by
the board in a philosophy of science. They must be replaced by the far
more modest hypothesis, which seems to express all that they really mean
for science, that cognition always implies certain physiological
processes in the organism.
If we do speak of mind and nervous action as two faces of the same
thing, it seems pretty certain that the one face is not directly aware
of the other. When we speak of awareness in cognition we must therefore,
it appears, exclude any direct awareness of concurrent physiological
processes. Of what, then, is there awareness? Primarily perhaps of some
occurrence in the external world. But the difficulty here is that, in
the simplest case of human cognition there is awareness of so many
things and in such varying degrees. There may be primary awareness of
events in the external world (Spencer's vivid series), awareness of the
relations involved in these occurrences as such, of the relations of
these to ideal re-presentations of like kind (Spencer's faint series),
of the relations of any or all of these to behaviour as actually taking
place or as ideally re-presented; and all in different degrees within a
relational meshwork of bewildering complexity, which we have not, as
yet, adequately unravelled. The essential point to bear in mind is that
the cognitive relation always involves relatedness of _many terms_, and
that its discussion involves the analysis of what, in the higher phases
of its existence, is probably the most complex natural occurrence in
this complex world.
I cannot here follow up further the difficult problem of
cognition[78]--save to add one or two supplementary remarks. First: it
is, I suppose, fairly obvious that any given field of cognitive
relatedness comprises _all_ that is then and there selectively cognized.
Just as, in the very extended sense of the word 'knowledge', the earth
knows, in gravitative fashion, the whole solar system, as does also any
one of the planets, so, in the restricted sense, is knowledge
co-extensive with all that is, selectively, in cognitive relationship
with the organism or that part of the organism which is the locus of
awareness. I speak here of the locus of awareness in just the same sense
as I might speak of the earth as a locus of gravitative knowledge of the
solar system. The locus of awareness is just a specialized portion of
the whole relational web. In other words, the relatedness is of the
part-whole kind, where whole means rest of the whole other than the
specific part. In any such integrated system the part implies the
whole--which, by the way, is quite a different matter from saying that
the part includes the whole, or, as I understand the words, is
equivalent to the whole. But, whereas gravitative knowledge is
reciprocal--the sun knowing the earth in the same fashion as the earth
knows the sun--cognitive knowledge is not reciprocal. My cognitive
awareness of a spinning-top does not imply that the spinning-top is in
like manner aware of me. The part knows the whole in a way that the
whole does not know the part. The relationship of the part to the rest
of the whole is not reciprocal or symmetrical. This we must just accept
as a given feature of cognitive relatedness.[79]
Another very important point is that cognitive relatedness is
effective. By this I mean that just as, when the earth is in gravitative
relation to the sun and the other planets (the constitution of nature
being what it is), changes take place because the parts of the system as
a whole are in this field of effective relatedness; so too, when the
organism is in cognitive relation to its environment, changes in this
system also take place just because a part of the whole system is in
cognitive relatedness to the rest of the system. That means that the
cognitive relation really counts--that it is not merely an epiphenomenal
accompaniment of changes which would be precisely the same if it were
absent. The 'sum of energy' presumably remains constant. There is no
necessary interference with physical principles. But we know of so many
cases in which the direction of change may be changed without any
alteration of the 'amount of energy', as the phrase goes, that I see no
reason, based on physical science,[80] for denying this kind of
effectiveness, within a field of cognitive relatedness, if the facts
seem indubitably to point to its existence. To assert that the presence
or absence of cognitive relatedness makes absolutely no difference
appears to me, I confess, little short of preposterous; to urge that it
may be brought under the rubric of physico-chemical relatedness surely
involves the ignoring of differentiating features, which science should
not ignore. But, on the other hand, to invoke an immaterial psychic
entity[81]--unless this merely names the relatedness itself[82] as
gravitation names the gravitative relatedness--appears to me quite
unwarranted in the scientific universe of discourse.[83]
I must, however, draw to a conclusion. I cannot but think that Spencer
failed to bring cognition and the conscious awareness it involves into
really close touch with the rest of his philosophy of science. No such
double-aspect theory as he accepted affords a satisfactory avenue of
scientific approach. But where Spencer failed, who has come within
measurable sight of success? We are only just beginning to see our way
to stating the problem in such a form as to bring it within the purview
of science. What we must insist on, as followers, at a distance, of
Herbert Spencer, is the treatment of this type of relatedness on lines
similar to our treatment of other types of relatedness within one order
of nature.
Surveying his work as a whole, we may confidently assert that Spencer
brought to a conclusion a great task, and was himself great in its
execution. The present generation can, perhaps, hardly realize how
potent his influence was on the thought of the latter half of the last
century. Many of his conclusions ran counter to those which were, in his
day, widely accepted. If only they seemed to him to be true, however, he
held to them with a tenacity which his opponents branded as obstinacy.
But as he himself said:
'It is not for nothing that a man has in him sympathies with some
principles and repugnance to others. He, with all his capacities,
and aspirations, and beliefs, is not an accident but a product of
his time. While he is a descendant of the past he is a parent of
the future; and his thoughts are as children born to him, which he
may not carelessly let die. Not as adventitious therefore will the
wise man regard the faith that is in him. The highest truth he
sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of
it, he is thus playing his right part in the world.'[84]
NOTES
[1] _Fragments of Science_, vol. ii, p. 132.
[2] _Essays_, vol. i (American reprint), p. 3.
[3] _Op. cit._, p. 32.
[4] _Op. cit._, p. 58.
[5] Cf. W. K. Clifford, _Lectures and Essays_, vol. i, p. 95.
[6] _More Letters_, vol. ii, p. 235.
[7] _Memories and Studies_, p. 139.
[8] _Ibid._, p. 140.
[9] _Autobiography_, vol. i, p. 212.
[10] James, _op. cit._, p. 124.
[11] _Autobiography_, vol. i, p. 211.
[12] _First Principles_, Sixth (Popular) Edition, p. 446 (hereafter F.
P.).
[13] _Principles of Psychology_, Third Edition, vol. i, p. 508
(hereafter Ps.).
[14] Ps., vol. i, p. 627.
[15] _Ibid._, p. 158.
[16] F. P., p. 155.
[17] Ps., vol. ii, p. 484.
[18] There is '_intrinsic_ force by which a body manifests itself as
occupying space, and that _extrinsic_ force distinguished as energy'. F.
P., p. 150.
[19] 'Divest the conceived unit of matter of the objective correlate to
our subjective sense of effort and the entire fabric of physical
conceptions disappears.' F. P., p. 151 note. Cf. Ps., vol. ii, pp. 237,
239.
[20] F. P., p. 171.
[21] e.g. 'Social changes take directions that are due to the joint
actions of citizens determined as are those of all other changes wrought
by the composition of forces.' 'The flow of capital into business
yielding the largest returns, the buying in the cheapest market and
selling in the dearest, the introduction of more economical modes of
manufacture, the development of better agencies for distribution,
exhibit movements taking place in directions where they are met by the
smallest totals of opposing forces.' F. P., pp. 193-6.
[22] _Creative Evolution_, English translation, p. 53.
[23] _Op. cit._, pp. 385, 6.
[24] According to Dr. Carr's interpretation of M. Bergson, 'The whole
world, as it is presented to us and thought of by us, is an illusion.
Our science is not unreal, but it is a transformed reality. The
illusions may be useful, may, indeed, be necessary and indispensable,
but nevertheless it is illusion.' _Problem of Truth_, p. 66.
[25] _Creative Evolution_, p. 389.
[26] 'But, when I posit the facts with the shape they have for me
to-day, I suppose my faculties of perception and intellection such as
they are in me to-day; for it is they that portion the real into lots,
they that cut the facts out of the whole of reality.' C. E., p. 389.
[27] _Creative Evolution_, p. 389.
[28] _Op. cit._, p. 387.
[29] _Introduction to Metaphysics_, English translation, p. 8 and
_passim_.
[30] e.g. 'Organisation can only be studied scientifically if the
organised body has first been likened to a machine.' C. E., p. 98.
Science is, I think, generally used by M. Bergson for _intellectual_
knowledge in contradistinction to intuitional knowledge.
[31] F. P., p. 184.
[32] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 14.
[33] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 366.
[34] F. P., p. 156.
[35] 'There remained to assign a reason for that increasingly-distinct
demarkation of parts, &c.... This reason we discovered to be the
segregation, &c.... This cause of the definiteness of local
integrations, &c.' F. P., p. 440.
[36] F. P., p. 43.
[37] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 47.
[38] F. P., p. 176.
[39] F. P., p. 154.
[40] _Proceedings Aristotelian Society_, 1912-13, p. 1.
[41] _Popular Scientific Lectures_, English translation, p. 254.
[42] _Lectures and Essays_, vol. i, p. 111.
[43] 'But when we ask what this energy is, there is no answer save that
it is the noumenal cause implied by the phenomenal effect.' F. P., p.
154. It is towards this and like statements that my criticism is
directed. There can be no objection to the treatment, by physicists, of
energy as an entity in the sense given below in note 82. Those phenomena
to which 1/2 _mv_^{2} has reference are fundamental realities for
physical science.
[44] In a statement of the law of gravitation we may substitute the
words 'in a degree' for 'with a force'; we may speak of 'the measure of
attraction' instead of 'the force of attraction'.
[45] _System of Logic_, Bk. III, ch. v, Sec. 3, Eighth Edition, vol. i,
p. 383.
[46] _Ibid._, Sec. 3 and Sec. 5, pp. 379 and 389.
[47] Ps., vol. ii, p. 93; cf. p. 97. One has now, however, to add the
realm of subsistence.
[48] As a more technical example the following may be given:--The
difference in properties of isomers is caused by difference of internal
molecular structure notwithstanding identity of chemical composition.
[49] If we take spark as cause and explosion as effect there is
obviously no proportionality between the cause and its effect. Thus M.
Bergson speaks of the spark as 'a cause that acts by releasing'; and he
adds that 'neither quality nor quantity of effect varies with quality or
quantity of the cause: the effect is invariable'. _Creative Evolution_,
p. 77. Compare what Spencer introduced into the Sixth edition of F. P.
(pp. 172-3), concerning 'trigger action which does not produce the power
but liberates it'. According to the treatment in the text there can be
no 'proportionality' unless both ground and conditions are taken into
account.
[50] Spencer says (F. P., pp. 169-70) that 'the transformation of the
unorganised contents of an egg into the organised chick is a question of
heat' ['altogether a question of heat', in the Third Edition], and tells
us that 'the germination of plants presents like relations of cause and
effect as every season shows'. But he also says that 'the proclivities
of the molecules determine the typical structure assumed'. Obviously
here the 'heat supplied' falls under (3) of the text, and 'the
proclivities of the molecules' is his notion of what should fall under
(2).
[51] See Index to F. P., _sub verbo_ 'integration'.
[52] e. g. 'Diminish the velocities of the planets and their orbits will
lessen--the solar system will contract, or become more integrated.'
_Essays_, vol. iii, p. 28. Mere condensation is often spoken of as
integration. But then the term is used with bewildering laxity. Cf.
James, _Memories and Studies_, p. 134.
[53] I retain in this connexion the current term physico-chemical. It
seems that the basal type of relatedness here is electrical. It may be
said that when we come down to the atom the _things in_ relation are
electrical, are electrons, are positive and negative charges. So be it.
But is it not the _electrical relatedness_ that is constitutive of the
atom as such?
[54] 'A large number of physical properties', says Nernst, 'have been
shown to be clearly additive; that is, the value of the property in
question can be calculated as though the compound were such a mixture of
its elements that they experience no change in their properties.' But
other properties are not additive. 'The kind of influence of the atom in
a compound is primarily dependent on the mode of its union, that is,
upon the constitution and configuration of the compound. Such
non-additive properties may be called constitutive.' Quoted by E. G.
Spaulding in _The New Realism_, p. 238.
[55] _System of Logic_, vol. i, Bk. III, ch. vi.
[56] _Problems of Life and Mind_, Series II, p. 212.
[57] Of course if a particular physico-chemical change (_a_) is
correlated with a particular physiological or vital change (_b_), then
(_b_) implies (_a_) as (_a_) implies (_b_). The statement in the text
refers to the implications of classes of change. There may be
physico-chemical relatedness without any correlated vital relatedness;
but there does not appear to be any vital relatedness which is not
correlated with physico-chemical relatedness.
[58] _Essays_, vol. iii, pp. 31, 55.
[59] Ps., vol. ii, p. 484.
[60] F. P., p. 178.
[61] An ordinal correlation is one that couples every term of a series
(_a_) with a specific term of another series (_b_) and _vice versa_ in
the same order in each. Cf. Spaulding in _The New Realism_, p. 175. I
shall sometimes speak of such correlation as serial.
[62] _Principles of Biology_, Edition of 1898, pp. 117, 120.
[63] _Op. cit._, p. 122.
[64] Ps., vol. i, p. 208.
[65] F. P., p. 61. Cf. Ps., vol. i, p. 134.
[66] Ps., vol. i, p. 132. James well says 'Spencer broke new ground here
in insisting that, since mind and its environment have evolved together,
they must be studied together. He gave to the study of mind in isolation
a definite quietus, and that certainly is a great thing to have
achieved'. _Memories and Studies_, p. 140.
[67] Ps., vol. i, p. 206.
[68] Ps., vol. i, p. 124.
[69] F. P., p. 120. Ps., vol. ii, p. 472. Cf. Ps., vol. i, p. 98.
[70] The word underlying is used in the sense of occupying a lower
position in the logical hierarchy above indicated. If any one likes to
speak of the physico-chemical and the vital as two aspects of one
process, he is free to do so. And if he likes to say that the vital is
caused by the physico-chemical, let him do so; but he must define the
exact sense in which he uses the ambiguous word cause. The word inner in
the text means within the organism.
[71] See S. Alexander, 'On Relations: and in particular the Cognitive
Relation.' _Mind._, vol. xxi, N. S., No. 83, p. 318.
[72] I have avoided the use of the word determine. It would be well to
distinguish between that which is _determined_ from without, that is,
conditioned, and that which is _determinate_, that is, grounded in the
constitution. I am here, I think, in line with Bosanquet. (See
_Principle of Individuality and Value_, e. g. pp. 341, 352.) I have also
avoided all reference to teleology. Without committing myself to the
acceptance of all that Mr. Bosanquet says in the fourth lecture of the
series to which reference has just been made, his treatment, there,
appears to be on right lines. There is no opposition in teleology, so
treated, to what is determinate. Indeed, such teleology is the
expression of the logical structure of the world, or, as Spencer would
say, the universality of law. For just as higher types of relatedness
imply a substratum of physico-chemical processes, so do all events imply
the underlying logic of events. Cf. W. T. Marvin, _A First Book of
Metaphysics_, ch. xiii, 'On the logical strata of reality.'
[73] Cf. Ps., vol. i, pp. 99 and 140.
[74] _Problems of Philosophy_, ch. v; cf. _Proc. Aristotelian Soc._,
1910-11, p. 108.
[75] It should be distinctly understood that I here speak of one order
of being in reference to the phenomena dealt with by science, including
the cognitive phenomena discussed in the text. Whether we should speak
of the Source of phenomena as constituting a separate order of being is
a question I cannot discuss in a note. Does the logic of events imply a
Logos? That is the question in brief. But, since the implication in
question is not of the scientific kind, I may leave it on one side in
considering a philosophy of science.
[76] Ps., vol. i, p. 140.
[77] F. P., p. 178.
[78] I have confined my attention to the cognitive type of relatedness.
Other higher modes supervene when the course of evolution is traced
further upwards. Indeed, cognition is only part of the underlying basis
implied by the richer forms of distinctively human relational life.
Spencer has much to say of them in his _Sociology_ and his _Ethics_,
though he fails to realize that the phenomena he is dealing with involve
essentially new constitutive features in man and in society. Can music
or any form of art be discussed in terms of cognition only? I merely add
this note to show that I am not unaware of the patent fact that when we
have reached the cognitive type of relatedness, we are nowhere near the
top of the evolutional tree.
[79] The part which is the centre of awareness, may be spoken of as
experienc_ing_, in contradistinction to what is experienc_ed_. It is
clear that such experiencing is always correlative to what is
experienced actually or ideally (Spencer's vividly or faintly). The
centre of awareness is either the cortex, or some specific part of the
cortex, or (more generally) the organism as owning the cortex, in each
case in accordance with the universe of discourse.
[80] Few physicists would, I think, be prepared to deny that, within a
field of effective relatedness, there may be, and very often is,
guidance without work done or any change in the 'amount of energy'. What
physicists are concerned to insist on is their cardinal principle that
every physical change involves physical terms in physical relatedness.
This can be fully and freely accepted in accordance with the doctrine of
implication sketched in the text. It is when Life or Consciousness is
invoked to play the part of a non-physical term, or thing, which acts
and reacts as if it were a physical term or thing, that physicists enter
an emphatic protest. Cognitive relatedness among physical things may
well be effective in guidance. To claim its presence must not, however,
be regarded as in any sense equivalent to a denial of underlying
physico-chemical relatedness.
[81] Until those who seek to furnish evidence of the existence of
discarnate spirits can make some plausible suggestions as to the nature
of a comprehensible scheme of correlation which shall serve to link the
discarnate with the incarnate, one is forced to enter their results in a
suspense account. It is of little use to proclaim the existence of
'facts scorned by orthodox science'. The so-called facts must be
incorporated within a consistent scheme, before they can claim a place
in the fabric of scientific truth.
[82] As the word entity is now often used, for example by Mr. G. E.
Moore, cognitive relatedness may be termed an entity. 'When I speak of
an entity I shall mean to imply absolutely nothing more with regard to
that which I so call, than that it _is_ or _was_--that it is or was
contained in the Universe; and of anything whatever which _is_ or _was_,
I shall take the liberty to say that it is an entity.' G. E. Moore,
_Proc. Aristotelian Soc._, 1909-10, p. 36.
[83] I have no space to discuss the physiological differentiation which
is implied by the effectiveness of the cognitive relation. It involves,
I believe, the differentiation of a superior cortical system from an
inferior system of nervous arcs. I have dealt with it in some detail
elsewhere. See _Instinct and Experience_.
[84] F. P., pp. 91-2.
OXFORD: HORACE HART M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY