THE WILL
In any discussion of the will, we are met at the outset by the
difficulties of definition, on which whole chapters might be, and have
been, written. But one great difficulty has already been considered in
the discussions of the previous chapter, in the questions as to the
existence of consciousness in inorganic nature, in organisms which
differ from our own in not possessing a centralized nervous system, and
in connection with actions of our own body known to our centralized
consciousness only as results. Leaving these questions open, as we have
found it necessary to do, and confining ourselves, in speaking of
consciousness, to consciousness as we immediately know it, or as we may,
with some degree of probability, infer it in animals constituted
similarly to ourselves, we find one obstacle to our definition removed.
For by will is generally meant a psychical faculty; and to speak of
"unconscious will" is either a self-contradiction or a mere figure of
speech.
We shall also find, I think, that the most essential characteristic of
the will as a psychical faculty is that it is connected with action
which has in view some end consciously sought; action to which there
corresponds no conscious end, whether a long premeditated end or an end
instantaneously comprehended and assumed in the moment of need, we term
reflex. The question may arise as to whether there are not acts which we
name merely "involuntary," which must be classified, from a
pyschological standpoint, as midway between the voluntary and the
reflex. But it may be answered that here, as everywhere in connection
with the organic, there is difficulty in drawing distinct lines; there
are psychical conditions in which some strong emotion, for instance,
terror, so takes possession of the mind as almost to exclude plan of
action, and the individual appears to act, as we say, "unconsciously";
but I think this very adverb solves, for us, to all practical purposes,
the question we have put. When we analyze such psychical conditions, we
often find that, besides emotion, there was some degree of preconception
of action, though the emotion so absorbed our attention at the time that
the other appeared subordinate and was easily forgotten; but the fact
that we term action of this sort, where we fail to discover
preconception, "unconsciously" performed, would go to confirm the
definition with which we began, though we may have difficulty in
deciding whether or not a particular action comes under the head of
willed action, that is, action to a preconceived end.
Another question which has been frequently asked, in analyses of the
will, is whether mere abstinence from action, the negation of action,
can be classed as an instance of willing, willing being, by definition,
an active, not a passive state. It may be answered that, from the
physiological point of view, a point of view not to be wholly
disregarded even by the conservative psychologist, the arresting action
of the will as the control of lower by higher centres, is its most
important function. And to this physiological fact corresponds the
psychological fact that no stronger exertion of will-power is known to
us than that sometimes necessary to the attainment of mere passivity. A
definition that would exclude such passive states from the province of
the will must exclude, on the same principle, all other willing not
issuing in muscular action, and so all voluntary control of thought. The
choice between activity and passivity may be as real and as difficult as
between two different forms of activity.
We have here introduced the concept of choice, and it may be well to
define this, and its significance in our definition of will, more
exactly. Voluntary action is, we say, often preceded by long
deliberation and severe struggle, ending finally in the choice of one of
the many modes of action deliberated. We can conceive of this struggle
as not so long, as shorter and shorter, until it occupies so little time
and attention as to be scarcely perceptible. But we can conceive, also,
of a premeditation which includes no struggle, in which one motive
appears so strong as to exclude consideration of any but the one end,
and the deliberation has reference only to the best means of attaining
that end. The murderer, inspired by a desire for revenge, may seek his
end with the same directness, if not the same instantaneousness, or with
the same directness and instantaneousness, as the dog who snaps at a
piece of meat; yet we call his action voluntary, whatever we may think
of the dog's action, our conception of which may be rendered indistinct
by our uncertainty as to the nature of instinct and the part it plays in
the action of other species. We call the action of the murderer
voluntary because we conceive that he consciously sought the end
involved. We are even inclined to call it voluntary in cases where the
criminal is moved by momentary passion, since we conceive that he might
have exerted self-control.
Our conception of will is, therefore, closely bound up with the
conception of conscious end, distant or near. Our association of choice
with the act is not always exact; we may conceive of the choice as
actually taking place between one of several ends deliberated upon, or
as involved in the conscious determination of any end, even though no
other was deliberated upon, even though all others were excluded from
consciousness by passion; since we conceive that as all definition is,
in fact, exclusion, so the determination of one end is in effect the
negation of others that might have been sought, if only in the form of
the contrary of action, inaction.
We are thus brought, first of all, to a consideration of the meaning of
the term "end." As we have seen in the last chapter, an end is that part
of the results of an action which consciousness especially holds in view
in the performance of an act. The end in view has sometimes been called
the cause of the act, but it is evident, as both Gizycki and Stephen
have shown, that a future state, that is, something which at the time of
willing does not exist, cannot move the will; though the representation
of a hoped-for end is concerned in action,--in just what capacity we
have yet to determine. It has also been urged that nothing external can
act upon the will, but only internal states of consciousness. All
depends, here, upon the definition of external and internal. The
distinction between the two is a legitimate one where it calls attention
to the difference between that which is at present perceived and that
which is only remembered, or imagined from the elements given by memory.
But what _is_ an object, as present to me, beyond what it is to my
consciousness? My knowledge of a thing is made up of various elements
contributed through the different senses; and this assertion is exactly
the same as the statement that a thing is the sum of its qualities. My
idea of the fire, the lamp, or any other object as external, arises
from the fact that it appeals to more of my senses than one, that, if
withdrawn from one or from all but one, it may still be perceived by the
other or others, or that, if withdrawn from all of them for a time by
some obstacle, it may be perceived again when this obstacle is removed;
but beyond perception or memory of perception, in any case, I have no
consciousness of the object. The perception is not, however, something
distinct from consciousness, but _is_ consciousness. The error above
noticed arises from the conception of consciousness as a sort of place,
another space into which we cannot get objects from external space; the
conception is a crude one, yet it often enters into psychological
speculation. The perceived, that is the external, does, as a matter of
fact, affect our will.
There may thus be two definitions of the term "internal" and two of
"external," as the words are generally used. Internal may mean either
within the body or within consciousness, external may mean external to
the body or external to consciousness. The two meanings are, in both
cases, commonly confused,--that is, consciousness is looked upon, as has
been said, as a sort of internal space within the body to which external
things cannot get admission. "External to consciousness" should refer
simply to that which the individual or individuals considered do not
perceive, of which they are unconscious. That of which we are conscious
is in consciousness. But all manner of ingenious jugglery is played with
the help of the metaphysical dualism implied in the other definition of
the terms. The objection of a possibility of this duality of meaning
applies to Barratt's use of the term "external" at the opening of his
book on Ethics, and the objection of a possibility of a similar duality
applies to many other expressions in the propositions and definitions
with which he begins,--to such expressions, for instance, as "relative
to our faculties," "state of consciousness," etc.[131] Objection may
also be taken to such quantification of the predicate as is found in
Cor. 1 of Prop. I.
To return to the question of the will. The thought-image, memory or
perception, with its associations, has been termed the excitation or the
motive and said to move or determine the will to some end. Thus the
perception of the burning house is said to be that which leads me to
give an alarm, or the perception of the smoking lamp that which moves me
to turn it down. To this form of statement is often objected that mere
thought or perception can never move the will, but that feeling is
required to do this. A further discussion may arise as to whether it is
feeling in the form of pleasure or of pain which moves the will. Many
authors regard anticipated pleasure as a constant motive; Rolph, on the
contrary, as we have seen, inclines to the view that it is always some
present pain by which we are moved to action. And it is argued that,
since the direction of the will is determined by pleasure or by pain,
that is by motives, the will is not free.
Again, the physiologist calls attention to the fact that the so-called
free action of the will has for its basis physiological processes, all
of which are in accordance with the strict uniformity of nature, all
subject to law, and all, as we must believe, capable of exact prediction
from the conditions which produce them, if we but comprehended these
conditions. There is no gap in these processes where free will might
interpose; the whole thought-process, the deliberation preceding
decision, the moral struggle if there is one, the decision itself, and
its realization in action, have for their foundation physiological
function, which is as much determined by necessity as any of the
processes in inorganic nature. The results of past experience, not of
the experience of the individual only but of that of the whole species
inherited as inborn tendency and capacity and modified by individual
circumstances, are stored up in the organism, the point of
centralization being the brain; any single excitation sets this whole
complicated machinery in motion and the result is the act. The
individual, not understanding this complicated process of reaction, not
being able to trace the results of experience to their source, to
descend the whole scale of being to the beginnings of life and note the
gradual development of tendency, and seeing the inadequacy of the
excitation in itself to account for the action following, attributes to
this a peculiar character, regarding that which is really result as
absolute beginning, independent cause.
We may consider the matter from still another point of view. We may
inquire whether the freedom predicated of the human will is predicated
of that alone, or of will in the whole range of animal life. And if it
be predicated of the human will alone, we may ask at just what point of
the evolution this is supposed to arise, whether, in the gradual
development, any particular point can be found or assumed to exist, of
which we can say: Here the animal ceases and man begins. Or if freedom
is asserted of the whole range of animal will, not, however, of plant
movement or the motions of the inorganic, we may again inquire as to the
point of exact division between the animal and the plant. Evolution is,
by definition, a gradual process, a growth in which there are no gaps,
and of which our finest and most minute calculations by infinitesimals
can give us only a faint conception. Where is there any point of such a
process at which we can suppose the entrance of a totally new principle
that cannot be regarded as another expression of force or merely a new
form of animal function, but as directly opposed to developed function
and to the force that is subject to natural law?
The Evolutionist may state the problem in still a new form, as follows:
The survival of any organism at a given period is determined by the
fitness of that organism for the conditions of the environment at that
period. The form and function of the animal are thus, at each moment,
determined by the environment. And since only functions in harmony with
the environment render the organism capable of survival under that
environment, the functions of surviving organisms are in a direction
favorable to the preservation of the form of which they are the
functions. Since, moreover, self-preservation in some form, whether as
preservation of the whole organism or as preservation of a part through
satisfaction of its function (rendered possible only through harmony
between the function and the environment), always constitutes the end
sought by the will, the individual appears to himself to will ends,
whereas these are all determined for him by the survival of the fittest,
whose function he inherits and carries out subject only to the
modification of the peculiar elements of his own environment. If we
suppose, at any point of development, an action not in accord with that
which the laws of nature necessitate decided upon by the will, such an
action cannot be carried out. But even a decision is impossible contrary
to natural law, since in preceding evolution there has been no point at
which nature has not in like manner determined action, and the present
decision, being the expression of function attained as the result of
evolution, must be as much determined as the action which follows.
Or if we return to our conception of the development of stable from
unstable conditions, we may consider all evolution of higher function as
increased adaptation, that is, as harmony with an ever wider circle of
nature, the reason appearing as corresponding concomitant knowledge of
this widening circle, to which the function of the organism is adjusted.
The reflection preceding decision on an end consists in the imagination,
by aid of the memory of past experience, of some of the constant results
of particular function, to which function, however, the organism is
irresistibly moved. Thus that which is generally regarded as the
greatest independence of nature is, in reality, the greatest subjection
to nature considered as a whole, although this wider subjection means an
increasing independence of the mere excitation of the moment. The
ability to weigh all sides of a question, sometimes termed Freedom, is
rather the widest adaptation, which means the widest determination by
nature. The lower organisms may be, as Rolph and Alexander assert, as
well adapted to their particular environment as the higher; but the
higher are adapted to a wider environment, to more of the variations of
the conditions on the earth's surface. Man is the most widely adapted of
all animals. This is a fact which we express when we say that man's
power of adaptation is greatest,--that is, that there are latent
tendencies in him, the result of former adaptations, which may
correspond sufficiently to new environment, _i.e._ to environment
involving many new elements, to enable him to survive. This wider
adaptation expresses itself especially in the higher development of the
nervous centres, to which man's higher reason corresponds; it is through
the reason especially that his adaptiveness comes to light.
The statistician often has considerable to say against a doctrine of
freedom of the will. He calls attention to the necessary character of
human action as evidenced by its uniformities under uniform
circumstances, in the various important relations of life. These
uniformities are not less than those which statistics reveal in disease
and death and other events classed as not under the control of the will.
And to all this evidence we may add that of the history of the mental
life of the species, derived from the combined labors of the geologist,
the ethnologist, the philologist, and the historian. Everything goes to
prove an evolution in the mental life of man, as gradual, and as much
subject to the influence of the environment, as his physical evolution
has been. Carneri says, "The eternal laws of mind point out the way upon
which man has to proceed; it is the same way by which man has become
man, and by which mankind must go forward even if it does not will thus
to proceed."[132]
And again, the authorities on mental disease demonstrate the constant
relations, not only of general health of brain to health of mind, and of
disease of brain to mental unsoundness, but also of particular physical
symptoms to particular mental symptoms. This constancy of relations is
revealed with more certainty and distinctness by every step in the
progress of medical knowledge. The specialist in mental disease inquires
with reason how we can acknowledge the physical processes of the body to
be governed by natural law, yet assert the emancipation from law of the
psychical processes which vary concomitantly with these in a manner that
science shows to be perfectly constant. To the testimony of Psychiatry
may be added that of the comparatively new science of Criminology.
And, finally, Evolutional Ethics demonstrates the constancy of
character, the persistence of habit, and the uniformity of its change
under the influence of environment. If there is no persistence of
character and uniformity in its action, we have no reason, as various
authors have shown, for trust or distrust, for praise or blame; and, I
think we may add, none for love or dislike, reverence or contempt,
enthusiasm or coldness, in the contemplation of character or conduct. If
the fact that a man acts honorably, kindly, nobly, in one instance is
not a warranty that we may with reason expect him to act similarly again
under similar circumstances, allowance being made for error in our
interpretation of motive (which may have been merely self-interested
where we thought it disinterested) and for changes produced in character
by the environment between the first act and the opportunity of the
second, then character is merely a jumbled chaos of chance, and the name
"habit" a contradiction in terms. We may, perhaps, respect the single
act, but we have no reason for respecting the individual performing it,
since the "individual" cannot be regarded as coextensive with a single
act of his life, and least of all when the act gives no clew to a
permanent basis issuing in uniform action of which law can be
predicated. In this case, the noble deed, or any number of noble deeds,
afford us no security that the next act of the person performing them,
or all the rest of the acts of his life, may not be wholly ignoble,
base, and vile.
In the face of all the considerations thus offered us, we cannot well
find reason for accrediting the will with a peculiar position in the
universe, as emancipated from the natural law which we discover in all
other phenomena. But it behooves us, in this connection, to inquire as
to just what is the significance of the term "natural law." It has
already been implicitly defined in our previous considerations. Lewes
and several other modern philosophical writers have given excellent
definitions of the expression. Lewes writes as follows: "Law is only one
of two conceptions, (1) a notation of the process observed in phenomena,
which process we mentally detach and generalize by extending it to all
similar phenomena; (2) an abstract Type, which, though originally
constructed from the observed Process, does nevertheless depart from
what is really observed, and substitutes an Ideal Process, constructing
what _would be_ the course of the process were the conditions different
from those actually present. The first conception is so far real that it
expresses the _observed series of positions_. It is the process of
phenomena, not an agent apart from them, not an agency _determining
them_, but simply the ideal _summation of their positions_....
Phenomena, in so far as they are ruled, regulated, determined in this
direction rather than in that, and necessarily determined in the
direction taken,... are determined by no external agent corresponding to
Law, but by their cooeperant factors internal and external; alter one of
these factors and the product will be differently determined. It is
owing to the very general misconception of the nature of Law, that there
arises the misconception of Necessity; the fact that events arrive
irresistibly when their conditions are present is confounded with the
conception that the events must arrive whether the conditions be present
or not, being fatally predetermined. Necessity simply says that whatever
is, is, and will vary with varying conditions."[133] Neither Natural Law
nor Necessity is an entity extraneous to phenomena which governs or
compels them; the two are generalizations merely by which we express a
certain uniformity that we find universal.
Let us return to our analysis of the organic as matter and of function
as its motion. Go as far as we like in our analysis, and we still have
left positive entities of matter and force, or matter, motion, and the
equivalent of motion in resistance; moreover, we cannot suppose either
matter or force to decrease by our analysis. Here, therefore, we have
indestructible entities, and these, not Law and Necessity, are the
positive factors. But if the final divisions of matter leave us still
positive factors, then the combinations of these must be positive also;
not only the theoretical atoms of the chemist, or the organic cells with
their motions and functions, but the combinations of these in organisms,
must be positive.
It is said that the organism answers to its environment "as the clay to
the mould"; that it is formed by the environment and adjusted to it.
Here we may inquire whether the adjustment referred to is present
adjustment or that of the whole development of the organism. If present
action of the environment is all that is had in view, it may be objected
that not anything in the environment, and not the whole environment, is
more positive than the organism. The one of the two factors cannot be
regarded as positive, the other as merely negative, the environment as
the active and formative, the organism as the passive and formed, the
environment as determining, the organism as determined.
But we may also consider the organism in the process of development. In
this case, we seem to find reason for regarding it as purely the product
of the environment in which it has arisen. The product it certainly is
in one sense; that is, it is the end-form of a series of changes which
we may suppose originally inorganic matter, or (if we prefer to begin
with the lowest form of life) simplest forms of organic matter, to have
undergone. But the present forms of matter everywhere are, in like
manner, the products of the past changes of matter; if we trace these
changes which have produced present forms, in the case of the inorganic
as well as that of the organic, back to any point of time which we may
choose as a beginning, we shall find in neither case more matter or a
greater amount of force than at the present period; we shall find the
same matter in different combinations, the same force in other forms.
Present forms are not greater or less than past ones, but their exact
equivalents; the beginning was not greater than the end; the producing
forms and forces were not greater than are their products. By a backward
course of thought comprehending evolution we may bring unity into our
conception of the organic, but we find no new factors of force, and need
to avoid laying stress upon the process to the depreciation of the
importance of the product. We may be led to suspect that our search
after new and more important factors was only another form of the search
after an independent cause according to which all other phenomena may be
said to vary. Our mathematical habit of selecting some one side of
natural process as independent, in order to trace, by its variation, the
variation of the others, leads us to regard the one side, phase, or
portion, of phenomena as actually thus independent; although we forget,
in this assumption, that we may select any phase for our mathematical
independent, and are not confined to any particular one. The organism is
itself a part of the environment regarded as conditioning, when we
consider the development of other organisms, or change in inorganic
matter, with which it is in contact. Our minds are unable to comprehend
the whole of nature as variation only, and we fasten on some one part of
the process as independent of the general change or as holding a unique
position in it, from which to consider the variation of the rest. And
the conception of some one part of phenomena as cause disappointing us,
on closer investigation, as far as merely present phenomena are
concerned, we remove the conception farther back into a dim past which
we fail to analyze in thought with the same completeness with which we
analyze the present. We are not, however, in the habit of tracing back
any other than just the organic forms to an arbitrary point which we
call the beginning, and emphasizing this in distinction from present
conditions; in considering the inorganic, we simply notice present
conditions and mark the result of action and reaction between this and
that other form of matter with which it comes in contact.
The action of the animal at any moment may be said to be determined by
the tendency or potential energy inherent in it at the moment, and the
influence exerted by a particular excitation; this is a matter of action
and reaction; but the force represented by both sides, by that of
organism and by that of environment, is equally positive and equally
represented again in the result. Particular emphasis has been laid, now
on the positive activity of the organism by one school of writers, now
on the activity of the environment as moving the organism to action by
another school; but both sides contribute to the result. Where action
and reaction in inorganic matter are considered, we do not regard either
of two incident forces as alone positive; nor do we regard one as
overcome by the other in the sense that it is not fully represented in
the result.
Again, if we return to the dispute as to the importance of the
physiological "basis" of action, the remark may be repeated, that it is
mere dogmatism to select some one phase of phenomena as the only
essential phase, while all other phases are regarded as non-essential or
subordinate. The materialist who derides the idea of a "Ding-an-sich" is
himself assuming something very like it, when he endeavors to prove
matter to be the cause, essence, or independent, of which consciousness
is the mere effect, property, or dependent.
Even if it could be said with truth that the brain secretes thought as
the liver secretes bile (and the analogy does not hold), it should be
borne in mind that the bile is no mere dependent creation of the liver,
but that, before it became bile, it existed in another form, was, in
fact, a part of the liver of which it is regarded as the dependent
creation. Matter and force have simply changed form; that is all. The
later form is not rendered secondary in importance or less positive by
the fact of its sequence upon the other form. The conditions equal the
result; they are not greater than it. Where is there, on closer
analysis, passivity as distinguished from activity? All force is, by
definition, active; and all matter represents force. We find simple
equivalence, that is, a uniformity of relation between preceding
conditions and succeeding conditions. Our "Natural Law" and "Necessity"
resolve themselves into this. Yet the conception of law as something
extraneous to things, something without them not included in their
primary nature but controlling them, is a very common conception. Thus
Du Prel, though rejecting other forms of teleological argument, bases a
whole course of teleological reasoning upon the mere fact of law.[134]
However, we know of natural law merely as an expression of
uniformities, a generalization from the relations of things; we have no
reason for treating it as extraneous to the nature of things themselves;
and nature itself furnishes us with no reason for supposing the
relations of things to be of more significance than things themselves;
relations are not entities.
If man be part of nature, it is strange that the force within him should
be regarded as so shaped and compelled, the force without him, on the
other hand, as so compelling and mighty. No part of nature is, as a
matter of fact, compelled. All things act and react spontaneously from
their own nature, and man in the same manner acts from his. Law cannot
be defined as determining action and reaction, nor can Necessity; they
are not entities. Force is sometimes called the determining factor, but
an abstract Force we do not know; we know force only as motion or the
equivalent of motion in resistance, or as the conceived potentiality of
motion. The concept of potentiality of motion is, however, again only a
device of reason for bringing unity into our conception of things by
accounting for the appearance of motion where before it was not.
Potentiality is no existence, no reality; actual potentiality is a
contradiction in terms. Nature contains only actualities. Force is the
abstract term by which we include motion, resistance, and the conceived
potentiality of motion, under one head. Motion again is often defined as
the cause of movement; but such a conception makes the abstract notion
of a thing the cause of the thing itself, unless by motion as the cause
we understand the preceding motion, and by movement as the effect we
mean the succeeding motion, in which case we have to bear in mind the
equivalence of conditions and results. Nor do we know motion as
something apart from matter, moving it; we know no abstract motion; we
know only things as moving, changing, and resisting motion. There is no
outside cause given us in our experience as the mover, from which things
are to be distinguished as the passive moved. Things move. And in
correspondence with the activity of things is doubtless the sense of
freedom in the exertion of the will. Outer compulsion, resistance to the
carrying out of a course decided upon or desired, has sometimes been
interpreted as the negation of freedom of the will; but it has with
reason been objected to this definition that the very strongest sense of
inner freedom may exist in connection with such compulsion. It may be
supposed that, as long as there is action in the brain, the
corresponding sense of freedom will exist; or, lest this statement be
interpreted as materialistic, we may say instead: As long as
consciousness exists, it must by definition exist as activity, with
which the sense of freedom is indissolubly connected.
But we may look at the matter from the more purely psychological side.
The opponents of a theory of freedom make much of the determination of
the will by motives. In their argument, the will is treated as if it
were some separate material thing, the motive another equally separate
thing which, when brought into contact with the will, sets it in motion
in somewhat the same manner as the powder in the gun drives the ball.
But the motive is not something external to consciousness, something
foreign, that, introduced, impels the will to action; nor can the will
be compared to an organ of the body, the motion of which is given us
through our senses as the motion of a part, not of the whole body. The
functions of the body are, in this sense, a part of the material world
to us. But the will is no material thing, no separate organ of
consciousness in this sense. In the will, consciousness expresses
itself; and we cannot say that it is only a part of consciousness that
thus expresses itself. The motive, as conscious, belongs to that
consciousness which finds expression in the will.
A similar form of theory to that just noticed regards the will as
determined especially by feeling. But feeling belongs as evidently to
consciousness as does will, nor can we say that one part of
consciousness feels and another wills, the one part being the active
mover, the other the passive moved; the division into parts is a
material one applicable to things occupying space, but not to
consciousness. The notion here of mover and moved is very similar to
that noticed above, of motion as cause, movement as effect.
It is sometimes said that the desirability of an object moves or
determines the will. Here arises the question as to whether the
desirability of an object lies in the object or is only dependent upon
consciousness as a quality of feeling. Thus we come, by closer analysis,
to the fundamental problem of the connection of consciousness with the
external world. It is often said that desirability is a mere predication
of consciousness and does not lie in the object or end itself. That
desirability is a predication of consciousness is true in a sense. And
yet it is evident that this predication corresponds to actualities
existing in the thing or end, on account of which it is pronounced
desirable or, under proper conditions, desired. When we analyze the
state of consciousness itself, we find it impossible to separate the
desirability as predicated by consciousness and the desirability as
predicated of the end, the excited feeling and the feeling as excited by
the object. From one point of view, excitation and consciousness are the
two sides of the conditions, both of which are essential to the result;
but, from another point of view, it is equally true that the desire of
the end is always a part of consciousness, which expresses itself in the
will according to its own inherent nature.
The act of the will, as following excitation, is sometimes treated as
its mere result, hence subject to it, subordinate and passive; on this
principle, we could also define brain-action as subject to nerve-action
and passive in comparison, wherever it follows. The mere conception of
the conservation of force would make it impossible to suppose a result
of force to be less than preceding force of which it is the result. We
do not call the evolution of organic life on the earth subject or
subordinate to the motion of the nebular mists, or passive with respect
to them. The mere sequence of one event upon another in time does not
justify our pronouncing the one subordinate to the other or passive with
respect to it, the whole sum of matter and force remaining always the
same, and a resultant in any particular instance exactly representing
its factors.
From our examination of the above arguments, we perceive that the
materialist uses both the concomitance of consciousness with material
processes, and, again, the sequence of particular conscious states upon
material processes, as proof of the subordination and passivity or
dependence of consciousness, as proof that the latter is effect of the
material as cause; indeed, we are not at all sure that he does not often
confuse the two arguments from sequence and from concomitance. On the
other hand, the argument of sequence is often used to prove the greater
importance and activity of consciousness in contrast to matter,
consciousness being regarded as antecedent to excitation in general or
to some particular excitation. But consciousness is not the "prius" of
its excitation in time, since its very definition includes activity and
this is not possible without excitation; consciousness is always the
consciousness of something. To regard consciousness as the "logical
prius" of matter or of excitation by matter may be possible, but the
standpoint is either a purely fanciful or a purely dogmatic one. With
regard to its priority in respect to a particular excitation, the
remarks made above hold good, that mere sequence does not prove
subordination or passivity as distinguished from activity. The fact of
concomitance is also sometimes treated as a part of theories of the
causal nature of consciousness, the brain being regarded as the mere
organ of mind, the passive instrument upon which it acts. In this case,
however, as in the opposite argument that consciousness is dependent
upon brain-action, there is probably some indistinct idea of sequence at
work. The argument applies equally well, indeed, in either direction,
the materialistic or its opposite, and merely this fact would lead us to
suspect that it can be conclusive in neither.
Thus, in hunting for some cause and effect in the activity of the will,
we bring to light, in the end, only a certain concomitance and sequence.
That which we call "explanation" of natural process is, in fact, in all
cases, merely a finer analysis of concomitance or sequence, or the
analysis of some new phase of it. We have only the finer elements of the
process analyzed before us in any case, although we are often inclined
to treat these elements as if they were the essence and cause of the
process to which they belong. We explain, for instance, the green color
of the leaf by the continually renewed presence of a certain chemical
combination; yet the green color is not less real and essential than the
chemical composition which constantly accompanies it. The musical note
is not the less real to our ear because we can make the vibrations of
the string and the air perceptible to our eye, or because we can observe
to some extent, and infer further, vibrations of parts of the ear that
are the physiological accompaniment of the note heard. The light of the
fire is not the less real because of the heat that I feel from it, nor
is either less actual because I can analyze the process of combustion in
the case. The shape of the leaf to my touch does not make its greenness
of color the less real to my eye, nor does change of form prevent change
of color or prove it less essential in any case. The smell of the rose
does not render its color less real and essential, and, _vice versa_,
the color does not render the smell less an essential part of reality.
Neither does the activity of the brain render the activity of
consciousness less real, or interfere with its freedom, any more than
the activity of the consciousness renders that of the brain less actual
or interferes with its free action and reaction. My knowledge of a thing
given me through one sense is totally different from the knowledge of it
given me through other senses; yet I do not find this various knowledge
contradictory or irreconcilable. Why, then, do I find such great
difficulty in reconciling the simple facts of consciousness and
brain-activity? And why should there be such an inclination to give
greater prominence to physiological process than to mental process, to
regard the only method of reconciling the two that of proclaiming the
dependence of consciousness?
The solution of the question is not so difficult to find. In the first
place, our knowledge of the concomitance of brain-process and
consciousness, or at least of the constant uniformity of this
concomitance, is only comparatively recent. Further, this knowledge is
not given us immediately, but is the conclusion of a process of
reasoning. While such concomitance as we immediately perceive--the
concomitance of certain impressions on one sense with certain other
impressions upon other senses--appears to us so natural as to need no
comment, the newness and mediate nature of our knowledge of this other
concomitance incline us to regard it as strange and needing some
especial "explanation." While the concomitant impressions upon the
senses, wherever they are constant, become united in our conception to a
single whole, we fail to unite the elements of this mediately known
concomitance to such a whole; doubtless, however, if a perception of all
the details of our own brain-activity were the invariable accompaniment
of thought, we should thus unite them. We can no more "explain" why the
two activities are concomitant, except as we show it to be a fact and
analyze it into its elements, than we can show why just Prussian blue
should be the characteristic of one chemical compound and the green of
plant-life of another, why the connection of the colors should not be
the reverse. The importance we accord the physiological accompaniments
of mental process is partly accounted for by the significance which
attaches to more recent knowledge as constituting scientific progress;
in the effort to bring together in our conception the two elements of
consciousness and brain-action, to whose association we are not
accustomed by immediate perception, we are led to lay especial weight
upon the facts of recent discovery, which are connected with so great
advance in science and have done away with so many superstitions. And,
finally, in the rebound from the old superstitions, the tendency is to
exaggerated views in the opposite direction. The attempt to correct
spiritualistic ideas of a soul superior to the rest of nature and no
part of it has resulted in materialism. And by the physiological basis
we now think to "explain" the facts of psychology. "Notable enough,"
says Carlyle, "wilt thou find the potency of Names; Witchcraft, and all
manner of Spectre-work and Demonology, we have now named Madness, and
Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting that still the new question
comes upon us: What is Madness, what are Nerves? Ever, as before, does
Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling-up of
the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation,
which swims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the
Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye or
without it?"
If the connection of physiological and psychological processes requires
"explanation," beyond that of analysis, why should we not feel ourselves
equally required to explain, in like manner, the connection of light
with heat and sound, and form with color? Why is it more comprehensible
that the ball can be at the same time round to my touch and red or gray
to my eye, and that the rose can both smell sweet and be yellow in tint?
Why should we, in this particular instance, make such a strenuous effort
to find reasons which can never be given in this case any more than in
the others, and which we do not, moreover, demand in the others? Why
cannot we accept the simple fact of concomitance in this case also? Our
attempts to show the reason of brain-activity by means of mind-activity,
or, _vice versa_, to explain mental activity as caused by, and dependent
upon, physiological activity, must end equally in failure, in a
one-sided dogmatism. It is the concomitance of the two, to the thought
of which we are not yet used, that thwarts us. And yet Zeno, the
sceptic, found as great difficulties in sequence, and proved, to his
satisfaction and that of his followers, the utter impossibility of many
things which we accept as simple facts without troubling ourselves to
solve his problems.
We have seen that any explanation of facts beyond analysis, except as we
assume some transcendental intuition, is impossible. The search for some
further explanation embodies the last remnant of the idea of some
special separate agent behind each single event and process, with which
early superstition was animated. Driven by the gradual spread of
knowledge to more and more obscure details in concomitance, and to ever
greater distance of time in sequence, it has reached the final shadows
of the one, and the furthest ends of evolution, whither thought seldom
travels, in the other. That we expect other explanation than analysis,
or read into analysis more than its real worth, is the result of an
indistinctness and confusion in our thought, which has not yet lost the
habit of infusing into generalizations and abstractions a vitality of
their own apart from reality. We continually hope and strive for some
explanation that shall give us more than nature, and yet, strange to
say, we endeavor to found our theories in and on nature. We acknowledge
the scientific truth of the indestructibility of matter and force, the
constancy of their sum, and yet we nevertheless continue to construct
our many-storied theories of causes and essences, failing to notice that
we are bringing all our concepts from a time when the equivalence of
results and conditions, of results and their factors, was not yet
comprehended.
FOOTNOTES:
[131] See Part I. p. 107 _et seq._
[132] "Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus," p. 363. See also, however, the
"Grundlegung der Ethik," p. 289.
[133] "Problems of Life and Mind," Ser. I. Vol. I. pp. 308, 309.
[134] "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls," pp. 352 _et seq._