_Reader._ And now, doctor, please tell me what is your doctrine on the
human soul.
_Büchner._ The human soul is “a product of matter” (p. 132)—“a product of
the development of the brain” (p. 197).
_Reader._ Indeed?
_Büchner._ “The brain is the seat and organ of thought; its size, shape,
and structure are in exact proportion to the magnitude and power of its
intellectual functions” (p. 107).
_Reader._ What do you mean by _thought_?
_Büchner._ Need I explain a term so universally known?
_Reader._ The term is known, but it is used more or less properly by
different persons. Our minds may deal with either sensible or intellectual
objects. When we have seen a mountain, we may think of it, because we have
received from it an impression in our senses which leaves a vestige of
itself in our organism, and enables us to represent to ourselves the
object we have perceived. In this case our _thought_ is an exercise of our
imagination. When, on the contrary, we think of some abstract notion or
relation which does not strike our senses, and of which no image has been
pictured in our organic potencies, then our _thought_ is an exercise of
intellectual power. In both cases our brain has something to do with the
thought. For in the first case our thought is an act of the sensitive
faculty, which reaches its object as it is pictured, or otherwise
impressed, in our organic potencies, of which the headquarters are in the
brain. In the second case our thought is an act of the intellectual
faculty, which detects the intelligible relations existing between the
objects already perceived, or between notions deduced from previous
perceptions; and this act, inasmuch as it implies the consideration of
objects furnished to the mind by sensible apprehension, cannot but be
accompanied by some act of the imaginative power making use of the images
pictured in the organic potencies. Now, doctor, when you say that “the
brain is the seat and organ of thought,” do you mean that both the
intellectual and the imaginative thought reside in the brain and are
worked out by the brain?
_Büchner._ Of course. For “comparative anatomy shows that through all
classes of animals, up to man, the intellectual energy is in proportion to
the size and material quality of the brain” (p. 107).
_Reader._ You are quite mistaken. The brain is an organ of the
imagination, not of the intellect. And even as an organ of imagination it
is incompetent to think or imagine, as it is only the instrument of a
higher power—that is, of a soul. To say that the brain is the organ of
intellectual thought is to assume that intellectual relations are pictured
on the brain; which is evidently absurd, since intellectual relations
cannot be pictured on material organs. Every impression made on our brain
is a definite impression, corresponding to the definite objects from which
it proceeds. If our intellectual thought were a function of the brain, we
could not think, except of those same definite objects from which we have
received our definite impressions. How do you, then, reconcile this
evident inference with the fact that we conceive intellectually
innumerable things from which we have never received a physical
impression? We think of justice, of humanity, of truth, of causality,
etc., though none of these abstractions has the power to picture itself on
our brain. It is therefore impossible to admit that the intellectual
thought is a function of the brain. With regard to the working of the
imagination, I concede that the brain plays the part of an instrument; but
how can you explain such a working without a higher principle? If our soul
is nothing but “a product of matter,” since matter is inert, our soul must
be inert, and since matter has only mechanical powers, our soul must be
limited to mechanical action, that is, to the production of local
movement. Now, can you conceive imagination as a merely mechanical power,
or thought as the production of local movement?
_Büchner._ Yes. “Thought,” says Moleschott, “is a motion of matter” (p.
135).
_Reader._ It is perfectly useless, doctor, to make assertions which cannot
be proved. Moleschott is no authority; he is a juggler like yourself, and
works for the furtherance of the same Masonic aims. Let him say what he
likes. We cannot but laugh at a thinker who can mistake his thought for
local motion.
_Büchner._ You, however, cannot deny that, while we are thinking, our
brain is doing work. But how can it do work without motion?
_Reader._ I do not deny that, while we are thinking, our brain is doing
work. I merely deny that the movements of the brain are thoughts. As long
as we live, soul and body work together, and we cannot think without some
organic movements accompanying the operation. This every one admits. But
you suppress the thinking principle, and retain only the organic
movements. How is this possible? If thought consists merely of organic
movements of the brain, how does the motion begin? The brain cannot give
to itself a new mode of being. To account for its movements you must point
out a distinct moving power, either intrinsic or extrinsic, either a
sensible object or the thinking principle itself. When the motion is
received from a sensible object, the movements of the brain determine the
immediate perception of the object; and when the motion results from the
operation of the thinking principle, the movements of the brain determine
the phantasm corresponding to the object of the actual thought. Thus
immediate perception, and thought, or recollection, are both rationally
explained; whilst, if the thinking subject were the brain itself, how
could we recollect our past ideas? When the movement caused by an object
has been superseded by the movement caused by a different object, how can
it spontaneously revive? Matter is inert; and nothing but a power distinct
from it can account for the spontaneous awakening of long‐forgotten
thoughts.
_Büchner._ Matter is inert, but is endowed with forces, and wherever there
are many particles of matter they can communicate movement to one another.
Hence, “in the same manner as the steam‐engine produces motion, so does
the organic complication of force‐endowed materials produce in the animal
body a sum of effects so interwoven as to become a unit; and is then by us
called spirit, soul, thought” (p. 136).
_Reader._ Pshaw! Are _spirit_, _soul_, and _thought_ synonymous? Do
thoughts think? When you perceive that two and two make four, is this
thought the thinking principle? And if the soul is “a sum of _mechanical_
effects so interwoven as to become a unit,” how can you avoid the
consequence that the soul consists of nothing but local movement? But if
the soul is local movement, it has no causality, and cannot be the
principle of life; for local movement is only a change of place, and has
nothing to do with perception, judgment, reasoning, or any other operation
of the thinking principle. Can local movement say, _I am_? _I will?_ _I
doubt?_ Can local movement recollect the past, take in the present,
foresee the possible and the future? Can local movement deliberate, love,
hate, say _yes_ or _no_? To these and such like questions science, reason,
and experience give an unequivocal answer, which the president of a
medical association should have carefully meditated before venturing to
write on the subject.
_Büchner._ Yet “the mental capacity of man is enlarged in proportion to
the material growth of his brain, and is diminished according to the
diminution of its substance in old age” (p. 110). “It is a fact known to
everybody, that the intelligence diminishes with increasing age, and that
old people become childish.... The soul of the child becomes developed in
the same degree as the material organization of its brain becomes more
perfect” (p. 111). “Pathology furnishes us with an abundance of striking
facts, and teaches us that no part of the brain exercising the function of
thought can be materially injured without producing a corresponding mental
disturbance” (p. 119). “The law that brain and soul are necessarily
connected, and that the material expansion, shape, and quality of the
former stands in exact proportion to the intensity of the mental
functions, is strict and irrefutable, and the mind, again, exercises an
essential influence on the growth and development of its organ, so that it
increases in size and power just in the same manner as any muscle is
strengthened by exercise” (p. 122). “The whole science of man is a
continuous proof in favor of the connection of brain and mind; and all the
verbiage of philosophical psychologists in regard to the separate
existence of the soul, and its independence of its material organ, is
without the least value in opposition to the power of facts. We can find
no exaggeration in what Friedreich, a well‐known writer on psychology,
says on this point: ‘The exhibition of power cannot be imagined without a
material substratum. The vital power of man can only manifest its activity
by means of its material organs. In proportion as the organs are manifold,
so will be the phenomena of vital power, and they will vary according to
the varied construction of the material substratum. Hence, mental function
is a peculiar manifestation of vital power, determined by the peculiar
construction of cerebral matter. The same power which digests by means of
the stomach, thinks by means of the brain’ ” (pp. 124, 125).
_Reader._ Your manner of reasoning, doctor, is not calculated to bring
conviction, as every one of your arguments contains a fallacy. Your first
argument is: The brain is the measure of the thinking power; and therefore
the thinking power, or the soul, is a result of organic development. The
second is: Brain and mind are necessarily connected; and therefore the
soul cannot have a separate existence. The third is: The vital power of
man can only manifest its activity by means of its material organs; and
therefore the soul needs to be supported by a material substratum. Such
substantially is the drift of your argumentation. Now, I maintain that the
three arguments are merely three sophisms.
First, the brain is not the measure of the thinking power. The mental
capacity of man, and the thinking power of the soul, are not exactly the
same thing. The first implies both soul and body, the second regards the
soul alone; the first presents to us the musician with his instrument, the
second exhibits only the musician himself. The brain is the organ, the
soul is the organist. You cannot reasonably pretend that the musical
talent, genius, and skill of an organist increase and decrease with the
number and quality of the pipes which happen to be in the organ. All you
can say is that the musical talent of the organist will have a better
chance of a favorable show with a rich rather than with a poor instrument.
The organ, therefore, is not the measure of the ability of the organist,
and the brain is not the measure of the thinking power. Hence from the
fact that the mental capacity of man is enlarged, as you say, in
proportion to the material growth of his brain, we have no right to
conclude that the thinking principle, the soul, grows with the brain; the
right conclusion is that the soul, being in possession of a better
instrument, finds itself in better conditions for the exercise of its
intrinsic power. The organ is improved and the music is better; but the
organist is the same.
Secondly, brain and mind are at present necessarily connected. Does it
follow that therefore the soul cannot have a separate existence? By no
means. If this conclusion were logical, you might on the same ground
affirm also that the body cannot have a separate existence; for the body
is as necessarily connected with the soul as the soul is with the body.
The reason why your conclusion cannot hold is that the connection of body
and soul is necessary only inasmuch as both are indispensable for the
constitution of the human nature. But the human nature is not immortal;
the soul must quit the body when the organism becomes unfit for the
operations of animal life; and therefore the connection of the soul with
the body is not absolutely, but only hypothetically, necessary. The soul
has its own existence distinct from the existence of the body, for the
soul is a substance no less than the body; and therefore it is no less
competent to have a separate existence. You deny, I know, that the soul is
a substance distinct from the body; but what is the weight of such a
denial? What you speculatively deny in your book, you practically admit in
the secret of your conscience whenever you say _I am_. It is not the body
that says _I_; it is the soul: and it is not an accident that perceives
self; it is a substance.
Thirdly, the vital power of man, as you say, can manifest its activity
only by means of its material organs. This is true; for, so long as the
soul is in the body, it must work together with it, according to the
axiom, “Every agent acts according as it is in act.” But does the work of
the vital power in the material organs warrant your conclusion that the
soul needs to be supported by a material substratum? Quite the contrary.
For, what needs a material substratum is an accident, and no accident is
active; and therefore the vital power, whose activity is manifested in the
material organs, is no accident, and therefore needs no material
substratum, and, while existing in the material organs, exists no less in
itself. Had you considered that the soul, which manifests its activity by
means of its material organs, exercises the same activity within itself
also, you would have easily discovered that the soul has a being
independent of its material organs, and that these organs are the organs
of sensibility, not of intelligence.
But I am not going to make a dissertation on the soul, as my object is
only to show the inconclusiveness of your reasoning. Your chapter on
“Brain and Soul,” with its twenty‐eight pages of medical and physiological
erudition, offers no proof of your assumption beyond the three sophisms I
have refuted. All the rest consists of facts which have not the least
bearing on the question. “The whole science of man,” as you say, “is a
continuous proof in favor of the connection of brain and mind.” This is
what your facts demonstrate; but your object was to show that “the soul is
a product of the development of the brain”; and this your facts do not
demonstrate, as is evident from your need of resorting to fallacies to
make them lie to truth. It is on the strength of such fallacies that you
make bold to despise your opponents, forgetting all your shortcomings, and
committing a new blunder in the very act of assailing the spiritualistic
philosophers. According to you, “the whole science of man is a continuous
proof in favor of the connection of brain and mind; and all the verbiage
of philosophical psychologists in regard to the separate existence of the
soul and its independence of its material organ is without the least value
in opposition to the power of facts.” You should be ashamed, doctor, of
this style of reasoning.
_Büchner._ Why, if you please?
_Reader._ Because, first, the connection of brain and mind, as proved by
“the whole science of man,” does not authorize you to deny the separate
existence of the soul and its substantial independence of the material
organs. Secondly, because to call “verbiage” those reasonings which all
the great men of all times have, after careful scrutiny, considered as
unanswerable, to which they gave their fullest assent, and against which
you are incapable of advancing a single argument which has not already
been answered by philosophers, is on your part an implicit confession of
philosophical ignorance. Thirdly, because it is extremely mean to proclaim
your own victory, while you have carefully avoided the combat. You have,
in fact, prudently dissembled all the reasons by which the substantiality
and spirituality of the human soul are usually proved in psychology; and,
to give yourself the appearance of a champion, you have set up a few
ridiculous sophisms—as, “the material simplicity of the organs of thought”
(p. 125)—to figure as philosophical objections, which they have never
been, and never will be; thus reminding us of the great Don Quixote
fighting against the wind‐mill. Fourthly, because, while boasting of the
support which some physiological facts seem to lend to your materialistic
theory, you have entirely ignored all those other facts of the
intellectual life which were calculated to expose your sophistry and
overthrow your conclusions. This is dishonest, doctor; for you cannot
plead ignorance in excuse.
_Büchner._ We proceed from opposite principles, sir; hence we must
disagree in our conclusions. It is a law “that mind and brain necessarily
determine each other, and that they stand to each other in inseparable
causal relations” (p. 139).
_Reader._ This goes against you; for, if the mind determines the brain,
the mind must be a special substance.
_Büchner._ “As there is no bile without liver, no urine without kidneys,
so is there no thought with out a brain. Mental activity is a function of
the cerebral substance. This truth is simple, clear, easily supported by
facts, and indisputable” (_ibid._)
_Reader._ Oh! oh! have you forgotten my previous answer? So long as matter
remains inert, it is vain to pretend that matter is the thinking
principle.
_Büchner._ “Matter is not dead, unquickened, and lifeless, but, on the
contrary, full of the most stirring life” (p. xcix.)
_Reader._ A great discovery!—if true.
_Büchner._ “Not an atom of it is without motion, but in constant
uninterrupted movement and activity. Nor is matter _gross_, as simple
philosophers often call it, but, on the contrary, so infinitely fine and
complicated in its composition as to surpass all our conceptions. Nor is
it _worthless_ or vile, but rather the most precious thing we know of; it
is not _without feeling_, but is full of the most acute sensibility in the
creatures it brings forth; nor, lastly, is it _devoid of spirit_ or
_thought_, but, on the contrary, develops in the organs destined thereto
by the peculiar kind and delicacy of their composition the highest mental
potencies known to us. What we call life, sensibility, organization, and
thought, are only the peculiar and higher tendencies and activities of
matter, acquired in the course of many millions of years by well‐known
natural processes, and which in certain organisms or combinations result
in the self‐consciousness of matter. Wherefore matter is not unconscious,
as is often proclaimed” (pp. xcix., c.)
_Reader._ Enough! enough of such nonsense. Do not ruin what little
reputation you still enjoy as a scientific man. What will the world say
when it discovers that you know nothing about the inertia of matter, which
is the basis of physics and mechanics? or when it hears that you confound
movement with activity, and activity with life? Every one knows that life
implies movement, because the more perfect implies the less perfect; but
who ever heard that mechanical movement implies life? Is a stone living
because it falls to the ground? Again, how would any one who is not an
idiot consider the matter on which we tread “the most precious thing we
know of”? Would you sell your honor for a cup of coffee and a pound of
sugar? That matter is _not without feeling_, _not without spirit_, and
_not without thought_, is a demonstrated blunder, of which I need not
repeat the refutation. But who can hear without merriment that
sensibility, organization, and thought are “tendencies” of matter? and
that they have been acquired by matter “in the course of many millions of
years”? and that this acquisition was brought about “by _well‐known_
natural processes”? I repeat, doctor, that such trash will ruin your
reputation. Buffoons and charlatans may be allowed to indulge in any
amount of absurdities; but a doctor has not the same privilege. Hence it
is not safe for you to speak of _well‐known_ processes, by which matter
becomes “conscious” of itself, when the whole scientific world knows
nothing of such processes, and may challenge you to substantiate your
foolish assertion.
I will tell you what is really _well known_. It is what a celebrated
writer teaches about the immateriality of the soul. “There is nothing,” he
says, “in this lower world that can account for the origin of our souls;
for there is nothing in our souls which admits of mixture or composition,
nothing which arises from the earth or is made of it, nothing which
partakes of the nature of air, or water, or fire. For nothing is to be
found in these natural things which has the power of remembering, of
understanding, or of thinking—nothing which can hold the past, forecast
the future, or embrace the present. The power of doing this is divine, and
its possession by man can never be accounted for, unless we admit that it
is derived from God himself. Accordingly, the soul is a distinct nature,
and has nothing common with the material things with which we are
acquainted.”(23) What do you think of this passage?
_Büchner._ It smacks of ultramontanism.
_Reader._ Just so! Bravo! Marcus Tullius Cicero an ultramontane!!
To Be Continued.
A Legend Of Alsace.
From The French Of M. Le Vicomte De Bussierre.
“I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.”
—_Webster’s Duchess of Malfy._