DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Let us resume the study of the preceding ideas in another form. Since,
moreover, to define mind is at the same time to define psychology, let
us seek for the truth which we can glean from the definitions of this
science. Our object is not to discover an exact definition, but to
make use of those already existing.
To define psychology is to describe the features of the domain over
which this science holds sway, and at the same time to indicate the
boundaries which separate it from its neighbours. At first sight this
is an affair of geometric survey, presenting no kind of difficulty;
for psychology does not merge by insensible transitions into the
neighbouring sciences, as physics does with chemistry, for example, or
chemistry with biology.
To all the sciences of external nature psychology offers the violent
opposition of the moral to the physical world. It cannot be put in
line with the physical sciences. It occupies, on the contrary, a
position apart. It is the starting point, the most abstract and simple
of the moral sciences; and it bears the same relation to them that
mechanics does to the physical.
All this is doubtless true; and yet a very great difficulty has been
experienced in condensing into a clear definition the essence of
psychology. This is proved by the multiplicity of definitions
attempted. They are so many because none of them has proved completely
satisfactory. Their abundance shows their insufficiency. I will try to
introduce a little order into these attempts, and propose to
distribute the definitions of psychology into the following
categories:--
1. The definition by substance; the metaphysical definition
_par excellence_.
2. The definition by enumeration.
3. " " method.
4. " " degree of certainty.
5. " " content.
6. " " point of view.
7. " " the peculiar nature of mental laws.
We will rapidly run through this series of efforts at definition, and
shall criticise and reject nearly the whole of them; for the last
alone seems exact--that is to say, in harmony with the ideas laid down
above.
Metaphysical definition has to-day taken a slightly archaistic turn.
Psychology used to be considered as the _science of the soul_. This
is quite abandoned. Modern authors have adopted the expression and
also the idea of Lange,[33] who was, I think, the first to declare
that we ought to cultivate a _soulless psychology_. This categorical
declaration caused an uproar, and a few ill-informed persons
interpreted it to mean that the new psychology which has spread in
France under cover of the name of Ribot, sought to deny the existence
of the soul, and was calculated to incline towards materialism. This
is an error.
It is very possible, indeed, that several adepts of the new or
experimental psychology may be materialists from inward conviction.
The exclusive cultivation of external facts, of phenomena termed
material, evidently tends--this is a mystery to none--to incline the
mind towards the metaphysical doctrine of materialism. But, after
making this avowal, it is right to add at once that psychology, as a
science of facts, is the vassal of no metaphysical doctrine. It is
neither spiritualist, materialist, nor monist, but a science of facts
solely. Ribot and his pupils have proclaimed this aloud at every
opportunity. Consequently it must be recognised that the rather
amphibological expression "soulless psychology" implies no negation of
the existence of the soul. It is--and this is quite a different
thing--rather an attitude of reserve in regard to this problem. We do
not solve this problem; we put it on one side.
And, certainly, we are right to do so. The soul, viewed as a
substance--that is, as a something distinct from psychical phenomena,
which, while being their cause and support, yet remains inaccessible
to our direct means of cognition--is only an hypothesis, and it cannot
serve as objective to a science of facts. This would imply a
contradiction in terms.
Unfortunately; we must confess that if it be right to relegate to
metaphysics the discussion on the concept of the soul, it does not
really suffice to purge our minds of all metaphysics; and a person who
believes himself to be a simple and strict experimentalist is often a
metaphysician without knowing it. These excommunications of
metaphysics also seem rather childish at the present day. There is
less risk than some years ago in declaring that: "Here metaphysics
commence and positive science ends, and I will go no further." There
is even a tendency in modern psychologists to interest themselves in
the highest philosophical problems, and to take up a certain position
with regard to them.
The second kind of definition is, we have said, that by enumeration.
It consists in placing before the eyes of the reader an assortment of
psychological phenomena and then saying: "These are the things
psychology studies." One will take readily as samples the ideas,
reasonings, emotions, and other manifestations of mental life. If this
is only a strictly provisional definition, a simple introduction to
the subject, we accept it literally. It may serve to give us a first
impression of things, and to refresh the memories of those who, by a
rather extraordinary chance, would not doubt that psychology studies
our thoughts. But whatever may be the number of these deeply ignorant
persons, they constitute, I think, a negligible quantity; and, after
these preliminaries, we must come to a real definition and not juggle
with the problem, which consists in indicating in what the spiritual
is distinguished from the material. Let us leave on one side,
therefore, the definitions by enumeration.
Now comes the definition by method. Numbers of authors have supposed
that it is by its method that psychology is distinguished from the
other sciences.
To the mind is attached the idea of the within, to nature the idea of
being without the mind, of constituting a "without" (_un dehors_). It
is a vague idea, but becomes precise in a good many metaphors, and has
given rise to several forms of speech. Since the days of Locke, we
have always spoken of the internal life of the mind as contrasted
with the external life, of subjective reality as contrasted with
objective reality; and in the same way we oppose the external senses
to the inner sense (the internal perception), which it has at times
been proposed to erect into a sixth sense. Though no longer quite the
Cartesian dualism, this is still a dualism.
It has also been said that psychology is the science of introspection,
and, in addition, that scientific psychology is a controlled
introspection. This science of the "internal facts of man" would thus
be distinguished from the other natural sciences which are formed by
the use of our outer senses, by external observation--that is to say,
to use a neologism, by externospection. This verbal symmetry may
satisfy for a moment minds given to words, but on reflection it is
perceived that the distinction between introspection and
externospection does not correspond to a fundamental and constant
difference in the nature of things or in the processes of cognition. I
acknowledge it with some regret, and thus place myself in
contradiction with myself; for I for a long time believed, and have
even said in print, that psychology is the science of introspection.
My error arose from my having made too many analyses of detail, and
not having mounted to a sufficiently wide-reaching conception.
The definition I have given of consciousness is the implied
condemnation of the above ideas. Consciousness, being nothing but an
act of revelation, has neither a within nor a without; it does not
correspond to a special domain which would be an inner one with regard
to another domain.
Every consideration on the position of things is borrowed from the
sphere of the object, and remains foreign to the sphere of the
consciousness. It is by an abuse of language that we speak of the
outer world in relation to the world of consciousness, and it is pure
imagination on the part of philosophers to have supposed that our
sensations are first perceived as internal states and states of
consciousness, and are subsequently projected without to form the
outer world. The notion of internal and external is only understood
for certain objects which we compare by position to certain others.
In fact, we find that the opposition between an external and an
internal series is generally founded on two characteristics: sensation
is considered external in relation to the idea, and an object of
cognition is considered as internal when it is accessible only to
ourselves. When these two characteristics are isolated from each
other, one may have doubts; but when they co-exist, then the
outwardness or inwardness appears fully evidenced. We see then that
this distinction has nothing to do with the value of consciousness,
and has nothing mental about it.
It is thus that our ideas are judged from internal events. It is our
microcosm opposed to the macrocosm. It is the individual opposed to
the social. Looking at an external object, we remain in communion with
our fellows, for we receive, or think we receive, identical
sensations. At all events, we receive corresponding sensations. On the
other hand, my thought is mine, and is known to me alone; it is my
sanctuary, my private closet, where others do not enter. Every one can
see what I see, but no one knows what I think.
But this difference in the accessibility of phenomena is not due to
their peculiar nature. It is connected with a different fact, with the
modes of excitement which call them forth. If the visual sensation is
common to all, it is because the exciting cause of the sensation is an
object external to our nervous systems, and acting at a distance on
all.[34] The tactile sensation is at the beginning more personal to
the one who experiences it, since it requires contact; and the lower
sensations are in this intimacy still in progress. And then, the same
object can give rise, in common-place circumstances, to a sensation
either common to all beings or special to one alone. The capsule of
antipyrine which I swallow is, before my doing so, visible to all
eyes; once in my mouth, I am the only one to perceive it. It is
therefore possible that the same sensation, according to the
displacements of the object which excites it, may make part of the
internal or of the external series; and as all psychic life is
sensation, even effort, and, as we are assured, emotion, it follows
that our argument extends to all the psychical elements.
Finally, the internal or external character of events, which might be
called their geographical position, is a characteristic which has no
influence upon the method destined to take cognisance of it. The
method remains one. Introspection does not represent a source of
cognition distinct from externospection, for the same faculties of the
mind--reason, attention, and reflection--act on sensation, the source
of the so-called external sciences, and on the idea, the source of the
so-called inner science. A fact can be studied by essentially the same
process, whether regarded by the eyes or depicted by the memory. The
consciousness changes its object and orientation, not its nature. It
is as if, with the same opera-glass, we looked in turn at the wall of
the room and through the window.
I can even quote on this point a significant fact: there are observers
who are organised in such a way that they especially observe by
memory. Placed before the sensorial phenomenon which strikes their
senses, they are sometimes amazed, as if hypnotised; they require to
get away from it to regain consciousness of themselves, to analyse the
fact, and to master it, and it is by means of the memory that they
study it, on condition, of course, of afterwards coming back to verify
their conclusions by a fresh observation from nature. Will it be said
that the physicist, the chemist, or the biologist who follows this
slow method, and who thus observes retroactively, practises physics
and biology by introspection? Evidently this would be ridiculous.
Conversely, introspection may, in certain cases, adopt the procedure
of externospection. No doubt it would be inexact to say that the
perception of one of our ideas always takes place through the same
mechanism as the perception of one of our sensations. To give an
account of what we think does not imply the same work as in the case
of what we see; for, generally, our thoughts and our images do not
appear to us spontaneously. They are first sought for by us, and are
only realised after having been wished for. We go from the vague to
the precise, from the confused to the clear; the direction of thought
precedes, then, its realisation in images; and the latter, being
expected, is necessarily comprehended when it is formed. But we may
come across curious circumstances in which it is the image which has
precedence over its appearance, and in that case it is exact to say
that this uninvoked image must be interpreted and recognised as if it
were an external object. In cases of this kind, there passes through
our mind something which surprises us. I see, by internal vision, a
face with a red nose, and I have to search my memory for a long time,
even for days, in order to give precision to the vague feeling that I
have seen it before, so as to finally say with confidence, "It is So
and So!" Or else I hear in my inner ear a certain voice, with a
metallic tone and authoritative inflections: this voice pronounces
scientific phrases, gives a series of lectures, but I know not to whom
it belongs, and it costs me a long effort to reach the interpretation:
it is the voice of M. Dastre! There is, then, a certain space of time,
more or less long, in which we can correctly assert that we are not
aware of what we are thinking; we are in the presence of a thought in
the same state of uncertainty as in that of an external, unknown, and
novel object. The labour of classification and of interpretation cast
upon us is of the same order; and, when this labour is effected
incorrectly, it may end in an illusion. Therefore illusions of
thought are quite as possible as illusions of the senses, though rarer
for the reasons above stated. But the question of frequency has no
theoretical importance.
I have shown elsewhere, by experiments on hysterics, that it is
possible by the intermediary of their insensibility to touch to
suggest ideas on the value of which the patients make mistakes. For
instance, you take the finger in which they have no sensation, you
touch it, you bend it. The patient, not seeing what is done, does not
feel it, but the tactile sensation unfelt by their principal
consciousness somehow awakes the visual image of the finger; this
enters into the field of consciousness, and most often is not
recognised by the subject, who describes the occurrence in his own
way; he claims, for instance, that he thinks of sticks or of columns.
In reality he does not know of what he is thinking, and we know better
than he. He is thinking of his finger, and does not recognise it.
All these examples show that the clearly defined characteristics into
which it is sought to divide extrospection and introspection do not
exist. There is, however, a reason for preserving the distinction,
because it presents a real interest for the psychology of the
individual. These two words introspection and extrospection admirably
convey the difference in the manner of thinking between those who
from preference look, and those who from preference reflect. On the
one hand, the observers, who are often men of action; on the other,
the speculators, who are often mystics. But it would be no more
legitimate by this means to separate psychology and physics than to
say, for instance, "There are two kinds of geology: one is the geology
of France, for one is acquainted with it without going from home, and
the other is that of the rest of the world, because in order to know
it one must cross the frontier."
We reject, therefore, the definition drawn from the difference of
method. At bottom there is no difference of method, but only
differences of process, of _technique_. The method is always the same,
for it is derived from the application of a certain number of laws to
the objects of cognition, and these laws remain the same in all
spheres of application.
Here is another difference of method which, if it were true, would
have an incalculable importance. Psychology, we are told, is a science
of direct and immediate experiment; it studies facts as they present
themselves to our consciousness, while the natural sciences are
sciences of indirect and mediate experiment, for they are compelled to
interpret the facts of consciousness and draw from them conclusions on
nature. It has also been said, in a more ambitious formula, "The
science of physical objects is relative; logical science is absolute."
Let us examine this by the rapid analysis of any perception taken at
haphazard. What I perceive directly, immediately, we are told, is not
the object, it is my state of consciousness; the object is inferred;
concluded, and taken cognisance of through the intermediary of my
state of consciousness. We only know it, says Lotze, _circa rem_. It
is therefore apprehended less immediately, and every natural science
employs a more roundabout method than that of psychology. This last,
by studying states of consciousness, which alone are known to us
directly, comprehends reality itself, absolute reality. "There is more
absolute reality," M. Rabier boldly says, "in the simple feeling that
a man, or even an animal, has of its pain when beaten than in all the
theories of physics, for, beyond these theories, it can be asked, what
are the things that exist. But it is an absurdity to ask one's self
if, beyond the pain of which one is conscious, there be not another
pain different from that one."[35]
Let us excuse in psychologists this petty and common whim for
exaggerating the merit of the science they pursue. But here the limit
is really passed, and no scholar will admit that the perception and
representation of a body, as it may take place in the brain of a
Berthelot, can present any inferiority as a cognition of the absolute,
to the pain felt by the snail I crush under my foot. Nobody except
metaphysicians will acknowledge that psychology is a more precise and
certain science than physics or chemistry.
The criterion furnished by the development of the respective sciences
would prove just the contrary. The observations of psychology are
always rather unprecise. Psychological phenomena, notwithstanding the
efforts of Fechner and his school, are not yet measured with the same
strictness and ease as the tangible reality. To speak plainly, the
psychologist who vaunts the superiority of his method, and only shows
inferior results, places himself in a somewhat ridiculous and
contradictory position; he deserves to be compared to those
spiritualists who claim the power of evoking the souls of the
illustrious dead and only get from them platitudes.
In the main the arguments of the metaphysicians given above appear to
me to contain a grave error. This consists in supposing that the
natural sciences study the reality hidden beneath sensation, and only
make use of this fact as of a sign which enables them to get back from
effect to cause. This is quite inexact. That the natural sciences are
limited by sensation is true; but they do not go outside it, they
effect their constructions with sensation alone. And the reason is
very simple: it is the only thing they know. To the metaphysical
psychologist, who claims sensation as his own property, saying, "But
this sensation is a state of my consciousness, it is mine, it is
myself," the physicist has the right to answer: "I beg your pardon!
this sensation is the external object that I am studying; it is my
column of mercury, my spring, my precipitate, my amoeba; I
comprehend these objects directly, and I want no other." Psychology
finds itself, therefore, exactly on the same footing as the other
sciences in the degree in which it studies sensations that it
considers as its own property. I have already said that the sensations
proper to psychology are hardly represented otherwise than by the
emotional sensations produced by the storms in the apparatus of
organic life.
We now come to the definitions by content. They have been numerous,
but we shall only quote a few. The most usual consists in saying, that
_Psychology studies the facts of consciousness_. This formula passes,
in general, as satisfactory. The little objection raised against it
is, that it excludes the unconscious facts which play so important a
part in explaining the totality of mental life; but it only requires
some usual phrase to repair this omission. One might add, for
instance, to the above formula: conscious facts and those which,
while unconscious under certain conditions, are yet conscious in
others.
This is not, however, the main difficulty, which is far more serious.
On close examination, it is seen that the term, _fact of
consciousness_, is very elastic, and that for a reason easy to state.
This is, that all facts which exist and are revealed to us reach us by
the testimony of the consciousness, and are, consequently, facts of
consciousness. If I look at a locomotive, and analyse its machinery, I
act like a mechanic; if I study under the microscope the structure of
infusoria, I practise biology; and yet the sight of the locomotive,
the perception of the infusoria, are just facts of consciousness, and
should belong to psychology, if one takes literally the above
definition, which is so absolute that it absorbs the entire world into
the science of the mind. It might, indeed, be remarked that certain
phenomena would remain strictly psychological, such as, for instance,
the emotions, the study of which would not be disputed by any physical
science; for the world of nature offers us nothing comparable to an
emotion or an effort of will, while, on the other hand, everything
which is the object of physical science--that is, everything which can
be perceived by our external senses--may be claimed by psychology.
Therefore, it is very evident the above definition is much too wide,
and does not agree with _solo definito_. It does not succeed in
disengaging the essential characteristic of physics. This
characteristic indeed exists, and we foresee it, but we do not
formulate it.
Another definition by content has not been much more happy. To
separate the material from the moral, the conception of Descartes was
remembered, and we were told that: "Psychology is the science of what
exists only in time, while physics is the science of what exists at
once in time and in space."
To this theoretical reasoning it might already be objected that, in
fact, and in the life we lead, we never cease to localise in space,
though somewhat vaguely, our thought, our Ego, and our intellectual
whole. At this moment I am considering myself, and taking myself as an
example. I am writing these lines in my study, and no metaphysical
argument can cause me to abandon my firm conviction that my
intellectual whole is in this room, on the second floor of my house at
Meudon. I am here, and not elsewhere. My body is here; and my soul, if
I have one, is here. I am where my body is; I believe even that I am
within my body.
This localisation, which certainly has not the exactness nor even the
characteristics of the localisation of a material body in space, seems
to me to result from the very great importance we attach, to the
existence of our body in perception and in movement. Our body
accompanies all our perceptions; its changes of position cause these
perceptions to vary; the accidents which happen to it bring us
pleasure or pain. Some of its movements are under our orders; we
observe that others are the consequences of our thoughts and our
emotions. It occupies, therefore, among the objects of cognition a
privileged place, which renders it more intimate and more dear to us
than other objects. There is no need to inquire here whether, in
absolute reality, I am lodged within it, for this "I" is an artificial
product manufactured from memories. I have before explained what is
the value of the relation subject-object. It is indisputable that in
the manufacture of the subject we bring in the body. This is too
important an element for it not to have the right to form part of the
synthesis; it is really its nucleus. As, on the other hand, all the
other elements of the synthesis are psychical, invisible, and reduced
to being faculties and powers, it may be convenient to consider them
as occupying the centre of the body or of the brain. There is no need
to discuss this synthesis, for it is one of pure convenience. As well
inquire whether the personality of a public company is really
localised at its registered offices, round the green baize cover
which adorns the table in the boardroom.
Another definition of psychology, which is at once a definition by
content and a definition by method, has often been employed by
philosophers and physiologists. It consists in supposing that there
really exist two ways of arriving at the cognition of objects: the
within and the without. These two ways are as opposed to each other as
the right and wrong side of a stuff. It is in this sense that
psychology is the science of the within and looks at the wrong side of
the stuff, while the natural sciences look at the right side. And it
is so true, they add, that the same phenomenon appears under two
radically different forms according as we look at it from the one or
the other point of view. Thus, it is pointed out to us, every one of
our thoughts is in correlation with a particular state of our cerebral
matter; our thought is the subjective and mental face; the
corresponding cerebral process is the objective and material face.
Then the difference between representation, which is a purely
psychological phenomenon, and a cerebral state which is a material
one, and reducible to movement, is insisted upon; and it is declared
that these two orders of phenomena are separated by irreducible
differences.
Lastly, to take account of the meaning of these differences, and to
explain them, it is pointed out that they are probably connected with
the modes of cognition which intervene to comprehend the mental and
the physical. The mental phenomenon, we are told, is comprehended by
itself, and as it is; it is known without any mystery, and in its
absolute reality. The physical phenomenon, on the contrary, only
reaches us through the intermediary of our nerves, more or less
transformed in consequence by the handling in transport. It is an
indirect cognition which causes us to comprehend matter; we have of
this last only a relative and apparent notion, which sufficiently
explains how it may differ from a phenomenon of thought.
I have already had occasion to speak of this dualism, when we were
endeavouring to define sensation. We return to its criticism once
more, for it is a conception which in these days has become classic;
and it is only by repeatedly attacking it that it will be possible to
demonstrate its error.
To take an example: I look at the plain before me, and see a flock of
sheep pass over it. At the same time an observer is by my side and is
not looking at the same thing as myself. It is not at the plain that
he looks; it is, I will suppose, within my brain. Armed with a
microscope _à la_ Jules Verne, he succeeds in seeing what is passing
beneath my skull, and he notices within my fibres and nerve cells
those phenomena of undulation which physiologists have hitherto
described hypothetically. This observer notices then, that, while I am
looking over the plain, my optic nerve conveys a certain kind of
movements--these are, I suppose, displacements of molecules which
execute a complicated kind of dance. The movement follows the course
of the optic nerve, traverses the chiasma, goes along the fascia,
passes the internal capsule, and finally arrives at the visual centres
of the occipital region. Here, then, are the two terms of comparison
constituted: on the one hand, we have a certain representation--that
is, my own; and on the other hand, coinciding with this representation
we have the dynamic changes in the nerve centres. These are the two
things constituting the right and wrong side of the stuff. We shall be
told: "See how little similarity there is here! A representation is a
physical fact, a movement of molecules a material fact." And further,
"If these two facts are so little like each other, it is because they
reach us by two different routes."
I think both these affirmations equally disputable. Let us begin with
the second. Where does one see that we possess two different sources
of knowledge? Or that we can consider an object under two different
aspects? Where are our duplicate organs of the senses, of which the
one is turned inward and the other outward? In the example chosen for
this discussion, I have supposed two persons, each of whom
experiences a visual perception. One looks at one object, the other at
another; but both are looking with the same organs of sense, that is,
with their eyes. How is it possible to understand that these eyes can,
in turn, according to the necessity of the moment, see the two faces,
physical and mental, of the same object?
They are the two faces of an identical object, is the answer made to
us, because the two visions, although applied to the same object, are
essentially different. On the one hand is a sensation of displacement,
of movement, of a dance executed by the molecules of some proteid
substance; on the other hand is a flock of sheep passing over the
plain at a distance of a hundred metres away.
It seems to me that here also the argument advanced is not sound. In
the first place, it is essential to notice that not only are the two
paths of cognition identical, but also that the perceptions are of the
same nature. There is in this no opposition between the physical and
the mental. What is compared are the two phenomena, which are both
mixed and are physico-mental--physical, through the object to which
they are applied, mental, through the act of cognition they imply. To
perceive an object in the plain and to perceive a dynamic state of the
brain are two operations which each imply an act of cognition; and,
in addition, the object of this knowledge is as material in the one as
in the other case. A flock of sheep is matter just as much as my
brain.
No doubt, here are objects which differ; my observer and myself have
not the same perception. I acknowledge, but do not wonder at it. How
could our two perceptions be similar? I look at the sheep, and he at
the interior of my brain. It is not astonishing that, looking at such
different objects, we should receive images also different. Or, again,
if this other way of putting it be preferred, I would say: the
individual A looks at the flock through the intermediary of his
nervous system, while B looks at it through that of two nervous
systems, put as it were end to end (though not entirely), his own
nervous system first, and then that of A. How, then, could they
experience the same sensation?
They could only have an identical sensation if the idea of the
ancients were to be upheld, who understood the external perception of
bodies to result from particles detaching themselves from their
bodies, and after a more or less lengthy flight, striking and entering
into our organs of sense.[36]
Let us imagine, just for a moment, one of our nerves--the optic
nerve, for instance--transformed into a hollow tube, along which the
emissions of miniatures should wend their way. In this case,
evidently, if so strange a disposition were to be realised, and if B
could see what was flowing in the optic nerve of A, he would
experience a sensation almost analogous to that of A. Whenever the
latter saw a dog, a sheep, or a shepherd, B would likewise see in the
optic canal minute dogs, microscopic sheep, and Lilliputian shepherds.
At the cost of such a childish conception, a parity of content in the
sensations of our two spectators A and B might be supposed. But I will
not dwell on this.
The above considerations seem to me to explain the difference
generally noticed between thought and the physiological process. It is
not a difference of nature, an opposition of two essences, or of two
worlds--it is simply a difference of object; just that which separates
my visual perception of a tree and my visual perception of a dog.
There remains to know in what manner we understand the relation of
these two processes: this is another problem which we will examine
later.
Since the content does not give us the differentiation we desire, we
will abandon the definitions of psychology by content. What now
remains? The definitions from the point of view. The same fact may he
looked at, like a landscape, from different points of view, and
appears different with the changes therein. It is so with the facts we
consider psychical, and the autonomy of psychology would thus be a
matter of point of view.
It has, then, been supposed--and this is a very important
proposition--that the distinctive feature of psychical facts does not
consist in their forming a class of particular events. On the
contrary, their characteristic is to be studied in their dependency on
the persons who bring them about. This interesting affirmation is not
new: it may be read in the works of Mach, Külpe, Münsterberg, and,
especially, of Ebbinghaus, from whom I quote the following lines of
quite remarkable clearness: "Psychology is not distinguished from
sciences like physics and biology, which are generally and rightly
opposed to it, by a different content, in the way that, for instance,
zoology is distinguished from mineralogy or astronomy. It has the same
content, but considers it from a different point of view and with a
different object. It is the science, not of a given part of the world,
but of the whole world, considered, however, in a certain relation. It
studies, in the world, those formations, processes, and relations, the
properties of which are essentially determined by the properties and
functions of an organism, of an organised individual.... Psychology,
in short, considers the world from an individual and subjective point
of view, while the science of physics studies it as if it were
independent of us."
Over these definitions by point of view, one might quibble a little;
for those who thus define psychology are not always consistent with
themselves. In other passages of their writings they do not fail to
oppose psychical to physiological phenomena, and they proclaim the
irreducible heterogeneity of these two orders of phenomena and the
impossibility of seeing in physics the producing cause of the moral.
Ebbinghaus is certainly one of the modern writers who have most
strongly insisted on this idea of opposition between the physiological
and the psychical, and he is a convinced dualist. Now I do not very
clearly understand in what the principle of heterogeneity can consist
to a mind which admits, on the other hand, that psychology does not
differ from the physical sciences by its content.
However, I confine myself here to criticising the consequences and not
the starting point. The definition of the psychical phenomenon by the
point of view seems to me correct, although it has more concision than
clearness; for it rests especially upon a material metaphor, and the
expression "point of view" hardly applies except to the changes of
perspective furnished by visible objects.
It would be more exact to say that psychology specially studies
certain objects of cognition, such as those which have the character
of representations (reminiscences, ideas, concepts), the emotions, the
volitions, and the reciprocal influences of these objects among
themselves. It studies, then, a part of the material world, of that
world which till now has been called psychological, because it does
not come under the senses, and because it is subjective and
inaccessible to others than ourselves; it studies the laws of those
objects, which laws have been termed mental.[37]
These laws are not recognised, popularly speaking, either in physics
or in biology; they constitute for us a cognition apart from that of
the natural world. Association by resemblance, for example, is a law
of consciousness; it is a psychological law which has no application
nor counterpart in the world of physics or biology. We may therefore
sum up what has been said by the statement that psychology is the
study of a certain number of laws, relations, and connections.
As to the particular feature which distinguishes mental from physical
laws, we can formulate it, as does William James, by saying that the
essence of a mental law is to be teleological, or, if the phrase be
preferred, we can say that mental activity is a finalistic activity,
which expends itself as will in the pursuit of future ends, and as
intelligence in the choice of the means deemed capable of serving
those ends. An act of intelligence is recognised by the fact of its
aiming at an end, and employing for this end one means chosen out of
many. Finality and intelligence are thus synonymous. In opposition to
mental law, physical law is mechanical, by which expression is simply
implied the absence of finality. Finality opposed to mechanism; such
is the most concise and truest expression in which must be sought the
distinctive attribute of psychology and of the moral sciences, the
essential characteristic by which psychological are separated from
physical facts.
I think it may be useful to dwell a little on the mental laws which I
have just opposed to the physical, and whose object is to assure
preadaptation and form a finality.[38] Their importance cannot be
exaggerated. Thanks to his power of preadaptation, the being endowed
with intelligence acquires an enormous advantage over everything which
does not reason. No doubt, as has been shrewdly remarked, natural
selection resembles a finality, for it ends in an adaptation of beings
to their surroundings. There is therefore, strictly speaking, such a
thing as finality without intelligence. But the adaptation resulting
therefrom is a crude one, and proceeds by the elimination of all that
does not succeed in adapting itself; it is a butchery. Real finalism
saves many deaths, many sufferings, and many abortions.[39]
Let us examine, then, the process of preadaptation; it will enable us
to thoroughly comprehend, not only the difference between the physical
and the psychical laws, but the reason why the psychical manages in
some fashion to mould itself upon the physical law.
Now, the means employed by preadaptation is, if we take the matter in
its simplest form, to be aware of sensations before they are
experienced. If we reflect that all prevision implies a previous
knowledge of the probable trend of events, it will be understood that
the part played by intelligence consists in becoming imbued with the
laws of nature, for the purpose of imitating its workings. By the
laws of nature, we understand here only that order of real sensations,
the knowledge of which is sufficient to fulfil the wants of practical
life. To us there are always gaps in this order, because the sensation
it is important for us to know is separated from us either by the
barriers of time or of space, or by the complication of useless
sensations. Thence the necessity of interpolations. That which we do
not perceive directly by our senses, we are obliged to represent to
ourselves by our intelligence; the image does the work of sensation,
and supplements the halting sensation in everything which concerns
adaptation.
To replace the inaccessible sensation by the corresponding image, is
therefore to create in ourselves a representation of the outer world
which is, on all the points most useful to us, more complete than the
direct and sensorial presentation of the moment. There is in us a
power of creation, and this power exercises itself in the imitation of
the work of nature; it imitates its order, it reconstitutes on the
small scale adapted to our minds, the great external order of events.
Now, this work of imitation is only really possible if the imitator
has some means at his disposal analogous to those of the model.
Our minds could not divine the designs of nature, if the laws of
images had nothing in common with the laws of nature. We are thus led
to confront these two orders of laws with each other; but, before
doing so, one more preliminary word is necessary. We have up till now
somewhat limited the problem, in order to understand it. We have
reduced the psychological being to one single function, the
intellectual, and to one single object of research, the truth. This
is, however, an error which has often been committed, which is now
known and catalogued, called intellectualism, or the abuse of
intellectualism. It is committed for this very simple reason, that it
is the intellectual part of our being which best allows itself to be
understood, and, so to speak, intellectualised. But this leaves out of
the question a part of our entire mental being so important and so
eminent, that if this part be suppressed, the intelligence would cease
to work and would have no more utility than a machine without motive
power. Our own motive power is the will, the feeling, or the tendency.
Will is perhaps the most characteristic psychical function, since, as
I have already had occasion to say, nothing analogous to it is met
with in the world of nature. Let us therefore not separate the will
from the intelligence, let us incarnate them one in the other; and,
instead of representing the function of the mind as having for its aim
knowledge, foresight, the combination of means, and self-adaptation,
we shall be much nearer the truth in representing to ourselves a
being who _wills_ to know, _wills_ to foresee, and _wills_ to adapt
himself, for, after all, he _wills_ to live.
Having said this, let us compare the psychological law and that of
nature. Are they identical? We shall be told that they are not, since,
as a fact, errors are committed at every moment by the sudden failures
of human reason. This is the first idea which arises. Human error, it
would seem, is the best proof that the two laws in question are not
alike, and we will readily add that a falling stone does not mistake
its way, that the crystal, in the course of formation does not miss
taking the crystalline shape, because they form part of physical
nature, and are subject in consequence to its determinism. But this is
faulty reasoning, and a moment of reflection demonstrates it in the
clearest possible manner; for adaptation may miss its aim without the
being who adapts himself and his surroundings necessarily obeying
different laws. When the heat of a too early spring causes buds to
burst forth prematurely which are afterwards destroyed by frost, there
is produced a fault of adjustment which resembles an error of
adaptation, and the bringing forward of this error does not
necessarily imply that the tree and the whole of physical nature are
obeying different laws. Moreover, the difference between the laws of
nature and those of the understanding does not need deduction by
reasoning from an abstract principle; it is better to say that it is
directly observable, and this is how I find that it presents itself to
us.
The essential law of nature is relatively easy to formulate, as it is
comprised in the very definition of law. It simply consists in the
sentence: uniformity under similar conditions. We might also say: a
constant relation between two or several phenomena, which can also be
expressed in a more abstract way by declaring that the law of nature
rests on the combination of two notions, identity and constancy.
On the other hand, the laws of our psychical activity partly
correspond to the same tendencies, and it would be easy to demonstrate
that the microcosm of our thoughts is governed by laws which are also
an expression of these two combined notions of constancy and identity.
It is, above all, in the working of the intellectual machine, the best
known and the most clearly analysed up till now, that we see the
application of this mental law which resembles, as we say, on certain
sides, the physical law: and the best we can do for our demonstration
will doubtless be to dissect our reasoning powers. Reason, a process
essential to thought in action, is developed in accordance with a law
which resembles in the most curious manner a physical law. It
resembles it enough to imitate it, to conform to it, and, so to speak,
to mould itself on it.
Now, the reason does not follow the caprices of thought, it is subject
to rules; it results from the properties of the images, those
properties which we have above referred to, the material character of
which we have recognised, and which are two in number--similarity and
contiguity, as they are termed in the jargon of the schools. They are
properties which have for their aim to bring things together, to
unite, and to synthetise. They are unceasingly at work, and so
apparent in their labour that they have long been known. We know,
since the time of Aristotle, that two facts perceived at the same time
reproduce themselves together in the memory--this is the law of
contiguity; and that two facts perceived separately, but which are
similar, are brought together in our mind--this is the law of
similarity.
Now, similarity and contiguity form by combination the essential part
of all kinds of reasoning, and this reasoning, thus understood, works
in a fashion which much resembles (we shall see exactly in what
degree) a physical law. I wish to show this in a few words. What
renders my demonstration difficult and perhaps obscure is, that we
shall be obliged to bring together rather unexpectedly categories of
phenomena which are generally considered separate.
The distinctive attribute of the reason consists, as I have said, in
the setting to work of these two elementary properties, similarity and
contiguity. It consists, in fact, in extending continuity by
similarity; in endowing with identical properties and similar
accompaniments things which resemble each other; in other words, it
consists in impliedly asserting that the moment two things are
identical in one point they are so for all the rest. This will be
fairly well understood by imagining what takes place when mental
images having the above-mentioned properties meet. Suppose that B is
associated with C, and that A resembles B. In consequence of their
resemblance the passing from A to B is easy; and then B suggesting C
by contiguity, it happens that this C is connected with A connected,
though, in reality, they have never been tried together. I say they
are associated on the basis of their relation to B, which is the
rallying point. It is thus that, on seeing a piece of red-hot iron
(A), I conclude it is hot (C), because I recollect distinctly or
unconsciously another piece of red-hot iron (B), of which I once
experienced the heat. It is this recollection B which logicians, in
their analysis of logical, verbal, and formal argument, call the
middle term. Our representation of the process of reasoning is not
special to argument. It also expresses the process of invention, and
every kind of progress from the known to the unknown. It is an
activity which creates relations, which assembles and binds together,
and the connections made between different representations are due to
their partial identities, which act as solder to two pieces of metal.
It will now be understood that these relations between the images
curiously resemble the external order of things, the order of our
sensations, the order of nature, the physical law. This is because
this physical law also has the same character and expresses itself
similarly. We might say "all things which resemble each other have the
same properties," or "all things alike on one point resemble each
other on all other points." But immediately we do so, the difference
between the physical and the mental law becomes apparent. The formula
we have given is only true on condition that many restrictions and
distinctions are made.
The process of nature is so to do that the _same_ phenomenon always
unfolds itself in the same order. But this process is not always
comprehended in real life, for it is hidden from our eyes by the
manifold combinations of chance; in the reality that we perceive there
is a crowd of phenomena which resemble each other but are not really
the same. There are a number of phenomena which co-exist or follow
each other without this order of co-existence or succession being
necessary or constant. In other words, there are resemblances which
are the marks of something, as a logician would say, and others which
are not the marks of anything; there are relations of time and space
which are the expression of a law; there are some which are
accidental, and may possibly never be reproduced.
It would be a wonderful advantage if every scientific specialist would
make out a list of the non-significant properties that he recognises
in matter. The chemist, for example, would show us that specific
weight has hardly any value in diagnosis, that the crystalline form of
a salt is often not its own, that its colour especially is almost
negligible because an immense number of crystals are white or
colourless, that precipitation by a given substance does not
ordinarily suffice to characterise a body, and so on. The botanist, on
his part, would show us that, in determining plants, absolute
dimension is less important than proportion, colour less important
than form, certain structures of organs less important than others.
The pathologist would teach us that most pathological symptoms have
but a trivial value; the cries, the enervation, the agitation of a
patient, even the delirium which so affects the bystanders, are less
characteristic of fever than the rate of his pulse, and the latter
less than the temperature of the armpit or the dryness of the tongue,
&c. At every moment the study of science reveals resemblances of facts
and contiguities of facts which must be neglected for the sake of
others. And if we pass from this profound knowledge of the objects to
the empirical knowledge, to the external perception of bodies, it is
in immense number that one espies around one traps laid by nature. The
sound we hear resembles several others, all produced by different
causes; many of our visual sensations likewise lend themselves to the
most varied interpretations; by the side of the efficient cause of an
event we find a thousand entangled contingencies which appear so
important that to disentangle them we are as much perplexed as the
savage, who, unable to discriminate between causes and coincidences,
returns to drink at the well which has cured him, carefully keeping to
the same hour, the same gestures, and the same finery.
The reason of this is that the faculty of similarity and the faculty
of contiguity do not give the distinction, necessary as it is, between
resemblances and co-existences which are significant and those which
are not. The causal nexus between two phenomena is not perceived as
something apart and _sui generis_; it is not even perceived at all. We
perceive only their relation in time and space, and it is our mind
which raises a succession to the height of a causal connection, by
intercalating between cause and effect something of what we ourselves
feel when we voluntarily order the execution of a movement. This is
not the place to inquire what are the experimental conditions in which
we subject phenomena to this anthropomorphic transformation; it will
suffice for us to repeat here that, in perception, a chance relation
between phenomena impresses us in the same way as when it is the
expression of a law.
Our intellectual machine sometimes works in accord with the external
law and at others makes mistakes and goes the wrong way. Then we are
obliged to correct it, and to try a better adjustment, either by
profounder experimenting with nature (methods of concordance,
discordance, variations, &c.), or by a comparison of different
judgments and arguments made into a synthesis; and this collaboration
of several concordant activities ends in a conclusion which can never
represent the truth, but only the probable truth. The study of the
laws of the mind shows us too clearly, in fact, their fluidity with
regard to the laws of nature for us not to accept probabilism. There
exists no certitude--only very varied degrees of probability. Daily
practice contents itself with a very low degree of probability;
judicial logic demands a rather higher one, especially when it is a
question of depriving one of our fellow-creatures of liberty or life.
Science claims one higher still. But there is never anything but
differences of degrees in probability and conjecture.
This, then, is the definition of psychology that we propose. It
studies a certain number of laws which we term mental, in opposition
to those of external nature, from which they differ, but which,
properly speaking, do not deserve the qualification of mental, since
they are--or at least the best known of them are--laws of the images,
and the images are material elements. Although it may seem absolutely
paradoxical, psychology is a science of matter--the science of a part
of matter which has the property of preadaptation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 33: LANGE, _Histoire du Matérialisme_, II., 2me. partie,
chap. iii.]
[Footnote 34: Let us remark, in passing, how badly nature has
organised the system of communication between thinking beings. In what
we experience we have nothing in common with our fellows; each one
experiences his own sensations and not those of others. The only
meeting point of different minds is found in the inaccessible domain
of the _noumena._]
[Footnote 35: E. RABIER, _Leçons de Philosophie_, "Psychologie," p.
33.]
[Footnote 36: This seems to have been the opinion of Democritus. The
modern doctrine of radiation from the human body, if established,
would go nearly as far as the supposition in the text. Up till now,
however, it lacks confirmation.--ED.]
[Footnote 37: I am compelled, much against my will, to use throughout
this passage an equivocal expression, that of "mental law," or law of
consciousness, or psychological law. I indicate by this the laws of
contiguity and of similarity; as they result from the properties of
the images, and as these are of a material nature, they are really
physical and material laws like those of external nature. But how can
all these laws be called physical laws without running the risk of
confusing them one with the other?]
[Footnote 38: _Finality_ seems to be here used in the sense of the
doctrine which regards perfection as the final cause of
existence.--ED.]
[Footnote 39: See a very interesting article by E. GOBLOT, "La
Finalité sans Intelligence," _Revue de Métaphysique_, July 1900.]
BOOK III
THE UNION OF THE SOUL[40] AND THE BODY
CHAPTER I
THE MIND HAS AN INCOMPLETE LIFE
The problem of the union of the mind and the body is not one of those
which present themselves in pure speculation; it has its roots in
experimental facts, and is forced upon us by the necessity of
explaining observations such as those we are about to quote.
The force of our consciousness, the correctness of our judgments, our
tempers and our characters, the state of health of our minds, and also
their troubles, their weaknesses, and even their existence, are all in
a state of strict dependence on the condition of our bodies, more
precisely with that of our nervous systems, or, more precisely still,
with the state of those three pounds of proteid substance which each
of us has at the back of his forehead, and which are called our
brains. This is daily demonstrated by thousands upon thousands of
observations.
The question is to know how this union of the body with the
consciousness is to be explained, it being assumed that the two terms
of this union present a great difference in their nature. The easier
it seems to demonstrate that this union exists, the more difficult it
appears to explain how it is realised; and the proof of this
difficulty is the number of divergent interpretations given to it.
Were it a simple question of fact, the perpetual discussions and
controversies upon it would not arise.
Many problems here present themselves. The first is that of the
genesis or origin of the consciousness. It has to be explained how a
psychical phenomenon can appear in the midst of material ones. In
general, one begins by supposing that the material phenomena are
produced first; they consist, for instance, in the working of the
nervous centres. All this is physical or chemical, and therefore
material. Then at a given moment, after this mechanical process, a
quite different phenomenon emerges. This is thought, consciousness,
emotion. Then comes the question whether this production of thought in
the midst of physical phenomena is capable of explanation, and how
thought is connected with its physical antecedents. What is the nature
of the link between them? Is it a relation of cause to effect, of
genesis? or a coincidence? or the interaction of two distinct forces?
Is this relation constant or necessary? Can the mind enjoy an
existence independent of the brain? Can it survive the death of the
brain?
The second question is that of knowing what is the rôle, the utility,
and the efficacity of the psychical phenomenon. Once formed, this
phenomenon evolves in a certain direction and assumes to us who have
consciousness of it a very great importance. What is its action on the
material phenomena of the brain which surround it? Does it develop
according to laws of its own, which have no relation to the laws of
brain action? Does it exercise any action on these intra-cerebral
functions? Does it exercise any action on the centrifugal currents
which go to the motor nerves? Is it capable of exciting a movement? or
is it deprived of all power of creating effect?
We will briefly examine the principal solutions which the imagination
of mankind has found for these very difficult problems. Some of the
best known of these solutions bear the names of spiritualism,
materialism, parallelism, and monism. We will speak of these and of
some others also.
Before beginning our critical statement, let us recall some of the
results of our previous analyses which here intrude themselves, to use
the ambitious language of Kant, as the prolegomena to every future
solution which claims the title of science. In fact, we are now no
longer at the outset of our investigation. We have had to acknowledge
the exactness of certain facts, and we are bound to admit their
consequences. Notably, the definition of psychical phenomena at which
we arrived, not without some trouble, will henceforth play a rather
large part in our discussion. It will force us to question a great
metaphysical principle which, up till now, has been almost universally
considered as governing the problem of the union of the mind with the
body.
This principle bears the name of the _axiom of heterogeneity_, or the
principle of _psycho-physical dualism_. No philosopher has more
clearly formulated it, and more logically deduced its consequences,
than Flournoy. This author has written a little pamphlet called
_Métaphysique et Psychologie_, wherein he briefly sets forth all the
known systems of metaphysics by reducing them to the so-called
principle of heterogeneity; after this, the same principle enables him
to "execute" them. He formulates it in the following terms: "body and
mind, consciousness and the molecular cerebral movement of the brain,
the psychical fact and the physical fact, although simultaneous, are
heterogeneous, unconnected, irreducible, and obstinately two."[41] The
same author adds: "this is evident of itself, and axiomatic. Every
physical, chemical, or physiological event, in the last resort, simply
consists, according to science, in a more or less rapid displacement
of a certain number of material elements, in a change of their mutual
distances or of their modes of grouping. Now, what can there be in
common, I ask you, what analogy can you see, between this drawing
together or moving apart of material masses in space, and the fact of
having a feeling of joy, the recollection of an absent friend, the
perception of a gas jet, a desire, or of an act of volition of any
kind?" And further on: "All that we can say to connect two events so
absolutely dissimilar is, that they take place _at the same time_....
This does not mean that we wish to reduce them to unity, or to join
them together by the link of causality ... it is impossible to
conceive any real connection, any internal relation between these two
unconnected things."
Let us not hesitate to denounce as false this proposition which is
presented to us as an axiom. On looking closely into it, we shall
perceive that the principle of heterogeneity does not contain the
consequences it is sought to ascribe to it. It seems to me it should
be split up into two propositions of very unequal value: 1, the mind
and body are heterogeneous; 2, by virtue of this heterogeneity it is
not possible to understand any direct relation between the two.
Now, if the first proposition is absolutely correct, in the sense that
consciousness and matter are heterogeneous, the second proposition
seems to us directly contrary to the facts, which show us that the
phenomena of consciousness are incomplete phenomena. The consciousness
is not sufficient for itself; as we have said, it cannot exist by
itself. This again, if you like, is an axiom, or rather it is a fact
shown by observation and confirmed by reflection. Mind and matter
brought down to the essential, to the consciousness and its object,
form a natural whole, and the difficulty does not consist in uniting
but in separating them. Consider the following fact: "I experience a
sensation, and I have consciousness of it." This is the coupling of
two things--a sensation and a cognition.
The two elements, if we insist upon it, are heterogeneous, and they
differ qualitatively; but notwithstanding the existing prejudice by
reason of which no direct relation, no commerce, can be admitted
between heterogeneous facts, the alliance of the consciousness and the
sensation is the natural and primitive fact. They can only be
separated by analysis, and a scrupulous mind might even ask whether
one has the right to separate them. I have a sensation, and I have
consciousness of it. If not two facts, they are one and the same. Now,
sensation is matter and my consciousness is mind. If I am judging an
assortment of stuffs, this assortment, or the sensation I have of
them, is a particle of matter, a material state, and my judgment on
this sensation is the psychical phenomenon. We can neither believe,
nor desire, nor do any act of our intelligence without realising this
welding together of mind and matter. They are as inseparable as motion
and the object that moves; and this comparison, though far-fetched, is
really very convenient. Motion cannot exist without a mobile object;
and an object, on the other hand, can exist without movement. In the
same way, sensation may exist without the consciousness; but the
converse proposition, consciousness without sensation, without an
object, an empty consciousness or a "pure thought," cannot be
understood.
Let us mark clearly how this union is put forward by us. We describe
it after nature. It is observation which reveals to us the union and
the fusion of the two terms into one. Or, rather, we do not even
perceive their union until the moment when, by a process of analysis,
we succeed in convincing ourselves that that which we at first
considered single is really double, or, if you like, can be made into
two by the reason, without being so in reality. Thus it happens that
we bring this big problem in metaphysics on to the field of
observation.
Our solution vaguely resembles that which has sometimes been presented
under the ancient name of _physical influx_, or under the more modern
name of _inter-actionism_. There are many authors who maintain that
the soul can act directly on the body and modify it, and this is what
is called inter-actionism. Thereby is understood, if I mistake not, an
action from cause to effect, produced between two terms which enjoy a
certain independence with regard to each other. This interpretation is
indubitably close to ours, though not to be confused with it. My
personal interpretation sets aside the idea of all independence of the
mind, since it attributes to the mind an incomplete and, as it were, a
virtual existence.
If we had to seek paternity for ideas I would much rather turn to
Aristotle. It was not without some surprise that I was able to
convince myself that the above theory of the relations between the
soul and the body is to be found almost in its entirety in the great
philosopher. It is true that it is mixed up with many accessory ideas
which are out of date and which we now reject; but the essential of
the theory is there very clearly formulated, and that is the important
point. A few details on this subject will not be out of place. I give
them, not from the original source, which I am not erudite enough to
consult direct, but from the learned treatise which Bain has published
on the psychology of Aristotle, as an appendix to his work on the
Senses and the Intelligence.
The whole metaphysics of Aristotle is dominated by the distinction
between form and matter. This distinction is borrowed from the most
familiar fact in the sensible world--the form of solid objects. We may
name a substance without troubling ourselves as to the form it
possesses, and we may name the form without regard to the substance
that it clothes. But this distinction is a purely abstract one, for
there can be no real separation of form from matter, no form without
matter, and no matter without form. The two terms are correlative;
each one implies the other, and neither can be realised or actualised
without the other. Every individual substance can be considered from a
triple point of view: 1st, form; 2nd, matter; and 3rd, the compound or
aggregate of form and matter, the inseparable _Ens_, which transports
us out of the domain of logic and abstraction into that of reality.
Aristotle recognises between these two logical correlatives a
difference in rank. Form is superior, nobler, the higher in dignity,
nearer to the perfect entity; matter is inferior, more modest, more
distant from perfection. On account of its hierarchical inferiority,
matter is often presented as the second, or _correlatum_, and form as
the first, or _relatum_. This difference in rank is so strongly
marked, that these two correlations are likewise conceived in a
different form--that of the potential and the actual. Matter is the
potential, imperfect, roughly outlined element which is not yet
actual, and may perhaps never become so. Form is the actual, the
energy, the entelechy which actualises the potential and determines
the final compound.
These few definitions will make clear the singularly ingenious idea of
Aristotle on the nature of the body, the soul, and of their union. The
body is matter which is only intelligible as the _correlatum_ of form;
it can neither exist by itself nor be known by itself--that is to say,
when considered outside this relation. The soul is form, the actual.
By uniting with the body it constitutes the living subject. The soul
is the _relatum_, and is unintelligible and void of sense without its
_correlatum_. "The soul," says Aristotle, "is not a variety of body,
but it could not exist without a body: the soul is not a body, but
something which belongs or is relative to a body." The animated
subject is a form plunged and engaged in matter, and all its actions
and passions are so likewise. Each has its formal side which concerns
the soul, and its material side which concerns the body. The emotion
which belongs to the animated subject or aggregate of soul and body is
a complex fact having two aspects logically distinguishable from each
other, each of which is correlative to the other and implies it. It is
thus not only with our passions, but also with our perceptions, our
imaginations, reminiscences, reasonings, and efforts of attention to
learn. Intelligence, like emotion, is a phenomenon not simply of the
corporeal organism nor of the [Greek: Nous] only, but of the
commonalty or association of which they are members, and when the
intelligence weakens it is not because the [Greek: Nous] is altered,
but because the association is destroyed by the ruin of the corporeal
organism.
These few notes, which I have taken in their integrity from Bain's
text, allow us thoroughly to comprehend the thought of Aristotle, and
it seems to me that the Greek philosopher, by making of the soul and
body two correlative terms, has formed a comparison of great
exactness. I also much admire his idea according to which it is
through the union of the body and soul that the whole, which till then
was only possible, goes forth from the domain of logic and becomes
actual. The soul actualises the body, and becomes, as he said, its
entelechy.
These views are too close to those I have myself just set forth for it
to be necessary to dwell on their resemblance. The latter would become
still stronger if we separated from the thought of Aristotle a few
developments which are not essential, though he allowed them great
importance: I refer to the continual comparison he makes with the form
and matter of corporeal objects. Happy though it may be, this
comparison is but a metaphor which perhaps facilitates the
understanding of Aristotle's idea, but is not essential to his theory.
For my part, I attach far greater importance to the character of
_relatum_, and _correlatum_ ascribed to the two terms mind and matter,
and to the actualisation[42] produced by their union.
Let me add another point of comparison. Aristotle's theory recalls in
a striking manner that of Kant on the _a priori_ forms of thought. The
form of thought, or the category, is nothing without the matter of
cognition, and the latter is nothing without the application of form.
"Thoughts without content given by sensation are empty; intuitions
without concept furnished by the understanding are blind." There is
nothing astonishing in finding here the same illustration, since there
is throughout a question of describing the same phenomenon,--the
relation of mind to matter.
There remains to us to review the principal types of metaphysical
systems. We shall discuss these by taking as our guide the principle
we have just evolved, and which may be thus formulated: _The phenomena
of consciousness constitute an incomplete mode of existence._
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 40: See [Note 1] on p. 3.]
[Footnote 41: For reference, see [Note 18] on p. 73.--ED.]
[Footnote 42: _i.e._ rendering actual.--ED.]
CHAPTER II
SPIRITUALISM[43] AND IDEALISM
Flournoy has somewhere written that the chief interest of the systems
of metaphysics lies less in the intellectual constructions they raise
than in the aspirations of the mind and of the heart to which they
correspond. Without taking literally this terribly sceptical opinion,
it would be highly useful to begin the study of any metaphysical
system by the psychology of its author. The value of each system would
be better understood, and their reasons would be comprehended.
This book is too short to permit us to enter into such biographical
details. I am obliged to take the metaphysical systems _en bloc_, as
if they were anonymous works, and to efface all the shades,
occasionally so curious, that the thought of each author has
introduced into them. Yet, however brief our statement, it seems
indispensable to indicate clearly the physical or moral idea
concealed within each system.
SPIRITUALISM
It is known that spiritualism is a doctrine which has for its chief
aim the raising of the dignity of man, by recognising in him faculties
superior to the properties of matter. We constantly meet, in
spiritualism, with the notion of superior and inferior, understood not
only in an intellectual sense but also in the sense of moral worth.
It will also be remarked, as a consequence of the above principle,
that a spiritualist does not confine himself to discussing the ideas
of his habitual adversary, the materialist; he finds them not only
false, but dangerous, and is indignant with them; some persons even
ingenuously acknowledge that they hold firmly to certain principles
because they fear to be converted to materialism. I can also discern
in this system a very natural horror of death, which inspires in so
many people, of whom I am one, both hatred and disgust. The
spiritualist revolts against the prospect of a definitive annihilation
of thought, and the system he adopts is largely explained as an effort
towards immortality.
This effort has led to the theory of two substances, the soul and the
body, which are represented as being as thoroughly separated as
possible. The soul has not its origin in the body, and it derives none
of its properties from its fellow; it is a substance created in
complete independence relatively to the body; the soul, in its
essence, has nothing in common with matter. The essence of the soul,
said Descartes, is thought; the essence of the body is extent. It
follows from this that the soul, in its determinations and actions, is
liberated from the laws and necessities of the corporeal nature; it is
a free power, a power of indetermination, capable of choice, capable
of introducing new, unforeseen, and unforeseeable actions, and on this
point opposes itself to corporeal phenomena, which are all subject to
a determinism so rigorous that any event could be foreseen if its
antecedents were known. Another consequence of spiritualism is the
admission of the immortality of the soul, which, being widely distinct
from the body, is not affected by its dissolution; it is, on the
contrary, liberated, since death cuts the link which binds them
together.
But there is a link, and the explanation of this link brings with it
the ruin of the whole system. One is forced to admit that this
principle of the separation of body and soul is liable, in fact, to
many exceptions. Even if they are two isolated powers, the necessities
of life oblige them to enter continually into communication with each
other. In the case of perceptions, it is the body which acts on the
soul and imparts sensations to it; in movements, it is the soul, on
the contrary, which acts on the body, to make it execute its desires
and its will.
Spiritualists must acknowledge that they are at some trouble to
explain this traffic between the two substances; for, with their
respect for the principle of heterogeneity mentioned above, they do
not manage to conceive how that contact of the physical and the mental
can be made which is constantly necessary in the life of relation. By
what means, have they long asked themselves, can that which is only
extent act on that which is only thought? How can we represent to
ourselves this _local_ union of matter with an immaterial principle,
which, by its essence, does not exist in space? The two substances
have been so completely separated, to insure the liberty of the soul
and its superiority over the body, that it has become impossible to
bring them together. The scission has been too complete. They cannot
be sewn together again.
Such are the principal objections raised against spiritualism. These
objections are derived from points of view which are not ours, and we
have therefore no need to estimate their value.
From our point of view, the spiritualist conception has chosen an
excellent starting point. By establishing the consciousness and the
object of cognition as two autonomous powers, neither of which is the
slave of the other, spiritualism has arrived at an opinion of
irreproachable exactness; it is indeed thus that the relations of
these two terms must be stated; each has the same importance and the
right to the same autonomy.[44]
Yet, spiritualism has not rested there, and, by a lamentable
exaggeration, it has thought that the consciousness, which it calls
the soul, could exercise its functions in complete independence of the
object of cognition, which it calls matter. There is the error. It
consists in misunderstanding the incomplete and, as it were, virtual
existence of the consciousness. This refutation is enough as regards
spiritualism. Nothing more need be added.
IDEALISM
Idealism is an exceedingly complex system, varying much with varying
authors, very polymorphous, and consequently very difficult to
discuss.
The ancient hylozoism, the monadism of Leibnitz, and the recent
panpsychism of M. Strong are only different forms of the same
doctrine.
Like spiritualism, with which it is connected by many ties, idealism
is a philosophy which expresses some disdain for matter, but the
thoughts which have sought to shelter themselves under this philosophy
are so varied that it would be perilous to try to define them briefly.
There can be discussed in idealism a certain number of affirmations
which form the basis of the system. None of these affirmations is,
strictly speaking, demonstrated or demonstrable; but they offer very
different degrees of probability, and it is for this reason that we
shall notice them.
Amongst these affirmations there are some that we have already met
with in our study of the definition of sensation; others will be newer
to us.
1. Here is one which seems to arise directly from the facts, and
appears for a long time to have constituted an impregnable position
for idealists. It may be expressed in three words: _esse est percipi_.
Starting with the observation that every time we bear witness to the
existence of the external world, it is because we perceive it,
idealists admit that the existence of this external world shares
exactly the lot of our perception, and that like it it is
discontinuous and intermittent. When we close our eyes, it ceases to
exist, like a torch which is extinguished, and lights up again when we
open them. We have already discussed this proposition, and have shown
that it contains nothing imperative; and we may very well decline to
subscribe to it.
2. There follows a second proposition, barely distinct from the
previous one. There should be nothing else in objects but that which
we perceive, and that of which we have consciousness should be, in the
fullest possible acceptation of the words, the measure of what is.
Consequently there should be no need to seek, under the object
perceived, another and larger reality, a source from which might flow
wider knowledge than that we at present possess. This is as disputable
as the preceding affirmation, and for the same reasons.
3. The third proposition is the heart of the idealist thesis. It is
sometimes presented as a deduction from the foregoing, but it is
nevertheless thoroughly distinct from it, and the preceding
affirmations might legitimately be accepted and this new one rejected.
This proposition may be expressed thus: _Everything that is perceived
is psychical._
It is not only idealists who subscribe to this opinion, however, and
we have seen, when dealing with the definition of matter, that it is
widely spread. We understand by it that the objects we perceive exist
in the consciousness, are of the consciousness, and are constituted
by ideas; the whole world is nothing but idea and representation; and,
since our mind is taken to be of a psychical nature, the result is
that everything, absolutely everything, the person who knows and the
thing known, are all psychical. This is panpsychism. Flournoy, on this
point, says, with a charm coloured by irony: "We henceforth experience
a sweet family feeling, we find ourselves, so to speak, _at home_ in
the midst of this universe ..."[45] We have demonstrated above that
the unity here attained is purely verbal, since we cannot succeed in
suppressing the essential differences of things.
4. Now comes an affirmation on the genesis of things. After having
admitted that the object is an idea of the mind, one of its
manifestations, or one of its moods, the idealists go so far as to say
that the consciousness is the generating power of ideas, and,
consequently, the generating cause of the universe. It is thought
which creates the world. That is the final conclusion.
I indicated, beforehand, in the chapters on the definition of
sensation and on the distinction between the consciousness and the
object, the reasons which lead me to reject the premises of idealism.
It will be sufficient to offer here a criticism on its last
conclusion: "It is the mind that creates the world."
This thesis strikes at the duality--consciousness and object; it gives
the supremacy to the consciousness by making of the object an effect
or property of the former. We can object that this genesis cannot be
clearly represented, and that for the very simple reason that it is
impossible to clearly accept "mind" as a separate entity and distinct
from matter. It is easy to affirm this separation, thanks to the
psittacism of the words, which are here used like counterfeit coin,
but we cannot represent it to ourselves, for it corresponds to
nothing. The consciousness constitutes all that is mental in the
world; nothing else can be described as mental. Now this consciousness
only exists as an act; it is, in other terms, an incomplete form of
existence, which does not exist apart from its object, of which the
true name is matter. It is therefore very difficult to understand this
affirmation, "It is the mind that creates the world," since to be able
to do so, we should have to imagine a consciousness without an object.
Moreover, should we even succeed in doing so, we should be none the
more disposed, on that account, to give assent to this proposition.
Consciousness and matter represent to us the most different and
antithetical terms of the whole of the knowable. Were the hypothesis
to be advanced that one of these elements is capable of engendering
the other, we should immediately have to ask ourselves why this
generating power and this pre-eminence should be attributed to one
rather than to the other element. Who can claim that one solution is
more clear, more reasonable, or more probable than the other?
One of the great advantages of the history of philosophy here asserts
itself. This history shows us that different minds when reflecting on
the same problems have come to conceive solutions which have appeared
to them clear, and consequently were possible; now, as these solutions
are often contradictory, nothing shows better than their collation the
distance between possibility and fact. Thus the materialists, who,
like the idealists, have put forward a genetic theory of the mind,
have conceived mind as produced by matter;--a conception diametrically
opposed to that of the idealists. It may be said that these two
conceptions, opposed in sense, annul each other, and that each of
these two philosophical systems has rendered us service by
demonstrating the error of the opposing system.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 43: It is, perhaps, needless to point out that by
"spiritualism" M. Binet does not mean the doctrine of the
spirit-rappers, whom he, like other scientific writers, designates as
"spiritists," but the creed of all those who believe in disembodied
spirits or existences.--ED.]
[Footnote 44: I do not insist on the difference between my conception
and the spiritualistic conception; my distinction between
consciousness and matter does not correspond, it is evident, to that
of "facts of consciousness" and "physical facts" which spiritualism
sets up.]
[Footnote 45: _Archives de Psychologie_, vol. iv. No. 14, Nov. 1904,
p. 132 (article on Panpsychism).]
CHAPTER III
MATERIALISM AND PARALLELISM
Materialism is a very ancient doctrine. It is even the most ancient of
all, which simply proves that amongst the different explanations given
of our double physico-mental nature, this doctrine is the easiest to
understand. The origin of materialism is to be found in the beliefs of
savage tribes, and is again found, very clearly defined, in the
philosophy of those ancient Greeks who philosophized before Plato and
Aristotle. A still stranger fact is that the thoughts of a great
number of the Fathers of the Church inclined towards the philosophy of
matter. Then, in the course of its evolution, there occurred a moment
of eclipse, and materialism ceased to attract attention till the
contemporary period in which we assist at its re-birth, Nowadays, it
constitutes a powerful doctrine, the more so that it has
surreptitiously crept into the thoughts of many learned men without
their being clearly conscious of it. There are many physicists and
physiologists who think and speak as materialists, though they have
made up their minds to remain on the battle-ground of observed facts
and have a holy horror of metaphysics. In a certain sense, it may be
said that materialism is the metaphysics of those who refuse to be
metaphysicians.
It is very evident that in the course of its long history, materialism
has often changed its skin. Like all knowledge, it has been subject to
the law of progress; and, certainly, it would not have been of a
nature to satisfy the intellectual wants of contemporary scholars, had
it not stripped itself of the rude form under which it first
manifested itself in the mind of primitive man. Yet what has enabled
the doctrine to keep its unity through all its changes is that it
manifests a deeply human tendency to cling by preference to everything
visible and tangible.
Whatever strikes the eyes, or can be felt by the hand, seems to us in
the highest degree endowed with reality or existence. It is only much
later, after an effort of refined thought, that we come to recognise
an existence in everything that can be perceived in any way whatever,
even in an idea. It is still later that we understand that existence
is not only that which is perceived but also that which is linked
logically with the rest of our knowledge. A good deal of progress has
been necessary to reach this point.
As I have not the slightest intention of giving even an abridged
history of materialism, let us come at once to the present day, and
endeavour to say in what consists the scientific form this doctrine
has assumed. Its fundamental basis has not changed. It still rests on
our tendency to give chief importance to what can be seen and touched;
and it is an effect of the hegemony of three of our senses, the
visual, the tactile, and the muscular.
The extraordinary development of the physical sciences has no doubt
given an enormous encouragement to materialism, and it may be said
that in the philosophy of nature it occupies a principal place, and
that it is there in its own domain and unassailable.
It has become the expression of the idea that everything that can be
explained scientifically, everything susceptible of being measured, is
a material phenomenon. It is the representation of the material
explanation pushed to its last limits, and all experiments, all
calculations, all inductions resting on the grand principle of the
conservation of matter and energy plead in its favour.
We will examine with some precision how far such a doctrine solves the
problem of the existence of the intellectual functions.
The doctrine has understood this connection as being purely material,
and has sought its image in other phenomena which are entirely so.
Thus, it has borrowed from physiology the principle of its
explanation, it has transported into the domain of thought the idea of
function, and it has supposed that the soul is to the body in the
relation of function to organ. Intelligence would thus be a cerebral
function. To explain intelligence, materialists link it with matter,
turn it into a property of matter, and compare it to a movement of
matter, and sometimes even to a secretion. So Karl Vogt, the
illustrious Genevan naturalist, one day declared, to the great scandal
of every one, that the brain secretes the thought as the kidney does
urine. This bold comparison seemed shocking, puerile, and false, for a
secretion is a material thing while thought is not. Karl Vogt also
employed another comparison: the brain produces the thought as the
muscle produces movement, and it at once seems less offensive to
compare the thought to a movement than to compare it to a liquid
secretion. At the present day, an illustration still more vague would
be used, such as that of a transformation of energy: chemical energy
disengaged by the nerve centres would be thus looked upon as
transformed into psychical energy.
However, it matters little what metaphors are applied to for help in
explaining the passage from the physical to the mental. What
characterises materialist philosophy is its belief in the possibility
of such a passage, and its considering it as the genesis of thought.
"One calls materialist," says Renouvier, with great exactness, "every
philosophy which defines thought as the product of a compound whose
elements do not imply thought." A sweeping formula which allows us to
foresee all the future avatars of the materialist doctrine, and to
class them beforehand in the same category.
The criticisms which have been directed against materialism are all,
or nearly all, variations of the principle of heterogeneity. We will
not dwell long on this, but simply recollect that, according to this
principle, it is impossible to attribute to the brain the capacity of
generating consciousness. Physical force can indeed generate physical
force under the same or a different form, and it thus produces all the
effects which are determined by the laws of nature. But it is
impossible to comprehend how physical force can enrich itself at a
given moment by a conscious force. Physical force is reduced to
movements of bodies and to displacements of atoms; how could a change
of position in any inert objects give rise to a judgment, a reasoning,
or any phenomenon of the consciousness? It is further said: this idea
of function, which materialists here introduce to render more
comprehensible the passage from a material body to a spiritual action,
contains only an empty explanation, for the function is not
essentially distinct by its nature from the organ; it is simply "the
organ in activity," it adds to the organ taken in a state of repose
but one change, viz. activity, that is to say movement, and,
consequently, the function of an organ is material by the same right
as the organ. When a muscle contracts, this contraction, which is the
proper function of the muscular fibre, consists in a condensation of
the muscular protoplasm, and this condensation is a material fact.
When a gland enters into activity, a certain quantity of liquid flows
into the channels of the gland, and this liquid is caused by a
physical and chemical modification of the cellular protoplasm; it is a
melting, or a liquefaction, which likewise is material. The function
of the nerve cell is to produce movement, or to preserve it, or to
direct it; ii is material like the cells. There is therefore nothing
in all those functional phenomena which might lead us to understand
how a material cause should be capable of engendering a conscious
effect.
It seems that all materialists have acknowledged that here is the
vulnerable point in their theory, for it is the principle of
heterogeneity which they have especially combated. But their defence
is wanting in frankness, and principally consists in subterfuges.
In brief, it affirms that we are surrounded with mystery, that we are
not sufficiently learned to have the right to impose limits to the
power of matter, and to say to it: "Thou shalt not produce this
phenomenon." A materialist theologian declares that he sees no
impossibility in stones thinking and arguing, if God, in His infinite
power, has decided to unite thought with brute matter. This argument
is not really serious; it demands the intervention of so powerful a
_Deus ex machina_, that it can be applied equally to all problems; to
solve all is to solve none.
Modern materialists rightly do not bring God into the question. Their
mode of argument takes another form; but it remains to be seen if, at
bottom, it is not the same as the other. It simply consists in
affirming that up till now we know certain properties of matter only,
but that science every day discovers new ones; that matter is a
reservoir of unknown forces, and that it is not impossible that the
origin of psychical forces may yet be discovered in matter. This idea
is clearly hinted at by Littré. The physicist Tyndall gave it a
definite formula when he uttered at the Belfast Congress this phrase
so often quoted: "If I look back on the limits of experimental
science, I can discern in the bosom of that matter (which, in our
ignorance, while at the same time professing our respect for its
Creator, we have, till now, treated with opprobrium) the promise and
the power of all forms and qualities of life."
The opponents of the doctrine have not ceased to answer that the
matter of to-morrow, like the matter of to-day, can generate none but
material effects, and that a difficulty is not solved by putting off
its solution to some indefinite date in our scientific evolution: and
it certainly seems that the counter-stroke is decisive, if we admit
the principle of heterogeneity with its natural consequence.
We will now criticise the above doctrine by making use of the ideas I
have above enunciated. The criticism we have to apply to materialism
is not the same as that just summarised. The axis of the discussion
changes its position.
In the first place, I reproach materialism with presenting itself as a
theory of the generation of the consciousness by the object. We have
already reproached idealism with putting itself forward as a theory of
the generation of the object by the consciousness. The error of the
two systems is produced in a converse direction, but is of the same
gravity. The consciousness and its object, we say yet again,
constitute the widest division it is possible to effect in the domain
of cognition; it is quite as illegitimate to reduce the first term to
the second as to reduce the second to the first. To reduce one to the
other, by way of affiliation or otherwise, there must first be
discovered, then, an identity of nature which does not exist.
In the second place, when one examines closely the explanation
materialism has imagined in order to derive thought from an action of
matter, it is seen that this representation is rendered completely
impossible by all we know of the nature of thought. For the
materialist to suppose for one moment that thought is a cerebral
function, he must evidently make an illusion for himself as to what
thought is, and must juggle with concepts. Perhaps, could we penetrate
into his own inmost thought, we should discover that at the moment he
supposes a mere cell can manufacture the phenomena of consciousness,
some vague image suggests itself to him whereby he identifies these
phenomena with a light and subtle principle escaping from the nerve
cell, something which resembles an electric _effluve_, or a
will-of-the-wisp, or the flame from a punch-bowl.[46]
I cannot, of course, tell whether my supposition is correct. But what
I assert, with the calmness of perfect certitude, is that the
materialist has not taken the pains to analyse attentively what he
calls the phenomenon of consciousness. Had he made this analysis and
kept the elements in his mind, he would have seen that it is almost
impossible to hook in any way a phenomenon of consciousness on to a
material molecule.
In fact, also, to take this into account, we will not remain within
the vagueness of the concept, but will take a particular example to
argue upon, viz. that of an external perception. I open my window on a
fine day, and I see before me a sunny plain, with, as far as the eye
can reach, houses amongst the trees, and again more houses, the most
distant of which are outlined against my far-off horizon. This is my
mental phenomenon. And while I am at my window, my eyes fixed on the
view, the anatomist declares that, starting from my retina, molecular
vibrations travel along the optic nerve, cross each other at the
chiasma, enter into the fascia, pass through the internal capsule and
reach the hemispheres, or rather the occipital regions, of the brain,
where, for the moment, we agree to localise the centre of projection
of the visual sensations. This is my physical phenomenon. It now
becomes the question of passing from this physical phenomena to the
mental one. And here we are stopped by a really formidable
difficulty.
My mental phenomenon is not entirely mental, as is usually supposed
from the deceitful brevity of the phrase. It is in great part
physical, for it can be decomposed into two elements, a consciousness
and its object; and this object of the consciousness, this group of
little houses I see in the plain, belongs to sensation--that is to
say, to something physical--or, in other words, to matter.
Let us examine in its turn the physical process which is supposed to
be discovered in my nervous centres while I am in course of
contemplating the landscape. This pretended physical process itself,
quite as much as my conscious perception of the landscape, is a
physico-psychical phenomenon; for my cerebral movements are perceived,
hypothetically at least, by an observer. This is a perception,
consequently it can be decomposed into two things, a consciousness and
its object. As a further consequence, when we wish, by a metaphysical
effort, to attach the consciousness to a material state of the brain
and to establish a link between the two events, it will be found that
we wrongly hook one physico-mental phenomenon on to another.
But, evidently, this objection is not a refutation. We may if we
choose suppose that the so-called cerebral process is capable of
subsisting at moments when no one perceives it, and that it exists of
itself, is sufficient for itself, and is entirely physical. But can
we subject the mental process of perception to the same purification?
Can we separate these two elements, the consciousness and its object,
retain the element consciousness and reject the element object, which
is physical, thus constituting a phenomenon entirely mental, which
might then be possibly placed beside the entirely physical phenomenon,
so as to study their relation to each other? This is quite impossible,
and the impossibility is double, for it exists _de facto_ and _de
jure_.
_De jure_, because we have already established that a consciousness
empty and without object cannot be conceived. _De facto_, because the
existence of the object that consciousness carries with it is very
embarrassing for the materialist; for this object is material, and as
real and material as the fibres and cells of the brain. It might,
indeed, be supposed that by transformation or otherwise there goes
forth from the cerebral convolution a purely psychical phenomenon
resembling a wave. But how can we conceive the transformation of this
convolution into a semi-material phenomenon? How can we comprehend
that there should issue from this convolution the material object of a
perception--for example, a plain dotted with houses?
An English histologist remarked one day, with some eloquence, how
little the most minute study of the brain aided us to understand
thought. He was thus answering Auguste Comte, who, in a moment of
aberration, claimed that psychology, in order to become a science,
ought to reject the testimony of the consciousness, and to use
exclusively as its means of study the histology of the nerve centres
and the measurement of the cranium. Our histologist, who had passed
part of his life examining, under the microscope, fragments of
cerebral matter, in following the forms of the cells, the course of
the fibres, and the grouping and distribution of the fascia, made the
following remark: "It is the fact that the study, however patient,
minute, and thorough it might be, of this nerve-skein can never enable
us to know what a state of consciousness is, if we do not know it
otherwise; for never across the field of the microscope is there seen
to pass a memory, an emotion, or an act of volition." And, he added,
"he who confines himself to peering into these material structures
remains as ignorant of the phenomena of the mind as the London cabman
who, for ever travelling through the streets of the great city, is
ignorant of what is said and what is going on in the interior of the
houses." This picturesque comparison, the truth of which has never
been questioned, is based on this supposition, that the psychical act
is entirely immaterial and invisible, and therefore escapes the
piercing eye of the microscope. But a deeper analysis of the mind
shows how little exact is this assertion. From the moment each
psychical act implies a material object, we can ask ourselves two
things: (1) Why is it that the anatomist does not discover these
material objects in the interior of the brain? We ought to see them,
for they are material, and therefore visible. We ought to see them
with their aspect and colour, or be able to explain why they are not
seen. In general, all that is described to us in the brain is the
molecular vibrations. But we are not conscious of them. Where, then,
is that of which we are conscious? (2) It should next be explained to
us by what elaboration, transmutation, or metamorphosis a molecular
disturbance, which is material, can transform itself into the objects
which are equally material.
This is the criticism we have to address to materialism. Until proof
to the contrary, I hold it to be irrefutable.
PARALLELISM
For this exposition to follow the logical order of ideas, the
discussion on materialism should be immediately succeeded by that on
parallelism. These two doctrines are near akin; they resemble each
other as the second edition of a book, revised and corrected,
resembles the first. Parallelism is the materialist doctrine of those
forewarned folk, who have perceived the errors committed and endeavour
to avoid them, while cherishing all that can be saved of the condemned
doctrine. That which philosophers criticised in materialism was the
misunderstanding of the principle of heterogeneity. The parallelists
have seen this mistake, and have taken steps to respect this
principle: we shall see in what way. They are especially prudent, and
they excel in avoiding being compromised. They put forth their
hypothesis as a provisional one, and they vaunt its convenience. It
is, say they, a practical method of avoiding many difficulties; it
becomes for philosophers an equivalent of that phrase which so many
timorous ministers repeat: "Above all, no scrapes!"
Let us study the exact point on which parallelism has amended
materialism. We have seen that every materialist doctrine is the
expression of this idea, that physical phenomena are the only ones
that are determined, measurable, explicable, and scientific. This idea
does wonders in the natural sciences, but is at fault when, from the
physical, we pass into the moral world, and we have seen how the
materialistic doctrine fails when it endeavours to attach the physical
to the mental. There are then two great difficulties which the
materialistic explanation finds before it; one is a difficulty of
mechanism and the other of genesis. By connecting the mind with the
brain, like a function to its organ, this doctrine seeks to solve
these two problems, and with what little success we have seen.
Parallelism, has tried to avoid these two problems; not only does it
not solve them, but it arranges so as not to propound them. The
expedient adopted consists in avoiding the meeting of the physical and
the mental; instead of placing them end to end and welding one to the
other, they are placed in parallel fashion side by side. To explain
their correlation, which so many observations vaguely demonstrate, the
following hypothesis is advanced. Physical and psychical life form two
parallel currents, which never mingle their waters; to every state of
definite consciousness there corresponds the counterpart of an equally
definite state of the nerve centres; the fact of consciousness has its
antecedents and its consequences in the consciousness; and the
physical fact equally takes its place in a chain of physical facts.
The two series are thus evolved, and correspond strictly to each other
according to a necessary law; so that the scholar who was perfectly
instructed, and to whom one of these states was presented, could
describe its fellow. But never does any of the terms of one series
influence the terms of the other.
Observation and the testimony of the consciousness seem to attest this
dual progress; but they are, according to the parallelist hypothesis,
illusions. When I move my arm by a voluntary act, it is not my will,
_qua_ act of consciousness, which determines the movement of the
arm--for this is a material fact. The movement is produced by the
coming into play of groups of muscles. Each muscle, composed of a
semi-fluid substance, being excited, contracts in the direction of its
greatest length. The excitant of the muscles is also a material fact,
a material influx which starts from the motor cells of the encephalon,
and of which we know the course down through the pyramidal fascium,
the anterior roots of the spinal cord, and the nerves of the periphery
to its termination in the motor plates of the muscles. It is this
excitement which is the physical, direct, and veritable cause of
voluntary movements. And it is the same with all acts and signs, all
expressions of our conscious states; the trembling of fear, the
redness of anger, the movements of walking, down to the words we
utter--all these are physical effects produced by physical processes,
which act physically, and of which the mental counterpart has in
itself no effective action.
Let it be understood that I am here pointing out one of the forms, and
that the most usual, of the parallelist theory. Each author varies it
according to his fancy; some widen the correspondence between the
physical and the moral, others prefer to narrow it. At one time a
vague relation is supposed which is only true on a large scale, and is
a union rather than an equivalence. At another, it is an exact
counterpart, a complete duplicate in which the smallest physical event
corresponds to a mental one.
In one of the forms of this theory that has been recently invented,
parallelists have gone so far as to assert that there exists no real
cohesion in the mental chain, and that no mental phenomenon can have
the property of provoking another mental phenomenon by an act of true
causality. It is within the nervous tissue, they say, that the nexus
of psychic states should be enclosed. These should succeed in time
without being directly connected with one another; they should succeed
because the physical basis of them is excited in succession. Some of
them would be like an air on the piano: the notes follow each other
and arrange themselves into melodies, not by any affinity proper to
themselves, but because the keys of the instrument are struck in the
required order.
I said a little while ago that parallelism was a perfected
materialism. The reason of this will be understood. It is a doctrine
which preserves the determinism of physical facts while avoiding the
compromising of itself in the difficult explanation of the connection
between the soul and the body. It remains scientific without raising a
metaphysical heresy.
Bain is one of those who have most clearly expressed, not only the
advantages, but also the aspirations of this theory (_Mind and Body_,
p. 130):--
"We have every reason for believing," he says, "that there is in company
with all our mental processes, _an unbroken material succession_. From
the ingress of a sensation, to the outgoing responses in action, the
mental succession is not for an instant dissevered from a physical
succession. A new prospect bursts upon the view; there is mental result
of sensation, emotion, thought--terminating in outward displays of
speech or gesture. Parallel to this mental series is the physical series
of facts, the successive agitation of the physical organs, called the
eye, the retina, the optic nerve, optic centres, cerebral hemispheres,
outgoing nerves, muscles, &c. While we go the round of the mental circle
of sensation, emotion, and thought, there is an unbroken physical circle
of effects. It would be incompatible with everything we know of the
cerebral action, to suppose that the physical chain ends abruptly in a
physical void, occupied by an immaterial substance; which immaterial
substance, after working alone, imparts its results to the other edge
of the physical break, and determines the active response--two shores of
the material with an intervening ocean of the immaterial. There is, in
fact, no rupture of nervous continuity. The only tenable supposition is,
that mental and physical proceed together, as undivided twins."
On reading this passage it is easy to see the idea which forms the
basis of the doctrine. It is, as I have already said, the fetichism of
mechanics: parallelism takes its inspiration from this quite as
directly as does materialism, but with more skill, inasmuch as it
avoids the most dangerous question, that of the interaction of physics
and morals, and replaces it by an hypothesis much resembling
Leibnitz's hypothesis of the pre-established harmony, On the other
hand, a second merit of this prudent doctrine is the avoiding the
question of genesis. It does not seek for the origin of thought, but
places this last in a relation of parallelism with the manifestations
of matter; and in the same way that parallel lines prolonged _ad
infinitum_ never meet, so the partisans of this doctrine announce
their resolution not to inquire how the actual state of things has
been formed, nor how it will end if, for example, one of the terms
should disappear by the death of the bodily organism.
Notwithstanding so many precautions, criticisms have not been wanting;
only they would seem not to have touched the weak part of the
doctrine and not to be decisive. We will only run through them
briefly.
It has been said: there is no logical necessity which forces us to
refuse to the consciousness the privilege of acting in complete
independence of the nervous mechanism.
It has also been said: it is by no means certain that any nervous
mechanism can be invented which imitates and, if need were, could
replace an intellectual act. For instance, what association of nerve
cells, what molecular action, can imitate an act of comparison which
enables us to see a resemblance between two objects? Let it be
supposed, for example, that the resemblance of two impressions come
from a partial identity, and that the latter has for material support
an identity in the seat or the form of the corresponding nervous
influx. But what is identity? How can it be conceived without
supposing resemblance, of which it is but a form? How, then, can the
one be explained by the other? Thus, for instance, at the bottom of
all our intellectual acts, there is a certain degree of belief. Can
any material combination be found which corresponds thereto?
There is one last objection, the most serious of all. Parallelism, by
establishing a fixed and invariable relation between the physical and
the moral, ends by denying the rôle of this last, since the physical
mechanism is sufficient to draw to itself all the effects which
general belief attributes to the moral. The parallelists on this point
go very much further than the materialists; the latter at least
concede that the consciousness is of some use, since they compared it
to a function or a secretion, and, after all, a secretion is a useful
liquid. The parallelists are so strongly convinced that mechanism is
alone efficacious that they come to deny any rôle to thought. The
consciousness for them has no purpose: yet it keeps company with its
object. The metaphors which serve to define it, part of which have
been imagined by Huxley, are all of a passive nature. Such is the
light, or the whistling noise which accompanies the working of an
engine, but does not act on its machinery. Or, the shadow which dogs
the steps of the traveller. Or a phosphorescence lighting up the
traces of the movements of the brain.
It has also been said that the consciousness is a useless luxury. Some
have even gone further, and the fine and significant name of
_epiphenomenon_, that has been given to thought, well translates that
conception, according to which semi-realities may exist in nature.
All these objections certainly carry great weight, but they are not
capable of killing the doctrine--they only scotch it.
I think there is a radical vice in parallelism, which till now has not
been sufficiently indicated, and I ask what can really remain of the
whole edifice when this vice has been once exposed?
Parallelism implies a false idea, which we have already come across
when discussing materialism. It is the idea that a phenomenon of
consciousness constitutes one complete whole.