possibilities a psychological one and a psycho-physical one. It is the
doctrine of the latter theories that not only are physical vestiges
left behind in the cortex of the brain after every perception, but also
psychical dispositions to the formation of ideas and images; and that
it is possible for images of all kinds to continue to exist without
distinctly attaining to consciousness. These theories distinguish
between degrees of luminosity in our percepts and images, the three
most important degrees of which I have designated as consciousness,
subconsciousness, and unconsciousness. There exists a gradation of
degrees of consciousness, and the fully-conscious course of mental
representation is everywhere conditioned by its connection with the
obscured spheres beyond. Our attention surveys but a small area, on
the boundary lines of which the altitudes of consciousness decrease,
and finally approach the zero point. I say _approach_, for they never
reach it. Our experiments with the magic mirror in fact show us how
the oldest impressions, and impressions of ridiculous insignificance,
after long long years awake as it were from the slumber of the fabled
Sleeping Beauty. If our millions of perceptions were to live on
in _consciousness_ we should no longer have a past, but live in a
continuous celestial present; but were the operation of consciousness
so limited that it destroyed great numbers of images, the very facts
upon which the belief in supernatural powers rests, would lose their
only rational explanation. One result of our study of crystal-visions
is assuredly this, that we shall have to erase the word "forgotten"
with all its derivatives from the dictionary, and at the most employ
the phrase "not remembered." With more ardent yearning than ever before
will we long for a river of Lethe, and join with our whole hearts in
the cry of Themistocles, "O that some one might teach me the art of
forgetting!"
Along with the inner process the outward form of the hallucination
still requires a brief explanation. The circumstance, namely,
which lends magic-mirror phenomena their salient feature, is the
sensory reproduction of the images that have sprung up from the
subconsciousness. The subterranean ideas produced do not reach the
surface as thoughts, but as pseudo-perceptions. To refer the latter
to the place to which they belong, I shall first remind the reader of
the well-known after-images which arise when an excitation produced
in the sensory organ and in the sensory nerves does not immediately
disappear with the cessation of the excitatory action. By gazing at
the sun we can at once obtain this effect. But despite the fact that
the last-mentioned class of images possesses the full distinctness
of real sensations as distinguished from mere memory and imagination
images, they still bear no relation to our subject on account of their
union with _recently_ occurring sensory impressions. Still less do the
repetition-sensations in the dark field of vision—as of revolving
wheels—belong here; or illusions. There remain accordingly only
_hallucinations_, which are withdrawn from all conscious control, and
which possess the exact character of sensory perceptions externally
awakened, without any object or objective stimulation actually being
present in the outer world to correspond to them.
Hallucinations, the production of which are facilitated by the fixation
of shining surfaces, do not occur with all persons; and there may be a
kernel of truth in the tradition which designates women and children as
endowed with especial capacities in this respect. The investigations
of Fechner upon the varying vividness of after-images; the statistics
of Galton upon hallucinatory phantasms in artists; and the extensive
statistical work of the Society for Psychical Research, appear to
point to a connection of this character. Miss Goodrich told me that
her dreams were few in number and colorless. I must confess that I was
surprised at this; but she added that all her recollections of places
were accompanied with the vividness of actual sensory impressions.
If, for example, she desires to describe a room in a friend's house,
she returns in recollection to the occasion of her last visit; she
again occupies the same chair; the carpet at her feet becomes visible,
then the furniture nearest her, then the walls and ceiling, until a
true picture of the whole room is extended before her mind's eye.
Crystal-visions are distinguished from internal visions of this
character only by the single circumstance that they are projected
outwards to or upon a reflecting point. These visions often consist
of a room that Miss Goodrich has lately seen, or a street sign, or
of some movement that has startled her, as of a servant letting a
plate fall, or of a dog running under a wagon. No consideration that
the objects are not before her is of avail; the force of out-rushing
memory-formations and the acquired established connection of the
elements of soul-life are reduced to the primitive state that obtains
in the soul of a child, to whom life is in reality a dream without
definite limits. I well remember from the period of my early boyhood,
the peculiar sensation of a state flickering between reality and fancy,
and I understand the condition of those primitive tribes with whom
dreamland and life intermingle in the strangest way; but capacities in
this direction have disappeared down to the striking want of a normally
developed faculty for colors.
* * * * *
Summing up then, we may say, that with regard to their _contents_
the phenomena produced by the agency of the magic mirror proceed
from the realm of subconsciousness; and that with regard to their
_form_ they belong to the category of hallucinations. Their contents,
not regarded as a performance of memory, appear to possess no great
value—so grotesque and ordinary are the few ideas brought up from this
invisible storehouse. But they often supply us with a deep view into
the secrets of character, and inculcate with terrible emphasis the
truth that nothing is lost in the realms of the soul, any more than
in the external world which is ruled by the law of the conservation
of energy. Every thought that ever traversed our brain, every emotion
that has ever thrilled our heart, every wish that has ever animated
for a fleeting moment our breast—has all been entered in ineffaceable
characters in the day-book of our earthly existence. Would that this
knowledge could strengthen our feeling of moral responsibility!
Thus does the expansion of our psychological conceptions not
infrequently lead to an enrichment of our notions of morality. But
whether we place a higher value upon this aspect last mentioned, or
upon the purely scientific object to which we referred at the beginning
of our article, or finally upon a factor connected therewith, namely
the enlightenment of society—at any rate we must confess that in the
much abused "magic mirror" a rich and attractive source of treasures
has been opened.
MAX DESSOIR.
HÖFFDING ON THE RELATION OF THE MIND TO THE BODY.
Few topics are of greater speculative or indeed practical interest
than that of the relation of the body to the mind. Rarely has the
subject been treated with such perspicuity and at the same time with
such candor and avoidance of hasty dogmatism as by Professor Harald
Höffding, of Copenhagen, in his "Psychology" (translated into German
from the Danish and published in Leipsic, Reisland). A leading American
professor of philosophy remarked to me recently that this for its
size (the volume contains 452 pages) was the best all-around work on
Psychology; and an examination of the section entitled _Seele und
Körper_ (Mind and Body) certainly gives countenance to the statement.
Professor Höffding does not indeed oppose himself to metaphysical
speculation; he believes that the human mind will never consent to
being shut out from the task of searching after the ultimate principles
of the universe, of which it is a part. But his standpoint in this
work is the purely empirical one, as one's standpoint must be in every
positive science. Positive science deals with the facts of experience;
metaphysics with their ultimate explanation. He regards it as a
misfortune to confuse the two, as popular thinking in psychology does;
and scientific thinking in this realm is characterised by the effort
to avoid the confusion and keep solely to the facts of observation and
experience. Accordingly both materialism and spiritualism are excluded
from the field—each theory involving a transcending of the realm of
experience, i. e., being metaphysical.
There are two subdivisions of the realm of experience according to
Professor Höffding,—one coextensive with psychical phenomena, such as
feelings, thoughts, and volitions, the other with physical phenomena,
i. e., with what moves in space. They may be called respectively inner
experience and outer experience. Each must be grasped in its distinct
features; and only after doing so can we feel the _problem_ involved in
the question of their relation to or connection with one another. For
it happens that one set of outer experiences stands in an indisputably
peculiar relation to the phenomena of consciousness, namely, the set
which we describe by the term "body" and, more particularly, by that of
"nervous system" or "brain." Much of what we call the physical world
stands in relation to consciousness as the thing known to the knower;
but a part of the physical world (i. e., the body or brain) seems a
part of the knower as well—a body or nervous system of some kind seems
an indispensable requirement or at least concomitant of anything like
feeling, or thought, or act of volition.
Now, different as the movements of the nervous system, the processes
of the brain are from the phenomena of consciousness, there are a
number of resemblances between them. Professor Höffding specifies
six: (1) As the nervous system is the central, unifying organ of the
body, so does consciousness bring together into a unity all the varied
phenomena of experience, scattered though they be in time and space.
(2) Just as a change is necessary that consciousness may be awakened,
(an absence of contrasts tending in the direction of unconsciousness,)
so a stimulus is necessary that the nerves may act. (3) A stimulus
may produce a commotion in the nervous system out of all proportion
to its immediate efficacy, just as a spark may act on a magazine of
powder; so a simple sensation may set in motion a whole train of ideas
and emotions, owing to the complicated structure and multitudinous
inner relations of consciousness. (4) The movements of the body are
slow in proportion as they are conscious; now the nerves which appear
to be closely related to consciousness act more slowly than those
which direct purely physiological (i. e., unconscious) processes. (5)
The lower nerve-centres form a system comparatively independent of
the higher ones; corresponding to this is the fact that many bodily
processes go on unconsciously and only make us aware of them when the
circumstances attending them are particularly favorable or unfavorable.
The _consciousness_ of the physical state corresponds to the excitation
of the higher nerve-centres. Similarly the action of the will has its
physiological counterpart; in the struggle between "the flesh and the
spirit," the lower nerve-centres with their reflex and involuntary
actions correspond to the flesh, the higher centres to the spirit. (6)
The construction of the nervous system is similar to the constitution
of consciousness; just as consciousness is at once receptive and
active, with more or less of intervening reflection or thought, so the
nervous system has both sensory and motor organs, with an intervening
sphere.
Not only are there these formal resemblances, there is a real
connection, according to Professor Höffding, as is shown by the fact
that with the evolution of the nervous system go higher and higher
forms of consciousness, that irritation on the surface of an organism
must be communicated to the brain that conscious sensations may arise,
and that when arterial blood fails to reach the brain unconsciousness
supervenes. What hypothesis do these facts conduct to us? All of them
must be born in mind that any special hypothesis may be legitimated.
There are only four possibilities: (1) Either consciousness and the
brain, mind and body, act upon one another as two separate things or
substances; (2) or the mind is only a form or product of the body; (3)
or the body is only a form or product of one or more mental substances;
(4) or mind and body, consciousness and the brain, grow and develop
as different manifestations of one and the same substance. It must be
admitted that the author at this point somewhat deserts the empirical
standpoint to which he declared at the outset that he should keep. The
_facts_ of correspondence or parallelism are all that come within the
realm of experience; their _explanation_ must be more or less a matter
of inference and theoretical construction and involves a departure in
the direction of metaphysics. Professor Höffding is aware of this and
says that these hypotheses belong to the border-land between positive
science and metaphysics. Moreover, he confesses that any conclusion
he may reach will have only a provisional value and may need revision,
before it can serve as a final part of a philosophical system. He will,
however, follow as closely as possible the leadings of experience, as
indeed he says we should do in all metaphysical speculation.
In considering the first hypothesis, (namely, that mind and body act
on one another as two things,) Professor Höffding shows that it is
inconsistent with the law of the conservation of energy. For, at the
point where the nervous process is converted into mental activity,
one sum of physical energy would disappear without being replaced by
another sum of the same kind. As matter of fact no disappearance of
energy takes place on account of the arising of a conscious state. The
chain of psychical causation is not broken; its completeness no more
suffers than if states of consciousness did not arise at all. Nor on
the other hand does consciousness affect the sum of physical energy;
it is hardly conceivable that it should even change the _direction_ of
such energy (the sum supposably remaining constant, as is sometimes
held), since to do this it must itself become a physical force.
Moreover, if there is a relation of cause and effect between the brain
and consciousness it would seem as if an interval of time must elapse
between the process in the brain and the rising of the conscious state,
a view to which the teachings of physiology lend no likelihood.
The second hypothesis regards matter as the real or actual thing and
mind as an effect or form of it. Such materialism is certainly older
than the now prevalent doctrine of the interaction of two distinct
things. Homer and the earliest Greek philosophers held to it. Similar
views prevailed among the early Christian fathers before Augustine.
Modern materialists, however, regard the mind, not in the earlier
fashion as semi-corporeal, but as a function or form of the corporeal.
Yet when we closely consider the matter, we find that to conceive of
the function of a bodily organ is simply to conceive of that organ as
in activity. As Goethe said, "Function is das Dasein in Thätigkeit
gedacht." But a bodily organ in activity is just as much corporeal as
one at rest, and anything without corporeal attributes can no more be
the function of such an organ than it can be the organ itself. The
conception of function (in the physiological sense) as truly as that of
matter implies something that exists in spacial form; while thoughts
and feelings are without spacial form.
In dealing with the third hypothesis, (namely, that body is a form or
product of mind,) Professor Höffding does not so much criticise it as
explain a modified and interesting form in which Lotze held it. It is
not, however, the view which he adopts.
To the fourth hypothesis he gives his adhesion. The parallel and
proportional relations between consciousness and brain-activity point,
according to him, to an underlying identity between the two. One and
the same principle, he says, has found its expression in a two-fold
form. The physical interaction between the elements of which the
nervous system is composed, is an outward form of the inner ideal unity
of consciousness. What we immediately experience as thoughts, feelings,
volitions, has its physical representation in certain brain-processes,
which as such are under the law of the conservation of energy, though
this law has no application to the relation between brain-processes
_and_ consciousness. It is as if one and the same content were
expressed in two languages.
This conclusion, however, he repeats, is but an empirical formula
and has provisional value only. One substance, he says, acts in both
consciousness and the bodily organism, but what kind of a substance
is this, and why does it have this twofold form of manifestation?
These are questions, he replies, beyond the reach of our knowledge. We
can simply make a statement which seems to be required by the facts,
namely, that the same thing which lives, grows, and takes on form in
the outward world, apprehends itself inwardly as thinking, feeling, and
willing. No opinion is thereby ventured as to whether mind or matter
is the more original form of existence. By no means is metaphysical
speculation upon this question excluded. The hypothesis of identity
(for so Professor Höffding terms it) is consistent with philosophical
idealism and also with the view that the innermost nature of being
is not identical with consciousness. He simply claims for it that it
is the most natural conclusion with regard to the relation between
two empirical sciences, physiology and psychology. These sciences,
according to the hypothesis, treat of the same material viewed from
two different sides, and there can be no more conflict between them
than between one person who looks on the convex side of a circle and
another who looks on the concave side (to borrow an illustration used
by Fechner).
On another occasion I may give my own views, and content myself now
with saying that I have followed with the greatest interest and with
much (if not unlimited) satisfaction the treatment of the subject at
the hands of the genial, large-minded Danish professor.
W. M. SALTER.
LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.
FRANCE.
The work of M. FOUILLÉE which I announced in my last communication
(to your other magazine), bears the title of _L'Evolutionnisme des
Idées-Forces_. It is a voluminous work; and it contains a great many
things—perhaps too many. We have from M. Fouillée, the promise of a
constructive work—_La Psychologie des Idées-Forces_, in two volumes;
but his present book is chiefly devoted to the labor of demolition. As
contemporaneous psychology has its weak sides, and as M. Fouillée is a
skilful critic, you may imagine that his attacks upon Wundt, Herbert
Spencer, Taine, Ribot, W. James, and numbers of others, both living
and dead, are conducted with spirit. The successful fulfilment of the
task he has set himself would necessitate the ruin of the hypothesis,
avowed or concealed, that has supported psychological research as well
as furnished occasional excellent conclusions; for it is the aim of
M. Fouillée to overthrow what he has ingeniously termed the theory of
"idea-reflexes," and the place once cleared, to substitute for it the
theory of "idea-forces."
The chief feature of the book is therefore M. Fouillée's criticisms of
the theories "that make consciousness the intermittent illumination
of a mechanism"; of the theories "that reduce the sentiments and the
emotions to simple reverberations of organic movements and even of
expressive movements"; of those finally "that make of desire and the
feeling of effort, simple passive muscular sensations, the reflexions
of movements already executed." Solid objections are not wanting in
these pages. M. Fouillée does not refrain from playing when he has a
good hand.
So far so good. But—we ask—would psychology have ever made any
advances if it lacked the hypothesis that M. Fouillée condemns? And,
as a matter of fact, are the majority of psychologists really thus
irretrievably bent upon establishing a mechanical explanation of life,
a theory of "man as automaton"? The truth of the matter is that the
opposed point of view has rendered no results, and that in taking
consciousness for our central position we too easily go astray in
fanciful speculations. On the other hand, by the endeavor to grasp
the bonds of mind through the medium of the body, it _has_ been found
possible to throw some light upon unobserved facts. It would not do to
let this be too quickly forgotten; and if some have seen fit to pass
beyond and to attempt to reduce the Universe to a mechanism, imprudent
saltations of this character into open materialistic metaphysics
concern them alone.
Will M. Fouillée be more fortunate in his reduction of the world to
idealism? It yet appears doubtful. The definition of 'idea-forces'
presents at the outset elements of embarrassment. That every idea,
every mental image, however absolutely an image it may be, of emotions
or of passions, always contains some motor elements, and consequently
acts like a force, is easily comprehended, and every body allows it.
When physiologists speak of the power of ideas, they mean nothing else.
But beyond that we cannot go. The idea, in M. Fouillée's sense, is
every state of consciousness. Now, all the facts of consciousness are
reducible to the following elementary connected process: sensation,
perceptual excitation, reaction; and the three factors of this process
cannot be separated or reduced to one. Every idea, or state of
consciousness, is accordingly the source of motion since it contains
desire. Desire is basal to the nervous act; the nervous act does not
precede and does not explain the higher states that psychologists,
viewing things from a different point of view, have regarded as
epiphenomena. The essence, not only of man, but also of the world,
is desire. The idea-force, "the abridged formula of the appetitive
process," becomes the shaper of universal evolution, and, in a word,
the physical is a reflection of the psychical.
Such are, if I am not deceived, the chief propositions of the work, put
into a logical form, from which no doubt you will judge that the facts
do not correspond without evident hiatus.
You do not believe in absolute truth, and I no more hope for it.
The mind does not escape certain illusions, which come from what it
necessarily places in the reality that it wishes to know, or which it
acquires from itself. Meanwhile both the opposing doctrines triumph,
seeing that there is always something in each that cannot be explained;
but let them not be too severe on each other, and not forget that if
they succeed in explaining something, it is perhaps as well that they
resign themselves to not explaining everything.
I had intended to give in this letter a detail of the theory of Mme.
CLÉMENCE ROYER, in order to compare it with that of M. Fouillée; I had
prepared it from certain published memoirs, as her great manuscript
work has unfortunately not found a publisher. But _The Open Court_ has
given a résumé of it sufficiently complete to excuse me from returning
to the subject. Whatever service can be rendered by the hypothesis of
Mme. Clémence Royer, or, more strictly whatever use can be made of the
mathematical formulæ which explain them, or which are deducible from
them, it will belong to special scientists to inform us. She begins the
explanation of the world by physics, and M. Fouillée by psychology. It
is a difference in the point of departure. Let us add that M. Fouillée
appears to imagine an activity without substance, a mind without
muscles, if it can be thus expressed; on the contrary, in that which
she calls world-stuff Mme. Clémence Royer distinguishes a hyperethereal
or vital state, and she assigns for the substratum of life this simple
state of the cosmical substance.