THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY
The hypothesis of Psycho-physical Parallelism--Not to be accepted
uncritically--Bergson opposes it, and shows the hypothesis to rest on a
confusion of terms. Bergson against Epiphenomenalism--Soul-life unique
and wider than the brain--Telepathy, subconscious action and psychical
research--Souls and survival.
For philosophy in general, and for psychology in particular, the problem
of the relation of soul and body has prime significance, and moreover,
it is a problem with which each of us is acquainted intimately
and practically, even if we know little or nothing of the academic
discussions, or of the technical terms representing various views. It is
very frequently the terminology which turns the plain man away from the
consideration of philosophical problems; but he has some conception,
however crude it may be, of his soul or his mind and of his body.
These terms are familiar to him, but the sight of a phrase like
"psycho-physical parallelism" rather daunts him. Really, it stands for
quite a simple thing, and is just the official label used to designate
the theory commonly held by scientific men of all kinds, to describe the
relation of soul and body. Put more precisely, it is just the assertion
that brain and consciousness work on parallel lines.
Bergson does not accept the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism.
In the first of his four lectures on La Nature de l'Ame, given at
London University in 1911, we find him criticizing the notion that
consciousness has no independence of its own, that it merely expresses
certain states of the brain, that the content of a fact of consciousness
is to be found wholly in the corresponding cerebral state. It is true
that we should not find many physiologists or philosophers who would
tell us now that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes
bile." [Footnote: Cabanis (1757-1808). Rapports du physique et du morale
de l'homme, 1802. See quotation by William James in Human Immortality.
Note (4) in his Appendix.] But there was an idea that, if we could see
through the skull and observe what takes place in the brain, if we had
an enormously powerful microscope which would permit us to follow the
movements of the molecules, atoms, electrons, of the brain, and if we
had the key to the correspondence between these phenomena and the mind,
we should know all the thoughts and wishes of the person to whom
the brain belonged--we should see what took place in his soul, as a
telegraph operator could read by the oscillation of his needles the
meaning of a message which was sent through his instrument. The notion
of an equality or parallelism between conscious activity and cerebral
activity, was commonly adopted by modern physiology, and it was
adopted without discussion as a scientific notion by the majority of
philosophers. Yet the experimental basis of this theory is extremely
slight, indeed altogether insufficient, and in reality the theory is
a metaphysical conception, resulting from the views of the seventeenth
century thinkers who had hopes of "a universal mathematic." The idea had
been accepted that all was capable of determination in the psychical as
well as the physical world, inasmuch as the psychical was only a reflex
of the physical. Parallelism was adopted by science because of its
convenience.[Footnote: See The Times of Oct. 21, 1911.] Bergson,
however, pointed out that philosophy ought not to accept it without
criticism, and maintained, moreover, that it could not stand the
criticism that might be brought against it. Relation of soul and body
was undeniable, but that it was a parallel or equivalent relation he
denied most emphatically. That criticism he had launched himself
with great vigour in 1901 at a Meeting of the Societe francaise
de philosophie,[Footnote: See Bibliography, p. 153.] and on a more
memorable occasion, at the International Congress of Philosophy
at Geneva in 1904.[Footnote: See Bibliography, p. 154.] Before the
Philosophical Society he lectured on Le Parallelisme psycho-physique et
la Metaphysique positive, and propounded the following propositions:
1. If psycho-physical parallelism is neither rigorous nor complete,
if to every determined thought there does not correspond an absolutely
determined state (si a toute pensee determinee ne correspond pas un etat
cerebral determine absolument), it will be the business of experience
to mark with increasing accuracy the precise points at which parallelism
begins and ends.
2. If this empirical inquiry is possible, it will measure more and more
exactly the separation between the thought and the physical conditions
in which this thought is exercised. In other words, it will give us a
progressive knowledge of the relation of man as a thinking being to man
as a living being, and therefore of what may be termed "the meaning of
Life."
3. If this meaning of Life can be empirically determined more and more
exactly, and completely, a positive metaphysic is possible: that is to
say, a metaphysic which cannot be contested and which will admit of
a direct and indefinite progress; such a metaphysic would escape the
objections urged against a transcendental metaphysic, and would be
strictly scientific in form.
After having propounded these propositions, he defended them by
recalling much of the data considered in his work Matiere et Memoire
which he had published five years previously and which has been examined
in the previous chapter. The onus of proof lay, said Bergson, with
the upholders of parallelism. It is a purely metaphysical hypothesis
unwarrantable in his opinion as a dogma. He distinguishes between
correspondence--which he of course admits--and parallelism, to which
he is opposed. We never think without a certain substratum of cerebral
activity, but what the relation is precisely, between brain and
consciousness, is one for long and patient research: it cannot be
determined a priori and asserted dogmatically. Until such investigation
has been carried out, it behoves us to be undogmatic and not to allege
more than the facts absolutely warrant, that is to say, a relation of
correspondence. Parallelism is far too simple an explanation to be a
true one. Before the International Congress, Bergson launched another
attack on parallelism which caused quite a little sensation among those
present. Says M. E. Chartier, in his report: La lecture de ce memoire,
lecture qui commandait l'attention a provoque chez presque tous les
auditeurs un mouvement de surprise et d'inquietude. [Footnote: The paper
Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique is given in Revue de metaphysique
et de morale, Nov., 1904, pp. 895-908. The Discussion in the Congress is
given on pp. 1027-1037. This was reissued under the title Le Cerveau et
la Pensee: une illusion philosophique in the collected volume of essays
and lectures, published in 1919, L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 203-223
(Mind-Energy).] He there set out to show that Parallelism cannot be
consistently stated from any point of view, for it rests on a fallacious
argument--on a fundamental contradiction. To grasp Bergson's points in
this argument, the reading of this paper in the original, as a whole,
is necessary. It is difficult to condense it and keep its clearness
of thought. Briefly, it amounts to this, that the formulation of the
doctrine of Parallelism rests on an ambiguity in the terms employed in
its statement, that it contains a subtle dialectical artifice by which
we pass surreptitiously from one system of notation to another ignoring
the substitution: logically, we ought to keep to one system of notation
throughout. The two systems are: Idealism and Realism. Bergson attempts
to show that neither of these separately can admit Parallelism, and that
Parallelism cannot be formulated except by a confusion of the two--by
a process of mental see-sawing as it were, which of course we are
not entitled to perform, Idealism and Realism being two opposed and
contradictory views of reality. For the Idealist, things external to the
mind are images, and of these the brain is one. Yet the images are in
the brain. This amounts to saying that the whole is contained in the
part. We tend, however, to avoid this by passing to a pseudo-realistic
position by saying that the brain is a thing and not an image. This is
passing over to the other system of notation. For the Realist it is
the essence of reality to suppose that there are things behind
representations. Some Realists maintain that the brain actually creates
the representation, which is the doctrine of Epiphenomenalism: while
others hold the view of the Occasionalists, and others posit one reality
underlying both. All however agree in upholding Parallelism. In the
hands of the Realist, the theory is equivalent to asserting that a
relation between two terms is equal to one of them. This involves
contradiction and Realism then crosses over to the other system of
notation. It cannot do without Idealism: science itself oscillates from
the one system to the other. We cannot admit Parallelism as a dogma--as
a metaphysical truth--however useful it may be as a working hypothesis.
Bergson then proceeds to state and to criticize some of the mischievous
ideas which arise from Parallelism. There is the idea of a brain-soul,
of a spot where the soul lives or where the brain thinks--which we have
not quite abandoned since Descartes named the pineal gland as the
seat of the soul. Then there is the false idea that all causality is
mechanistic and that there is nothing in the universe which is not
mathematically calculable. There is the confusion of representations
and of things. There is the false notion that we may argue that if two
wholes are bound together there must be an equivalent relation of the
parts. Bergson points out in this connexion that the absence or the
presence of a screw can stop a machine or keep it going, but the parts
of the screw do not correspond to the parts of the machine. In his new
introduction to Matiere et Memoire, he said, "There is a close connexion
between a state of consciousness and the brain: this we do not dispute.
But there is also a close connexion between a coat and the nail on which
it hangs, for if the nail is pulled out the coat falls to the ground.
Shall we say then that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of
the coat or in any way corresponds to it? No more are we entitled to
conclude because the psychical fact is hung on to a cerebral state
that there is any parallelism between the two series psychical and
physiological." [Footnote: There must be an awkward misprint "physical"
for "psychical" in the English translation, p. xi.] Our observation and
experience, and science itself, strictly speaking, do not allow us to
assert more than that there exists a certain CORRESPONDENCE
between brain and consciousness. The psychical and the physical are
inter-dependent but not parallel.
Bergson however has more to assert than merely the inadequacy and
falsity of Parallelism or Epiphenomenalism. This last theory merely
adds consciousness to physical facts as a kind of phosphorescent
gleam, resembling, in Bergson's words, a "streak of light following the
movement of a match rubbed along a wall in the dark." [Footnote: L'Ame
et le Corps, pp. 12-13, in Le Materialisme actuel, or pp. 35-36 of
L'Energie spirituelle (Mind-Energy).] He maintains, as against all
this, the irreducibility of the mental, our utter inability to interpret
consciousness in terms of anything else, the life of the soul being
unique. He further claims that this psychical life is wider and richer
than we commonly suppose. The brain is the organ of attention to life.
What was said in regard to memory and the brain is applicable to all
our mental life. The mind or soul is wider than the brain in every
direction, and the brain's activity corresponds to no more than an
infinitesimal part of the activity of the mind. [Footnote: L'Ame et le
Corps, Le Materialisme actuel, p. 45, L'Energie spirituelle, p. 61.]
This is expressed more clearly in his Presidential Address to the
British Society for Psychical Research at the Aeolian Hall, London,
1913, where he remarked, "The cerebral life is to the mental life
what the movements of the baton of a conductor are to the symphony."
[Footnote: The Times, May 29, 1913.] Such a remark contains fruitful
suggestions to all engaged in Psychical Research, and to all persons
interested in the fascinating study of telepathy. Bergson is of the
opinion that we are far less definitely cut off from each other, soul
from soul, than we are body from body. "It is space," he says, "which
creates multiplicity and distinction. It is by their bodies that the
different human personalities are radically distinct. But if it is
demonstrated that human consciousness is partially independent of the
human brain, since the cerebral life represents only a small part of the
mental life, it is very possible that the separation between the various
human consciousnesses or souls, may not be so radical as it seems to
be." [Footnote: The Times, May 29, 1913.] There may be, he suggests,
in the psychical world, a process analogous to what is known in the
physical world as "endosmosis." Pleading for an impartial and frank
investigation of telepathy, he pointed out that it was probable, or
at least possible, that it was taking place constantly as a subtle and
sub-conscious influence of soul on soul, but too feebly to be noticed
by active consciousness, or it was neutralized by certain obstacles.
We have no right to deny its possibility on the plea of its being
supernatural, or against natural law, for our ignorance does not entitle
us to say what may be natural or not. If telepathy does not square at
all well with our preconceived notions, it may be more true that our
preconceived notions are false than that telepathy is fictitious;
especially will this be so if our notion of the relation of soul and
body be based on Parallelism. We must overcome this prejudice and seek
to make others set it aside. Telepathy and the sub-conscious mental life
combine to make us realize the wonder of the soul. It is not spatial,
it is spiritual. Bergson insists strongly on the unity of our conscious
life. Merely associationist theories are vicious in this respect: they
try to resolve the whole into parts, and then neglect the whole in their
concentration on the parts. All psychological investigation incurs this
risk of dealing with abstractions. "Psychology, in fact, proceeds like
all the other sciences by analysis. It resolves the self which has been
given to it at first in a simple intuition, into sensations, feelings,
ideas, etc., which it studies separately. It substitutes then for the
self a series of elements which form the facts of psychology. But are
these elements really parts? That is the whole question, and it is
because it has been evaded that the problem of human personality has
so often been stated in insoluble terms." [Footnote: Introduction to
Metaphysics, p. 21.] "Personality cannot be composed of psychical states
even if there be added to them a kind of thread for the purpose of
joining the states together." [Footnote: Introduction to Metaphysics,
p. 25.] We shall never make the soul fit into a category or succeed in
applying concepts to our inner life. The life of the soul is wider than
the brain and wider than all intellectual constructions or moulds we may
attempt to form. It is a creative force capable of producing novelty in
the world: it creates actions and can, in addition, create itself.
Philosophy shows us "the life of the body just where it really is, on
the road that leads to the life of the spirit"; our powers of sense
impression and of intelligence are both instruments in the service of
the will. With a little will one can do much if one places the will in
the right direction. For this force of will which is the essence of
the soul or personality has these exceptional characteristics, that its
intensity depends on its direction, and that its quality may become the
creator of quantity. [Footnote: See the lectures La Nature de l'Ame.]
The brain and the body in general are instruments of the soul. The brain
orients the mind toward action, it is the point of attachment between
the spirit and its material environment. It is like the point of a knife
to the blade--it enables it to penetrate into the realm of action or,
to give another of Bergson's metaphors, it is like the prow of the ship,
enabling the soul to penetrate the billows of reality. Yet, for all
that, it limits and confines the life of the spirit; it narrows vision
as do the blinkers which we put on horses. We must, however, abandon the
notion of any rigid and determined parallelism between soul and body and
accustom ourselves to the fact that the life of the mind is wider
than the limits of cerebral activity. And further, there is this to
consider--"The more we become accustomed to this idea of a consciousness
which overflows the organ we call the brain, then the more natural and
probable we find the hypothesis that the soul survives the body. For
were the mental exactly modelled on the cerebral, we might have to admit
that consciousness must share the fate of the body and die with
it." [Footnote: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1914.] "But the destiny of
consciousness is not bound up with the destiny of cerebral matter."
[Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 285 (Fr. p. 293).] "Although the
data is not yet sufficient to warrant more than an affirmation of high
probability," [Footnote: Louis Levine's interview with Bergson, New York
Times, Feb. 22, 1914. Quoted by Miller, Bergson and Religion, p. 268.]
yet it leaves the way open for a belief in a future life and creates a
presumption in favour of a faith in immortality. "Humanity," as Bergson
remarks, "may, in its evolution, overcome the most formidable of its
obstacles, perhaps even death." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 286
(Fr. p. 294). In Life and Consciousness he says we may admit that in man
at any rate "Consciousness pursues its path beyond this earthly life"
Cf. also conclusion to La Conscience el la Vie in L'Energie spirituelle,
p. 29, and to L'Ame et le Corps, in the same vol., p. 63.]
The great error of the spiritual philosophers has been the idea that
by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in
space, as high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond
attack; as if they were not, thereby, simply exposing it to be taken as
an effect of mirage! Certainly they are right to believe in the absolute
reality of the person and in his independence of matter: but science is
there which shows the inter-dependence of conscious life and cerebral
activity. When a strong instinct assures the probability of personal
survival, they are right not to close their ears to its voice; but if
there exist "souls" capable of an independent life, whence do they come?
When, how, and why do they enter into this body which we see arise quite
naturally from a mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents?
[Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 283 (Fr. p. 291).] At the close of
the Lectures on La Nature de l'Ame, Bergson suggests, by referring to
an allegory of Plotinus, in regard to the origin of souls, that in
the beginning there was a general interpenetration of souls which was
equivalent to the very principle of life, and that the history of the
evolution of life on this planet shows this principle striving until
man's consciousness has been developed, and thus personalities have
been able to constitute themselves. "Souls are being created which, in
a sense, pre-existed. They are nothing else but the little rills into
which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through the great
body of humanity." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 284 (Fr. p. 292).]