Substantialism has two main divisions--Ontology, which treats of the
mental substance in itself, and Logic or Metaphysic, which deals
with its consciousness. The present essay is specially concerned with
logic, but certain ontological premises must be assumed to render
the logic intelligible. This follows from the subordinate relation of
consciousness to substance.
The substantial mind consists of two principal parts--a SELF and a
PLASMA--the Atman and Aka['s]a of Sanscrit philosophers.
Self is the seat of Energy and Consciousness. The plasma is inert
and unconscious; it protects the Self and receives, communicates,
and retains impressions of experience, both the external and the
internal[1].
The Self would be conscious though isolated from other minds, at least
from those of its own grade of being. It would feel the fluctuations
of its energy. But the experience called 'external' depends on the
mutual action of minds. It is the form into which their consciousness
is thrown when they come in contact. It lasts no longer than the
contact, and so has only a casual existence.
The constitution of the mind is not given by Berkeley, and on other
points also we must supplement and correct his philosophy. He was
wrong as regards the mental cause of the perception of the Inorganic
or Dead.
Since external experience implies that another mind is operating
upon ours, what mind is operating when we perceive an object that is
apparently mindless? Berkeley replies that it is the supreme mind that
is then acting upon us.
Many objections can be urged against this view. I will mention only
one, which seems to me conclusive. By every canon of judgment we
possess, the living or organised is better--more important and
significant--than the lifeless and elemental; so if Berkeley's
reasoning be valid the phenomena excited by finite and created beings
are superior to those excited by their Creator. The movements of a
living man are referred to a human mind--a putrescent carcase is a
vision immediately induced by the Deity.
The beauty of the starry sky is irrelevant to the question. Apart from
the finite life and thought that may be associated with the stars,
they have no more philosophical importance than a spadeful of sand.
A more reasonable account of the inorganic is found in several ancient
philosophies. Gnostics and Neo-Platonists referred the elemental to
a cosmic mind (_Demiurgos_) intermediate between human beings and the
Supreme. The demiurgic mind is inconceivably greater and more powerful
than the human, but is not necessarily better in quality. It is the
origin of all natural forces, and its organic processes are what
we term 'physical laws.' This is the explanation of inorganic
consciousness which I feel disposed to adopt, but to discuss it fully
would carry us too far from the subject of this work.
The next point relates to the body. What is its function in
substantialism? The brain, says Berkeley, is an idea in the mind, and
he ridicules the notion that one idea should generate all other
ideas. This is an argument against materialism. No doubt he would have
admitted, though he does not say so, that the body-idea facilitates,
or at least must precede, the experience of other ideas. He would not
have denied that it is an _instrumental_ idea.
Since his time an important discovery has been made with reference to
the constitution of the body. I allude to the Cell theory. It is no
longer possible to regard the body either as a self-moving machine (if
this is not a contradiction in terms), or as a lump of 'dead matter'
animated by the mind. It is a society of minute animals[2], each
having a certain degree of independent energy and liberty of movement.
They are organised and governed by the human or animal mind with which
they are associated. In short, the relation of the cell to the man is
analogous to, if not quite the same as, the relation of the man to the
cosmic being.
This discovery complicates the problem of 'external' consciousness,
without however affecting the principles on which a substantialist
would endeavour to solve it. Instead of conceiving human minds as
coming into immediate contact in perception, we have to conceive the
cellular systems of each as forming a medium between the two. We
do not perceive the other mind immediately or intuitively; what we
perceive intuitively is certain affections in our own organism, which
we must first refer to the other body, and then to the mind behind
that body. Our knowledge of other human beings is thus altogether
inferential.
The cellular medium explains why we are not generally aware of
the substantial constitution of other minds; it is veiled by the
intervening organisms.
The relation of body to mind, the reason of embodiment, and so forth,
are questions of prime importance in ontology, but in logic we are
concerned only with the object in consciousness, without reference to
the apparatus of perception. The instrument of intellectual perception
may in its proper character be ignored.