The consideration of the relation that subsists between body and mind is
a topic that has led to several theories, one of which has found favor
with many on account of its supposed monistic implications. Dr. Carus in
his work “The Soul of Man” seems to adopt that theory, and his method of
explaining the matter is one of notable superiority. He says:
“Matter and mind (the elements of feeling) are to be considered
as one—not the same, but one. They are as inseparable as are
the two sides of a sheet of paper. If we look at it from the
mind side its activity represents itself as elements of feeling
and all kinds and degrees of actual feelings. If we look at it
from the matter side its activity represents itself as motions
or as all kinds of potential and kinetic energy.”
This doctrine of a double-faced unity has no doubt been favored because
it has seemed the best and perhaps the only refuge available against
the various forms of dualism. Still this same doctrine is very far from
inducing that final pacification of mind which we rightly expect from a
competent theory. It is open to the charge of being arbitrary, and it
brings no access of insight.
The expressions of those whom we must suppose to be well affected towards
any doctrine that gives promise of a monistic issue show this to be the
case. Thus Tyndall says:
“I do not think that he (i. e. the materialist) is entitled
to say that his molecular groupings and his molecular motions
explain everything. In reality they explain nothing. The
utmost that he can affirm is the association of two classes
of phenomena of whose real bond of union he is in absolute
ignorance. _The problem of the connection of body and soul is
as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the prehistoric
ages._”
And Huxley protests that,
“How anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes
about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is _just as
unaccountable_ as the appearance of the Djinn when Alladin
rubbed his lamp.”
In truth those who might be expected to speak with considerable reserve
in regard to the inabilities of human attainment have emphasised without
due sobriety the insuperable aspects of the problem. The past history
of culture should have counseled caution, especially in view of the
certainty that consciousness is _somehow_ dependent upon nerve action.
It is submitted that the recent progress of science should induce a
hopeful temper of mind on this question. Not only have physiology and
psychology brought to light more results in the last decades than in
centuries past, but in positive monism and formal thought philosophy
has also attained to a clearness of method which will prove beneficial
to all special investigations. A clear and concise statement of the
new positivism is found in the chapter Form and Formal Thought of
“Fundamental Problems” by Dr. Carus. Any one who has watched the
development of the algebra of thought and the philosophy of logic, will
naturally expect signal aid towards the solution of the world-questions
from a proper consideration of form and the laws of form. In Dr. Carus’s
book and especially in the above mentioned chapter will be found a most
popular exposition of that subject.
Those who hold that form and formal thought is the very constituted means
by which our information with respect to real existence may be improved,
ought to regard it a decided step towards the solution of any hitherto
apparently inexplicable problem, if we only but find ourselves able to
_formulate_ an idea or process that mediates between the known and the
unknown, and represents to our insight how it is possible to think of a
phenomenon in accordance with notions that yield perceptible imagery.
Riemann in what has been well characterised as his “stupendous” essay on
“The hypotheses that lie at the basis of geometry” remarks:
“We are quite at liberty to suppose that the metric relations
of space in the infinitely small do not conform to the
hypotheses of geometry; _and we ought in fact to suppose it if
we can thereby obtain a simpler explanation of phenomena_.”
So also Jevons in his “Principles of Science” commenting on “The
Character of the Experimentalist” refers to the audacity of speculation
that characterised Faraday and that was the leading of his efforts
towards some of his most brilliant discoveries. He says:
“We have only to notice the profound conviction in the unity of
natural laws, the active powers of inference and imagination,
_the unbounded license of theorising_.”
Theory must precede experiment. We must formulate before we can verify.
The words of Faraday: “Let us encourage ourselves by a little more
imagination prior to experiment,” shows us the method he followed.
Recent developments in connection with the study of electricity supply us
with at least an analogy that may instruct us as to how we may _suppose_
the appearance of consciousness as a result of nerve action.
The nature of electricity has long been an unformulated thesis. That it
may be produced by the motion of matter is proved by every dynamo in
operation: indeed the oldest experiments in static electricity are to the
same effect.
At the present time it seems to be an acceptable doctrine or at least a
good working hypothesis that electricity and magnetism are manifestations
of that once hypothetical medium called _the ether_.
Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald in his opening address before Section A of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888 made these
very important remarks:
“In a presidential address on the borderlands of the known,
delivered from this chair, the great Clerk Maxwell spoke of it
as an undecided question whether electro-magnetic phenomena are
due to direct action at a distance or are due to the action of
an intervening medium. The year 1888 will ever be memorable as
the year in which this great question has been experimentally
_settled_ by Hertz in Germany. Henceforth I hope no learner
will fail to be impressed with the theory—_hypothesis no
longer_—that electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium
pervading all known space.”
That the ether really exists: that it is a proved fact and that it is
the substantial basis out of which electricity and magnetism arises,
are pretensions too momentous to remain unchallenged if they lacked
good evidence in their favor. Yet instead of awakening dissent among
the critical hosts of science, these utterances of Professor Fitzgerald
have not only been received as voicing the convictions of the scientific
world but they are confirmed from time to time by the sometimes tacit and
sometimes express assent of all who discourse upon the matters involved.
Prof. Oliver Lodge, one of the leading scientific men of England and an
acknowledged authority upon the subject has recently published a work
entitled “Modern Views of Electricity.” In his preface he says:
“Few things in physical science appear to me more certain than
that what has so long been called electricity is a form or
rather a mode of manifestation of the ether.”
He supposes the ether as a compound of two constituents corresponding
to positive and negative electricity. Each of these constituents has
affinities, cohesions, or entanglements with the various kinds of
matter, which affinities, cohesions, or entanglements are greater or
less according to the kind of matter involved, so that by the motions of
certain sorts of matter under proper conditions the two constituents of
the ether are torn apart or separated, or in the language of dynamics,
strained. But at the same time these constituents also tend with
unceasing persistence to reunite and saturate one another into a state of
absolute neutrality. Separate, these constituents show an existence and
an energy towards one another. United neither of them shows any existence
at all nor any efficacy whatever. They are as though they did not exist.
It is of small moment to the present purpose whether or not this
electrical theory is well grounded. In either case its very formulation
supplies us with a suggestion as to how it is possible to think of
consciousness as a product of nerve action.
Just as the ether is supposed as the substantial basis out of which in
consequence of the motion of matter electricity and magnetism becomes
manifest, so may we suppose an analogous (perhaps the same) basis
surrounding and permeating all things, and out of which in consequence of
nerve action, consciousness becomes manifest.
Why may we not suppose this consciousness basis, (which suppose we name
spirit,) to be the ultimate substance which being variously modified
by energy manifests in one case the phenomena of mind, in another the
phenomena of electricity, magnetism, etc., and then again in a third case
that phenomenon, mass, or inertia, which is the essential attribute of
matter?
As with the ether in the absence of any cause that separates it so that
electricity and magnetism become manifest, so spirit may be supposed
to be utterly without manifestation and neutral until nerve action
modifies its condition, when like electricity in the one case, so here,
consciousness becomes manifest.
Why may we not imagine spirit as composed of two constituents
corresponding to feeling and volition which united saturate one another
into neutrality, but which separated by nerve action manifest feeling
that tends to pass into volition, or volition that tends to pass into
feeling? This would be in accordance with the phenomena if of reflex
action which is supposed to be the elementary type of mentality.
This is in harmony with the views of the author of “The Soul of Man,” for
he, although for other reasons, also explains the origin of consciousness
from tension. He says:
“Consciousness is an intensified state of feeling caused
through tension. It lies between a want and its satisfaction.
Satisfaction not being immediately attainable, feelings are no
longer in a state of equilibrium, and it is this tension which
concentrates and intensifies feeling into consciousness.
“It appears that consciousness never arises without a certain
tension. Days spent in an idyllic life flow away almost
unconsciously; there is little friction, there are no problems
to be solved; there are no unsatisfied wants, or if there are
any, they are quickly and easily attended to. There is no need
of consciousness, there is not much tension to call it into
play, so life passes dreamlike as a tale that is told. The
more life is burdened with problems that demand a man’s full
care and deliberation, and the stronger are his attempts to
solve the problems of his situation, the more intense will his
consciousness be.
“It appears to me very doubtful whether conscious beings could
exist in a world—if such a world were possible at all—where the
struggle for existence was unknown; for it is the struggle for
existence that presents the first and most imperative problems
to living and feeling beings.”
Spirit or the elementary basis of consciousness considered as a
quantity, would on this supposition remain the same, but the forms of
its manifestations would change. There would be more or less straining
of spirit and accordingly more or less manifestation of consciousness.
Or to formulate it in one sentence, we would have to postulate _the
conservation of spirit_.
Such a supposition or some similar supposition if tolerable would
bring our ideas into some sort of accord with scientific customs of
explanation, and would extricate our minds from that state of utter
stultification into which they are cast whenever they are confronted with
the relations of body and mind.