MONISM.
We have seen, then, that both the alternative theories of Spiritualism
and Materialism are found, when carefully examined, to be so beset with
difficulties of a necessary and fundamental kind, that it is impossible
to entertain either without closing our eyes to certain contradictions
which they severally and inherently present. We may, indeed, go even
further than this, and affirm that to suppose mind the cause of motion
or motion the cause of mind is equally to suppose that which in its very
nature as a supposition is neither true nor untrue, but nonsensical.
For, as Prof. Clifford has said in his essay on _Body and Mind_,--
'It may be conceived that, at the same time with every exercise of
volition, there is a disturbance of the physical laws; but this
disturbance, being perceptible to me, would be a physical fact
accompanying the volition, and could not be volition itself, which
is not perceptible to me. Whether there is such a disturbance of
the physical laws or no is a question of fact to which we have the
best of reasons for giving a negative answer; but the assertion
that another man's volition, a feeling in his consciousness which
I cannot perceive, is part of the train of physical facts which I
may perceive,--this is neither true nor untrue, but nonsense; it is
a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will not go
together[8].'
And seeing that the correlatives are in each case the same, it is
similarly 'nonsense' to assert the converse proposition: or, in other
words, it is equally nonsense to speak of mental action causing cerebral
action, or of cerebral action causing mental action--nonsense of the
same kind as it would be to speak of the _Pickwick Papers_ causing a
storm at sea, or the eruption of a volcano causing the forty-seventh
proposition in the first book of Euclid.
We see, then, that two of the three possible theories of things contain
the elements of their own destruction: when carefully analyzed, both
these theories are found to present inherent contradictions. On this
account the third, or only alternative theory, comes to us with a large
antecedent presumption in its favour. For it comes to us, as it were, on
a clear field, or with the negative advantage of having no logical
rivals to contend with. The other two suggestions having been weighed in
the balance and found wanting, we are free to look to the new-comer as
quite unopposed. This new-comer must, indeed, be interrogated as
carefully as his predecessors, and, like them, must be judged upon his
own merits. But as he constitutes our last possible hope of solving the
question which he professes himself able to solve, the absolute failure
of his predecessors entitles him to a patient hearing. By the method of
exclusion his voice is now the only voice that remains to be heard, and
unless it can speak to better purpose than the others, we shall have no
alternative but to abandon the facts as inexplicable, or to confess that
it is necessarily impossible for the human mind ever to arrive at any
theory of things.
Before proceeding to state or to examine this third and last of the
suggested theories, it is desirable--in order still further to define
its _status a priori_--that I should exhibit the reason why the two
other suggestions have necessarily failed. For to my mind it is
perfectly obvious that this reason is to be found, and found only, in
the fact that they are both dualistic. The inherent, the fatal, and the
closely similar difficulties which attach to both the dualistic
theories, attach to them merely because they _are_ dualistic. The
'nonsense' of each of them is really identical, and arises only because
they both make the same irrational attempt to find more in the effect
than they have put into the cause. In other words, both the dualistic
theories suppose that the physical chains of causation is complete
within itself, and that the mental chain is also complete within itself:
yet they both proceed to the contradiction that one of these chains is
able to allow some of its causal influence to escape, as it were, in
order to constitute the other chain. It makes no difference, in point
of logic, whether such an escape is supposed to take place from the
physical chain (materialism) or from the mental chain (spiritualism): in
either case the fundamental principle of causality is alike
impugned--the principle, that is, of there being an equivalency between
cause and effect, such that you cannot get more out of your effect than
you have put into your cause. Both these dualistic theories, although
they take opposite views as to which of the two chains of causation is
the cause of the other, nevertheless agree in supposing that there _are_
two chains of causation, and that one of them _does_ act causally upon
the other: and it is in this matter of their common consent that they
both commit suicide. Every process in the physical sphere must be
supposed to have its equations satisfied within that sphere: else the
doctrine of the conservation of energy would be contravened, and thus
the causation contemplated could no longer be contemplated as physical.
Similarly, every process in the mental sphere must be supposed to have
its equations satisfied within that sphere: else the causation
contemplated could no longer be contemplated as mental: some of the
equations must be supposed not to have been satisfied within the mental
sphere, but to have been carried over into the physical sphere--thus to
have either created or destroyed certain quantities of energy within
that sphere, and thus, also, to have introduced elements of endless
confusion into the otherwise orderly system of Nature.
From this vice of radical contradiction, to which both the dualistic
theories are committed, the monistic theory is free. Moreover, as we
shall immediately find, it is free to combine the elements of truth
which severally belong to both the other theories. These other theories
are each concerned with what they see upon different sides of the same
shield. The facts which they severally receive they severally report,
and their reports appear to contradict each other. But truth can never
be really in contradiction with other truth; and it is reserved for
Monism, by taking a simultaneous view of both sides, to reconcile the
previously apparent contradictions. For these and other reasons, which
will unfold themselves as we proceed, I fully agree with the late
Professor Clifford where he says of this theory--'It is not merely a
speculation, but is a result to which all the greatest minds that have
studied this question (the relation between body and mind) in the right
way have gradually been approximating for a long time.' This theory is,
as we have already seen, that mental phenomena and physical phenomena,
although apparently diverse, are really identical.
If we thus unite in a higher synthesis the elements both of spiritualism
and of materialism, we obtain a product which satisfies every fact of
feeling on the one hand, and of observation on the other. We have only
to suppose that the antithesis between mind and motion--subject and
object--is itself phenomenal or apparent: not absolute or real. We have
only to suppose that the seeming duality is relative to our modes of
apprehension: and, therefore, that any change taking place in the mind,
and any corresponding change taking place in the brain, are really not
two changes, but one change. When a violin is played upon we hear a
musical sound, and at the same time we see a vibration of the strings.
Relatively to our consciousness, therefore, we have here two sets of
changes, which appear to be very different in kind; yet we know that in
an absolute sense they are one and the same: we know that the diversity
in consciousness is created only by the difference in our mode of
perceiving the same events--whether we see or whether we hear the
vibration of the strings. Similarly, we may suppose that a vibration of
nerve-strings and a process of thought are really one and the same
event, which is dual or diverse only in relation to our modes of
perceiving it.
Or, to take another and a better illustration, in an Edison lamp the
light which is emitted from the burner may be said indifferently to be
caused by the number of vibrations per second going on in the carbon, or
by the temperature of the carbon; for this rate of vibration could not
take place in the carbon without constituting that degree of temperature
which affects our eyes as luminous. Similarly, a train of thought may be
said indifferently to be caused by brain-action or by mind-action; for,
_ex hypothesi_, the one could not take place without the other. Now when
we contemplate the phenomena of volition by themselves, it is as though
we were contemplating the phenomena of light by themselves: volition is
produced by mind in brain, just as light is produced by temperature in
carbon. And just as we may correctly speak of light as the cause, say,
of a photograph, so we may correctly speak of volition as the cause of
bodily movement. That particular kind of physical activity which takes
place in the carbon could not take place without the light which causes
a photograph; and, similarly, that particular kind of physical activity
which takes place in the brain could not take place without the volition
which causes a bodily movement. So that volition is as truly a cause of
bodily movement as is the physical activity of the brain; seeing that,
in an absolute sense, the cause is one and the same. But if we once
clearly perceive that what in a relative sense we know as volition is,
in a similar sense, the cause of bodily movement, we terminate the
question touching the freedom of the will. It thus becomes a mere matter
of phraseology whether we speak of the will determining, or being
determined by, changes going on in the external world; just as it is but
a matter of phraseology whether we speak of temperature determining, or
being determined by, molecular vibration. All the requirements alike of
the free-will and of the bond-will hypotheses are thus satisfied by a
synthesis which comprises them both. On the one hand, it would be as
impossible for an _un_conscious automaton to do the work or to perform
the adjustments of a conscious agent, as it would be for an Edison lamp
to give out light and cause a photograph when not heated by an electric
current. On the other hand, it would be as impossible for the will to
originate bodily motion without the occurrence of a strictly physical
process of cerebration, as it would be for light to shine in an Edison
lamp which had been deprived of its carbon-burner.
The great advantage of this theory is, that it supposes only one stream
of causation, in which both mind and motion are simultaneously
concerned. The theory, therefore, escapes all the difficulties and
contradictions with which both spiritualism and materialism are beset.
Thus, motion is supposed to be producing nothing but motion;
mind-changes nothing but mind-changes--both producing both
simultaneously: neither could be what it is without the other, because
without the other neither could be the cause which in fact it is.
Impossible, therefore, is the supposition of the materialist that
consciousness is adventitious, or that in the absence of mind the
changes of the brain could be what they are; for it belongs to the very
causation of these movements that they should have a mental side. And
equally impossible is the supposition of the spiritualist that the
cerebral processes are adventitious, or that in the absence of brain the
changes of the mind could be what they are; for it belongs to the very
causation of these changes that they should have a material side.
Furthermore, the use of mind to animals and to men is thus rendered
apparent; for intelligent volition is thus shown to be a true cause of
adjustive movement, in that the cerebration which it involves could not
otherwise be possible: the causation would not otherwise be complete.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: _Lectures and Essays_, vol. ii. pp. 56-7.]