THE WILL IN RELATION TO MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM.
In the foregoing chapters I have considered the theory of Monism, first
in contrast with the theories of Materialism and of Spiritualism, and
next in relation to the theory of Theism. In this chapter and that which
succeeds it I propose to consider Monism in relation to the Will. To do
this it is needful to begin by considering the problems which are
presented by the Will in relation to the older theories of Materialism
on the one hand and of Spiritualism on the other.
Although the phenomena of volition have occupied so large a province of
philosophical literature, the fundamental problems which arise in
connexion with them are only two in number, and both admit of being
stated in extremely simple terms. The historical order in which these
two problems have arisen is the inverse of their logical order. For
while in logical order the two problems would stand thus--Is the Will an
agent? If so, is it a free agent?--in actual discussion it was long
taken for granted that the Will is an agent, and hence the only
controversy gathered round the question whether the Will is a free
agent. Descartes, indeed, seems to have entertained the prior question
with regard to animals, and there are passages in the _Leviathan_ which
may be taken to imply that Hobbes entertained this question with regard
to man. But it was not until recent years that any such question could
stand upon a basis of science as distinguished from speculation; the
question did not admit of being so much as stated in terms of science
until physiology was in a position openly to challenge our right to
assume that the Will is an agent. Such a challenge physiology has now
given, and even declared that any assumption of volitional agency is, in
the presence of adequate physiological knowledge, impossible.
The two problems which I thus state separately are often, and indeed
generally, confused together; but for the purpose of clear analysis it
is of the first importance that they should be kept apart. In order to
show the wide distinction between them, we may best begin with a brief
consideration of what it is that the two problems severally involve; and
to do this we may best take the problems in what I have called their
logical order.
First, then, as regards the question whether the Will is an agent, the
rival theories of Materialism and Spiritualism stand to one another in a
relation of contradiction. For it is of the essence of Spiritualism to
regard the Will as an agent, or as an original cause of bodily movement,
and therefore as a true cause in Nature. On the other hand, it is of the
essence of Materialism to deny that the Will is an agent. Hitherto,
indeed, materialists as a body have not expressly recognized this
implication as necessarily belonging to their theory; but that this
implication does necessarily belong to their theory--or rather, I should
say, really constitutes its most distinctive feature--admits of being
easily shown. For the theory that material changes are the causes of
mental changes necessarily terminates in the so-called theory of
conscious automatism--or the theory that so far as the conditions to
bodily action are concerned, consciousness is adventitious, bearing the
same ineffectual relation to the activity of the brain as the striking
of a clock bears to the time-keeping adjustments of the clock-work. From
this conclusion there is no possibility of escape, if once we accept the
premises of Materialism; and therefore I say it belongs to the essence
of Materialism to deny the agency of Will.
Just as necessarily does it belong to the essence of Monism to affirm
the agency of Will. For, according to this theory, while motion is
producing nothing but motion, mind-change nothing but mind-change, both
are producing both simultaneously; neither could be what it is without
the other, for each is to the other a necessary counterpart or
supplement, in the absence of which the whole causation (whether
regarded from the physical or mental side) would not be complete.
Now, in my opinion the importance of the view thus presented by the
theory of Monism is, for all purposes of psychological analysis,
inestimable. It is impossible nowadays that such analysis can proceed
very far in any direction without confronting the facts presented by
physiology: hence it is impossible for such analysis to confine itself
exclusively to the spiritual or subjective side of psychology. On the
other hand, in so far as such analysis has regard to the material or
objective side, it has hitherto appeared to countenance--in however
disguised a form--the dogmatic denial of the Will as an agent. Hence the
supreme importance to psychology of reconciling the hitherto rival
theories of Spiritualism and Materialism in the higher synthesis which
is furnished by the theory of Monism. For, obviously, in the absence of
any philosophical justification of the Will as an agent, we are without
any guarantee that all psychological inquiry is not a vain beating of
the air. If, as Materialism necessarily implies, the Will is not a cause
in Nature, there would be no reason in Nature for the agency either of
feeling or of intelligence. Feeling and intelligence would, therefore,
stand as ciphers in the general constitution of things; and any inquiry
touching their internal system of causation could have no reference to
any scientific inquiry touching causation in general. I am aware that
this truth is habitually overlooked by psychologists; but it is none
the less a truth of fundamental importance to the whole superstructure
of this science. Or, in other words, unless psychologists will expressly
consent to rear their science on the basis provided by the philosophical
theory of Monism, there is nothing to save it from logical
disintegration; apart from this basis, the whole science is, so to
speak, built in the air, like an unsubstantial structure of clouds.
Psychologists, I repeat, habitually ignore this fact, and constantly
speak of feeling and intelligence as true causes of adjustive action;
but by so doing they merely beg from this contradictory theory of
Spiritualism a flat denial of the fundamental postulate on which they
elsewhere proceed--the postulate, namely, that mental changes are
determined by cerebral changes. Consider, for example, the following
passage from Mr. Spencer's _Principles of Psychology_ (Sec. 125), which
serves to show in brief compass the logical incoherency which in this
matter runs through his whole work:--
'Those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the
average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities
conducive to the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and
habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or
indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been,
other things equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals
among races in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were
the best, tending ever to bring about perfect adjustment.'
The argument here is that the 'adjustments of feelings to actions,' when
once attained, leads in turn to an adjustment of actions to
feelings--or, as I have myself stated the argument in my _Mental
Evolution in Animals_, 'the _raison d'etre_ of Pleasure and Pain has
been that of furnishing organisms with guides to adjustive action:
moreover, as in the case of direct sensation dictating any simple
adjustment for the sake of securing an immediate good, so in the case of
instinct dictating a more intricate action for the sake of eventually
securing a more remote good (whether for self, progeny, or community);
and so, likewise, in the case of reason dictating a still more intricate
adjustment for the sake of securing a good still more remote--in all
cases, that is, where volition is concerned, pleasures and pains are the
guides of action.' But thus to affirm that pleasures and pains are the
guides of action is merely another way of affirming that the Will is an
agent--a cause of bodily movement, and, as such, a cause in Nature. Now,
as we have seen, Mr. Spencer not only affirms this--or rather assumes
it--but proceeds to render an _a priori_ explanation of the accuracy of
the guidance. Yet he nowhere considers the fundamental question--Why
should we suppose that the Will is an agent at all? Assuredly the answer
given by physiology to this question is a simple denial that we have any
justification so to regard the Will: in view of her demonstration of
conscious automatism, she can see no reason why there should be any
connexion at all between a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain
and an objective fact of 'agreement or disagreement with the
environment'--nay, one of the most eminent of her priesthood has
declared that there _is_ no more connexion between the ambition of a
Napoleon and a general commotion of Europe, than there is between the
puff of a steam-whistle and the locomotion of a train. And, as I have
now repeatedly insisted, on grounds of physiology alone this is the only
logical conclusion at which it is possible to arrive. Yet Mr. Spencer,
while elsewhere proceeding on the lines of physiology, whenever he
encounters the question of the agency of Will, habitually jumps the
whole gulf that separates Materialism from Spiritualism. And this
wonderful feat of intellectual athletics is likewise performed, so far
at least as I am aware, by every other psychologist who has proceeded on
the lines of physiology. Indeed, the logical incoherency is not so
serious in Mr. Spencer's case as it is in that of many other writers
whom I need not wait to name. For Mr. Spencer does not seek to found his
system on a basis of avowed Materialism, and, therefore, he may be said
to have left this fundamental question of volitional agency in abeyance.
But all those writers who have reared their systems of psychology on a
basis of avowed Materialism--or, which is the same thing, on a basis of
physiology alone--lay themselves open to the charge of grossest
inconsistency when they thus assume that the Will is an agent. It is
impossible that these writers can both have their cake and eat it.
Either they must forego their Materialism, or else they must cease to
speak of 'motives determining action,' 'conduct being governed by
pleasures and pains,' 'voluntary movements in their last resort being
all due to bodily feelings,' 'the highest morality and the lowest vice
being alike the result of a pursuit of happiness,' &c. &c. And, so far
as I can see, it is only in the way above indicated, or on the theory of
Monism, that it is possible, without ignoring the facts of physiology on
the one hand or those of psychology on the other, philosophically to
save the agency of Will.
From this brief exposition it may be gathered that on the materialistic
theory it is impossible that the Will can be, in any sense of the term,
an agent; that on the spiritualistic theory the Will is regarded as an
agent, but only in the sense of a non-natural or miraculous cause; and,
lastly, that on the monistic theory the Will is saved as an agent, or
may be properly regarded and as properly denominated a true cause, in
the ordinary sense of that term. For this, as well as for other reasons
which need not here be specified, I accept in philosophy the theory of
Monism; and am thus entitled in psychology to proceed upon the doctrine
that the Will is an agent. We have next to consider the ulterior
question whether upon this theory the Will may be properly regarded as a
free agent.
By a free agent is understood an agent that is able to act without
restraint, or spontaneously. The word 'free,' therefore, bears a very
different meaning when applied exclusively to the Will, and when
applied more generally to the living organism. For we may properly say
that a man, or an animal, is free when he, or it, is at liberty to act
in accordance with desire. Touching the fact of freedom in this sense
there is, of course, no question. We have not to consider the possible
freedom of man, but the possible freedom of Will; we have not to
contemplate whether a man may be free to do what he wills, but whether
he can be free to will what he wills. Such being the question, we have
to consider it in relation to the three philosophical theories already
stated--Materialism, Spiritualism, and Monism.
For the theory of Materialism the present question has no existence. If
this announcement appears startling, it can only be because no
materialist has ever taken the trouble to formulate his own theory with
distinctness. For, as previously shown, Materialism necessarily involves
the doctrine of conscious automatism; but, if so, the Will is concluded
not to be an agent at all, and therefore it becomes idle to discuss
whether, in any impossible exercise of its agency, it is free or subject
to restraint. The most that in this connexion could logically stand to
be considered by the advocates of Materialism would be whether or not
the adventitious and inefficacious feelings of subjectivity which are
associated with cerebral activity are determinate or free; but this
would probably be regarded on all hands as a somewhat useless topic of
discussion, and certainly in any case would have no reference to the
question of free _agency_. The point to be clearly understood is that,
according to the materialistic theory, a motor is distinct from a
motive, although in some unaccountable manner the motor is able to cause
the motive. But the motive, when thus caused, is not supposed to exert
any causal influence on bodily action; it is supposed to begin and end
as a motive, or never itself to become a motor. In other words, as
before stated, the Will is not supposed to be an agent; and, therefore,
to this theory the doctrine of free-will and of determinism are alike
irrelevant. We need not wait to prove that this important fact is
habitually overlooked by materialists themselves, or that whenever a
materialist espouses the cause of determinism, he is thereby and for the
time being vacating his position as a materialist; for if, according to
his theory, the Will is not an agent, he is merely impugning his own
doctrines by consenting to discuss the conditions of its agency.
The theory of Spiritualism and the theory of Monism agree in holding
that the Will is an agent; and, therefore, to both of these theories the
question whether the Will is a free agent is a real question. Here,
then, it devolves upon us to consider carefully the logical status of
the rival doctrines of so-called Liberty and Necessity. For convenience
of arrangement in what follows, we may best begin with the doctrine of
Necessity, or Determinism.