THE WILL IN RELATION TO MONISM.
We have now seen that, according to Materialism, the Will is not an
agent, while according both to Spiritualism and to Monism the Will is an
agent. Touching the further question, whether the Will is a free agent,
we have seen that while the question does not exist for Materialism, it
appears to require a negative answer both from Spiritualism and from
Monism. For, as regards its relation to Spiritualism, when once the
ground is cleared of certain errors of statement and fallacies of
reasoning, we appear to find that unless the will is held to be
motiveless--which would be to destroy not only the doctrine of moral
responsibility, but likewise that of universal causation--it must be
regarded as subject to law, or as determined in its action by the nature
of its past history and present circumstances. Lastly, the theory of
Monism appears likewise to deny the possibility of freedom as an
attribute of Will; for, according to this theory, mental processes are
one and the same with physical processes, and hence it does not appear
that the doctrine of determinism could well be taught in a manner more
emphatic.
Thus far, then, the doctrine of determinism is seen to be victorious
over the doctrine of freedom all along the line. By Materialism the
question of freedom is excluded _ab initio_; by Spiritualism and by
Monism, so far as yet seen, it can be logically answered only in the
negative. From which it follows that the sense of moral responsibility
is of the nature of a vast illusion, the historical genesis of which
admits of being easily traced, and the authority of which is thus
destroyed. Although it may still serve to supply motives to conduct, it
seems that it can do so only in the way that belongs to
superstition--that Conscience, as I have before said, is the bogey of
mankind, and that belief in its authority is like belief in witchcraft,
destined to dwindle and to fade before the advance of a better or more
complete knowledge of natural causation.
But the discussion must not end here. Hitherto I have presented the case
Liberty _versus_ Necessity with all the impartiality of which I am
capable; but I have done so without travelling an inch beyond those
limits of discussion within which the question has been debated by
previous writers. I believe, indeed, that I have pointed out several
important oversights which have been made on both sides of the question;
but in doing this I have not gone further than the philosophical basis
upon which the question has been hitherto argued. My object, however,
in publishing these papers is not that of destructive criticism; and
what I have done in this direction has been done only in order to
prepare the way for what is now to follow. Having shown, as it appears
to me conclusively, that upon both the rival theories of Materialism and
Spiritualism--the doctrine of Liberty, and therefore of Moral
Responsibility--must logically fall, I now hope to show that this
doctrine admits of being re-established on a basis furnished by the
theory of Monism.
It often happens that an elaborate structure of argument, which is
perfectly sound and complete upon the basis furnished by a given
hypothesis, admits of being wholly disintegrated when the fundamental
hypothesis is shown to be either provisional or untrue. And such, I
believe, is the case with the issue now before us. For the issue Liberty
_versus_ Necessity has hitherto been argued on the common assumption
that natural causation is not merely the most ultimate principle which
the human mind can reach; but also a principle which is, in some way or
another, external to that mind. It has been taken for granted by both
sides in the controversy that if our volitions can be proved to depend
upon natural causation, as rigid in its sequences within the sphere of a
human mind as within that of a calculating machine, there must be an end
of the controversy; seeing that our volitions would be thus proved to be
rigidly determined by those same principles of fixed order, or 'natural
law,' which are external to, or independent of, the human mind--quite as
much as they are external to, or independent of, the calculating
machine. Now, it is this assumption which I challenge. The theory of
Monism entitles one to deny that when we have driven the question down
to the granite bed of natural causation, nothing more remains to be
done; according to this theory it still remains to be asked, What is the
nature of this natural causation? Is it indeed the ultimate datum of
experience, below which the human mind cannot go? And is it indeed so
far external to, or independent of, the human mind, that the latter
stands to it in the relation of a slave to a master--coerced as to
action by the conditions which that master has laid down?
Now these questions are all virtually answered in the affirmative by the
dualistic theory of Spiritualism. For the Will is here regarded as an
agent bound to act in accordance with those conditions of external
necessity which dualism recognizes as natural causation. Its internal
causation thus becomes but the reflex of external; and the reflection
becomes known internally as the consciousness of motive. Hence, the Will
cannot be philosophically liberated from the toils of this external
necessity, so long as dualism recognizes that necessity as existing
independently of the Will, and thus imposing its conditions on
volitional activity. But the theory of Monism, by identifying external
with internal causation--or physical processes with psychical
processes--philosophically saves the doctrine of freedom, and with it
the doctrine of moral responsibility. Moreover, it does so without
relying upon any precarious appeal to the direct testimony of
consciousness itself. As this view of the subject is one by no means
easy of apprehension, I will endeavour to unfold it part by part.
To begin with, Monism excludes the possibility of volition being
determined by cerebration. Let us suppose, for example, that a sequence
of ideas, _A, B, C, D_, occurs in the mind, which on its obverse or
cerebral aspect may be represented by the sequence _a, b, c, d_. Here
the parallelism is not due, as supposed by Materialism, to _a_
determining _Ab_, _b_ determining _Bc_, &c.; it is due to _Aa_
determining _Bb_, _Bb_ determining _Cc_, &c.--the two apparently diverse
causal sequences being really but one causal sequence. If the
determinist should rejoin that a causal sequence of some kind is all
that he demands--that the Will is equally proved to be unfree, whether
it be bound by the causal sequence _a, b, c, d_, or by the causal
sequence _Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd_--I answer that this is a point which we have
to consider by-and-by. Meanwhile I am only endeavouring to make clear
the essential distinction between the philosophical theories of Monism
and Materialism. And the effect of this distinction is to show that, for
the purposes of clear analysis, we may wholly neglect either side of the
double reality. If we happen to be engaged on any physiological
inquiry, we may altogether neglect the processes of ideation with which
any process of cerebration may be concerned; while, if we happen to be
engaged upon any psychological inquiry, we may similarly neglect the
processes of cerebration with which any process of ideation may be
concerned. Seeing that each is equally an index of a common sequence, it
can make no difference which of them we take as our guide, although for
purposes of practical inquiry it is of course expedient to take the
cerebral index when we are dealing with the objective side of the
problem, and the mental index when dealing with the subjective. In the
following pages, therefore, I shall altogether neglect the cerebral
index. The inquiry on which we are engaged belongs to the region of
mind, and, therefore, after what has just been said, it will be apparent
that I am entitled to adopt the standpoint of a spiritualist, to the
extent of fastening attention only upon the mental side of the problem.
For although the theory of Monism teaches, as against Spiritualism, that
no one of the mental sequences could take place without a corresponding
physical sequence, the theory also teaches the converse proposition; and
therefore it makes no difference which of the two phenomenal sequences
is taken as our index of the ontological.
Now, it clearly makes a great difference whether the mental changes
concerned in volition are regarded as effects or as causes. According
to Materialism, the mental changes are the effects of cerebral changes,
which were themselves the effects of precedent cerebral changes.
According to Spiritualism, these mental changes are the causes, not only
of the cerebral changes, but also of one another. According to Monism,
the mental changes may be regarded as the causes of the cerebral, or
_vice versa_, seeing that in neither case are we stating a real
truth--the real truth being that it is only a cerebro-mental change
which can cause any change either of cerebration or of mentation. Now it
is evident that if the mental processes were always the effects of
cerebral processes (Materialism), there could be no further question
with regard to Liberty and Necessity; while, if the mental processes are
the causes both of the cerebral processes and of one another
(Spiritualism), the question before us becomes raised to a higher level.
The causality in question being now regarded as purely mental, the will
is no longer regarded as a passive slave of the brain, and the only
thing to be considered is whether freedom is compatible with causation
of a purely mental kind. Now, at an earlier stage of our enquiry I have
argued that it is not; but this argument was based entirely upon
spiritualistic premises, or upon the assumption that the principle of
causality is everywhere external to, or independent of, the human
mind--under which assumption I cannot see that it makes much difference
whether the coercion comes from the brain alone, or from the whole
general system of things external to the human mind. And here it is that
I think the theory of Monism comes to the rescue.
For, if physical and mental processes are everywhere consubstantial, or
identical in kind, it can make no difference whether we regard their
sequences as objective or ejective, physical or spiritual. Hence, we are
free to regard all causation as of a character essentially psychical.
But, if so, it must be self-contained as psychical; it cannot be in any
way determined by anything from without, seeing that outside itself
there is nothing in the Universe. Now, if this is true of the
World-eject, it must also be true of the Man-eject, as well as of the
Man-subject, or Ego. If all causation is psychical, that portion of it
which belongs to, or is manifested by, my own personality is not laid
upon me by anything from without; it is merely the expression of my own
psychical activity, as this is taking place within the circumscribed
area of my own personality. And this activity is spontaneous, in the
sense that it is not coerced from without. All the sequences which that
activity displays within this region are self-determined, in the sense
that they are determined by the self, and not by any agency external to
it. The only influence which any external agency can here exert, is that
of insisting that bodily action--the physical outcome of my psychical
processes--shall be in accordance with the conditions imposed by the
internal system of causation; but this does not influence in any degree
those mental processes which do not express themselves in bodily action.
Hence, it may be perfectly true that my bodily action in the past might
have been different from what it actually was; for as this action was
the outcome of my mentation at the time (according to the spiritual
index, which is now our guide), and as this mentation was not coerced
from without, it might very well have been different from what it was.
Each of the mental sequences at that time was a result of those
preceding and a cause of those succeeding; but behind all this play of
mental causation there all the while stood that Self, which was at once
the condition of its occurrence, and the _First Cause_ of its action. It
is not true that that Self was nothing more than the result of all this
play of mental causation; it can only have been the First Cause of it.
For, otherwise, the mental causation must have been the cause of that
causation, which is absurd. Who or What it was that originally caused
this First Cause is, of course, another question, which I shall
presently hope to show is not merely unanswerable, but unmeaning. As a
matter of fact, however, we know that this Self is here, and that it can
thus be proved to be a substance, _standing under_ the whole of that
more superficial display of mental causation which it is able to look
upon introspectively--and this almost as _impersonally_ as if it were
regarding the display as narrated by another mind. I say, then, that
the theory of Monism entitles us to regard this Self as the _fons et
origo_ of our mental causation, and thus restores to us the doctrine of
Liberty with its attendant consequence of Moral Responsibility.
It may help to elucidate this matter if we regard it from another point
of view. According to Hobbes, 'Liberty is the absence of all impediments
to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical qualities
of the agent.' Now, if we accept this definition, it is easy to show
that the theory of Monism is really at one with the doctrine of Liberty.
For, in the first place, according to the theory of Monism, the neurosis
of the brain could not be what it is without the psychosis of the mind.
Consequently, as above shown, it would be equally incorrect to say that
the neurosis governs the psychosis, as it would be to say that the
psychosis governs the neurosis. But, if so, the Will is free in
accordance with Hobbes' definition of freedom. Suppose, for example,
that on seeing a bone I think of Professor Flower, then remember that a
long time ago I lent his book on Osteology to a friend, and forthwith
resolve to ask my friend what has become of it; here my ultimate
volition would be unfree if it were the effect of physical processes
going on in my brain. But the volition might be free if each of these
mental processes were the result of the preceding one, seeing that there
may then have been 'an absence of all impediments' to the occurrence of
these processes.
Of course it will be objected--as I have myself urged in the preceding
chapter--that causal action of any kind is incompatible with freedom of
volition--that if there be any such causal action, even though it be
wholly restricted within the sphere of mind, the Will is really
compelled to will as it does will, is determined to determine as it does
determine, and hence that its apparent freedom is illusory. Hobbes'
definition, it may be urged, when applied to the case of the Will, is
equivocal. No doubt a man is free as to his _action_, if there be an
'absence of all impediments' to his action--or, in other words, if he is
able to act as he wills to act. But it does not follow that he is free
as to his _will_, even though there be an absence of all impediments to
his willing as he wills to will. For here the very question is as to
whether there are any impediments to his willing otherwise than he does
will. The fact that he wills to will as he does will proves that there
are no impediments to his willing in that direction; but is there a
similar absence of impediments to his willing to will in any other
direction? If so, we are still within the lines of determinism. Thus
Hobbes' definition of freedom really applies only to freedom of bodily
action; not to freedom of volition, seeing that if my will is caused I
could not have willed to will otherwise than I did will. Now, the answer
which Monism supplies to this objection is that the will itself is here
the ultimate agent, and _therefore an agent which must be identified
with the principle of causality_. In other words, the very reason why we
feel that Hobbes' definition of liberty, while perfectly valid as
regards bodily action, seems to lack something when applied to volition,
is because volition belongs to the sphere of mind--belongs, therefore,
to that sphere which the theory of Monism regards as identical with
causality itself. Although it is true that volitions are caused by
motives, yet it is the mind which conditions the motives, and therefore
its own volitions. It is not true that the mind is always the passive
slave of causes, known to it as motives. The human mind is itself a
causal agent, having the same kind of priority within the microcosm as
the World-eject has in the macrocosm. Therefore its motives are in large
part matters of its own creation. In the intricate workings of its own
internal machinery innumerable patterns of thought are turned out, some
of which it selects as good, while others it rejects as bad; but no one
of which could have come into being at all without this causal agency of
the mind itself.
It will probably be objected that even though all this were granted, we
cannot thus save the doctrine of moral responsibility. For it may appear
that the liberty which is thus accorded to the Will is nothing better
than liberty to will at random, as argued in my previous essay. But here
we must observe that although we are thus shown free to will at random,
it does not follow that we are likewise free to act in accordance with
our volitions. And this is a most important distinction, which
libertarians have hitherto failed to notice. If we are free to will in
any direction, it follows, indeed, that we are free to will at random;
but it follows also, and for this very reason, that we are free to will
the _impossible_. True, when we will what is known to be impossible of
execution, we call the act an act of desire; but it is clearly the same
in kind as an act of will, and differs only in not admitting of being
translated into an act of body. Therefore I say that the restriction
which is imposed upon us by the conditions of causality, whether
external or internal, is not any restriction as to willing, but merely
as to doing. It is not in the subjective, but in the objective world
that we encounter the 'bondage of necessity.'
Now, the knowledge that we are thus restricted as to bodily action
imposes that kind of restraint upon volition which is termed rational.
There is nothing in the nature of things to prevent our willing anything
that we wish; but there is something in the nature of things to prevent
our doing everything that we will; and as the practical object of our
volition is that of determining bodily action, we find it expedient to
will only such things as we believe that we can do. To this extent,
therefore, the Will is bound--namely, by the executive capacity of the
body. But, strictly speaking, this is not a binding of the Will _qua_
Will. Even in such cases, as St. Paul says, to will may be present with
us, but how to perform that which is good we find not. I say then that
although the Will is free to will whatever it wills, nevertheless it
would fail in its essential use or object did it refuse to will in
accordance with the conditions which are imposed upon its executive
capacity. Again, to quote St. Paul, the Will might say, All things for
me are lawful; but all things are not expedient. Now, this consideration
of expediency is one of constant and far-reaching importance. For not
only, as already observed, does it lead to volition on the one hand as
rational; but it also leads to volition on the other hand as moral. Let
us take the two points separately.
Do we say that a man is not free to conduct a scientific research,
because in conducting it he must employ the needful apparatus? Or do we
say that a man is not free to marry, because in order to do so he must
go through a marriage ceremony? Obviously, to say such things would
sound very like talking nonsense. It is true that in neither case is a
man free to gain his object without adopting the means which are seen to
be necessary under the system of external causation in which he finds
himself; but this does not mean that he is not free to do as he wills,
unless it so happens that he wills to do the impossible. Thus, within
the limits that are set by the conditions of causation, a man is
understood to be free to act as he wills so long as he is not 'impeded'
by some of those conditions. To say that he is not free because he
cannot get beyond those conditions would be absurd, since, apart from
these conditions, action of any kind would be _a priori_ impossible,
and the man would have, as his only alternative, no-action.
Hence, in doing we must conform to the law of causation--which, indeed,
is all that can be meant by doing--and if in willing what we do we must
also conform to the law of causation, where is the difference with
respect to freedom? Such restraint as there may be is here a restraint
upon bodily action; not at all upon the mental action which we call
volition. The Will may will in any way that it wills to will; but the
body cannot act in every way that the Will may will it to act; therefore
the Will finds it expedient to will only in such ways as the body can
act--i. e. to conform in _its_ action to the external system of
causation. If this condition of all action is held to be compatible with
freedom in the one case, so in consistency must it be held in the other.
Equally in either case the agent can only be properly said to be unfree,
if he be subject to causal restraint from without. And in neither case
does the universal condition of acting under the law of causation
constitute bondage, in any other sense than that of furnishing the agent
with his conditions to acting in any way at all. Therefore, unless it be
said that a man is not free to do as he wills because he wills to do the
impossible, it cannot be denied that he is free to will as he wills
because he wills according to law. For no action of any kind is possible
contrary to law--a general fact which goes to constitute an argument _a
posteriori_ for the rationality of the World-eject--and if volition
constituted an exception to this general statement, it could only do so
by becoming no-action. Now, it is by thus willing according to law--or
with due reference to those external conditions of causality with which
the executive capacity has to do--that volition is rendered rational.
The restraint laid upon volition is not laid upon it _as_ volition, but
only in respect of execution. A man may will to marry as long and as
hard as he chooses; but only if he further wills to take the necessary
means can his volition become rational; it is irrational if he wills to
marry, and at the same time wills not to go through the marriage
ceremony. But although irrational, it is none the less free. Considered
merely as an act of volition it is equally free, whether it be rational
or irrational.
And, similarly, it is equally free whether it be moral or immoral. The
objection that an uncaused volition cannot be a responsible volition
depends for its validity on the meaning which we attach to the term
'uncaused.' If it be meant that the volition arises without any regard
at all to the surrounding conditions of life, and is carried into effect
without the agent being able to control it by means of any other
voluntary act; then, indeed, whatever else such an agent may be, he
certainly is not moral. But if it be meant that among a number of
uncompleted volitions drawing in different directions--and all
'uncaused' in the sense of belonging immediately to the Ego--one of
them gains an advantage by a conscious reference of the mind to it as
good or evil, then the agent who is capable of giving this advantage to
that member of the system may properly be called moral. The man who
willed to marry, and yet willed not to go through the marriage ceremony,
was, as we have seen, irrational. Similarly, if any agent wills an
action without being able to consider any of the consequences which it
may involve as either moral or immoral, such an agent is what we must
properly call unmoral. Even in such an agent, however, the Will may be
free; only it would act without reference to any moral environment, just
as the lunatic above supposed might endeavour to act without reference
to any social environment.
Let us look at the whole matter in yet another light. We have repeatedly
seen that the question of free-will, and therefore of moral
responsibility, depends upon the question as to whether a man's action
in the past might have been other than it was, notwithstanding that all
the conditions under which he was placed remained the same. Now, to this
question only one answer can be given by a dualistic theory of things,
whether materialistic or spiritualistic. For it belongs to the essence
of a dualistic theory to regard the principle of causation as a
principle external to, and independent of, the human mind; consequently,
all the conditions of mental causation being given, a certain result in
the way of volition is necessarily bound to ensue--or, in other words,
at any given time in a man's mental history, his action cannot have
been other than it was. But now, according to the monistic theory, all
causation has a psychical basis--being but the objective expression to
us of the psychical activity of the World-eject. Consequently, according
to this theory, the course of even strictly physical causation is
inevitable or necessary only in so far as the psychical activity of the
World-eject is held to be uniform, or consistent within itself. And
forasmuch as all our knowledge of physical causation is necessarily
empirical, we have but very inadequate means of judging how far this
empirical index is a true gauge of the reality. We can, indeed, predict
an eclipse centuries in advance; but we can only do so on the
supposition that such and such physical conditions remain constant, and
we have no right to affirm that such must be the case. Our knowledge of
physical causation, being but empirical, is probably but a very
inadequate translation of the psychical activity of the World-eject; and
hence, not only have we no right to predict a future eclipse with
certainty, but we have not so much as the right to affirm that even a
past eclipse must have taken place of necessity. For we have no right to
affirm that at any one period of cosmic history the action of the
World-eject must have been what it was, or could not have been other
than it was. Our knowledge of the obverse aspect of this action (in the
course of physical causation) is, as I have said, purely empirical; and
this is merely another way of saying that although we do know what the
action of the World-eject has been at such and such a period of cosmic
history, we can have no means of knowing what else it might have been.
For anything that we can tell to the contrary, the whole history of the
solar system, for example, might have been quite different from what it
has been; the course which it actually has run may have been but one out
of an innumerable number of possible alternatives, any other of which
might just as well have been adopted by the World-eject.
Now, if this is true of natural causation in the case of the macrocosm,
it would appear to be equally so of natural causation in the case of the
microcosm. Indeed, prediction in the case of human activity is so much
less certain than in the case of cosmic activity, that the attribute of
free-will is generally ascribed to the former, while rarely suggested as
possibly belonging to the latter. And similarly as regards past action.
If we are unable to say that at any period in the past history of the
solar system the World-eject might not have deflected the whole stream
of events into some other channel, how can we be able to say that at any
given period of his past history the Man-eject could not have performed
an analogous act? Obviously, the only reason why we are not accustomed
to entertain this supposition in either case, is because our judgements
are beset with the assumption that the principle of causality is prior
to that of mind--something of the nature of Fate superior even to the
gods. And, no less obviously, if once we see any reason to regard the
principle of causality as merely co-extensive with that of mind, the
whole question as between Necessity and Free-will lapses; there is
nothing to show that a man's action in the past might not have been
other than it was. The only outward restraint placed upon the exercise
of his Will is then seen to be imposed by the conditions of its
executive capacity, and this restraint it is that constitutes man a
rational agent. On the other hand, the structure of conscience--however
we may suppose this to have been formed--imposes that further and inward
restraint upon his Will, which constitutes man a moral agent. But
neither of these restraints can properly be said to constitute bondage
in the sense required by Necessitarianism, because neither of them
requires that the man's Will must will as it does will; they require
merely that his Will should act in certain ways if it is to accomplish
certain results; and to this extent only is it subject to law, or to the
incidence of those external influences which help to shape our motives.
But if this is so, is it not obvious that the sense of moral
responsibility is rationally justified? This sense goes upon the
supposition that a man's conduct in the past might have been different
from what it was. Clearly, therefore, no question of moral
responsibility can ever obtain in cases where the general system of
external causation, or natural law, rendered an alternative line of
action physically impossible. _The question of moral responsibility can
only obtain in cases where two or more lines of conduct were alike
possible, so far as the external system of causation is concerned--or
where the Will was equally free to choose between two or more courses of
bodily action._ In other words, the question of moral responsibility has
nothing to do with the only kind of bondage to which, according to our
present point of view, the Will is subject--namely the bondage of being
rationally obliged to will only what is capable of performance. The
question of moral responsibility has only to do with the system of
causation which is inherent in the mind itself; not with the system that
is external to the mind. And as the theory of Monism identifies the mind
with this its own inherent system of causation--or regards a man's Will
as the originator of a particular portion of general causality--it
follows from the theory that a man is justly liable to moral praise or
blame as the case may be: the moral sense no longer appears as a
gigantic illusion: conscience is justified at the bar of reason.
It appears to me impossible that any valid exception can be taken to the
above reasoning, if once the premiss is granted--namely, that the
principle of Causality admits of being regarded as identical with that
of Volition. For if Cause is but another name for Will--whether the Will
be subjective or ejective--it follows that my will is a first cause,
which is determined by other causes only in so far as the executive
capacity of my body is so determined. As the whole stress of any
objection to the present argument must thus be brought to bear upon the
validity of this its fundamental premiss, a few words may now be said to
show that the premiss is not wholly gratuitous. Of course the reason why
at first sight it is apt to appear, not only gratuitous, but even
grotesque, is because in these days of physical science the minds of
most of us are dominated by the unthinking persuasion that the principle
of causality is the most ultimate principle which our minds can reach.
Most of us accept this persuasion as almost of the nature of an axiom,
and hence the mere suggestion that our own volitions are really uncaused
appears to us of the nature of a self-evident absurdity. A little
thought, however, is enough to show that the only ground of reason which
this strong prepossession can rest upon, is the assumption that the
principle of causality is logically prior to that of mind. Therefore it
is the validity of this assumption that we have here to investigate.
In the first place, then, the assumption is _ipso facto_ irrational. For
it is evident that in order to make the assumption there must already be
a mind to make it. In other words, the very conception of the principle
of causality implies a thinking substance wherein that conception
arises, and therefore, as a mere matter of formal statement, it is
impossible to assign logical priority to this conception over the thing
whereby it is conceived.
In the next place, when we carefully analyze the nature of this
conception itself, we find that it arises immediately out of our
conception of Being as Being. This is shown by the idea of _equivalency_
between cause and effect, which is an essential feature of the
conception of causality as such. In other words, the statement of any
causal relation is merely a statement of the fact that both the matter
and the energy concerned in the event were of a permanent nature and
unalterable amount. Therefore, _if_ the ultimate Reality is mental,
Causation _must_ be ontologically identical with Volition. And that the
ultimate Reality is either mental, or something greater, seems to be
proved by the consideration that if it be supposed anything _less_,
there must be an end of the conception of equivalency as between cause
and effect, and so of the conception of causality itself; for, clearly,
if my mind has been caused by anything less than itself, there is an end
of any possible equivalency between the activity of that thing as a
cause, and the occurrence of my mind as an effect[13].
Lastly, the conception of causality essentially involves the idea of
finality as existing somewhere. Here I cannot do better than quote some
extracts from Canon Mozley's essay on 'The Principle of Causation,' as
he manages very tersely to convey the gist of previous philosophizing
upon this subject.
'He (Clarke) brings out simply at bottom the meaning and
significance of an idea in the human mind, that there is implied in
the very idea itself of cause, firstly, that it causes something
else; and secondly, that it is uncaused itself.... An infinite
series of causes does not make a cause; ... an infinite succession
of causes rests, by the very hypothesis, upon no cause; each
particular one rests on the one which follows it, but the whole
rests upon nothing.... If from one cause we have to go back to
another, that which we go back from is not the cause, but that
which we go back to is. The very idea of cause, as I have said,
implies a stop; and wherever we stop is the cause.... A true cause
is a First Cause.... The atheistic idea thus does not correspond to
the idea of reason. The atheist appears to acknowledge the
necessity of a cause, and appears to provide for it; but when we
come to his scheme it fails exactly in that part of the idea which
clenches it, and which is essential to its integrity; it fails in
providing a stop; ... One might say to him, Why do you give
yourself the trouble to supply causation at all? You do so because
you consider yourself obliged in reason to do it, but if you supply
causation at all, why not furnish such a cause as reason has
impressed upon you, and which is inherent in your mind--a cause
which stands still, an original cause? If you never intended to
supply this, it must have been because you thought a real cause was
not wanted; but if you thought a cause not wanted, why not have
said from the first that causes were not wanted, and said from the
first that events could take place without causes?'
Or, to quote a more recent authority, and one speaking from the side of
physical science, Prof. Huxley writes:--
'The student of nature who starts from the axiom of the
universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit an
eternal existence; if he admits the conservation of energy, he
cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy; if he admits the
existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, he
must admit the possibility, at any rate, of an eternal series of
such phenomena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the
best fruit of the investigation of nature, he will have enough
sense to see that, when Spinoza says, "Per Deum intelligo ens
absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem infinitis
attributis," the God so conceived is one that only a very great
fool would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little
Atheistic as it is Materialistic[14].'
Now, if it thus belongs to the essence of our idea of causation that
finality must be reached somewhere, I do not know where this is so
likely to be reached as at that principle wherein the idea itself takes
its rise--viz. Mind. But, if so, the statement that any particular acts
of mind are uncaused ceases to present any character of self-evident
absurdity.
And the argument need not end here. For Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown
that our idea of causation, not merely requires a mind for its
occurrence, but that in every mind where it does occur it has been
directly formed out of experiences of effort in acts of volition. So
that whether we analyze the idea of cause as we actually discover it in
our own minds, or investigate the history of its genesis, we alike find,
as we might have antecedently expected, that it is dependent on our more
ultimate idea of mind as mind; the conception of causality is not, as a
matter of fact, original or primal, but derivative or secondary.
Therefore, if this conception necessarily involves the postulation of a
first cause, there can be no doubt that such a cause can only be
conceived as of the nature of mind. From which it follows that each
individual mind requires to be regarded--if it is regarded at all--as of
the nature of a first cause.
From this, however, it does not follow that each individual mind
requires to be regarded as wholly independent of all other causes, or as
never subject to any causal influence which may be exercised by other
minds. Although each mind presents the feature of finality or
spontaneity, this does not hinder that it also presents the feature of
relation to other minds, which, therefore, are able to act upon it in
numberless ways. Now, whether these minds are the minds of other men, of
other intelligent beings, or of the whole World-eject, the causal
activity which is exerted upon my mind expresses itself in that mind as
a consciousness of motives. But although these motives may help to
determine my volitions, there is no reason to suppose that they are
themselves the volitions, or that without them my mind would cease to be
itself a causal agent. On the contrary, if this were supposed, the
supposition would amount to destroying the causal agency of my own mind,
which, as we have just seen, must either be original or not at all.
The way, therefore, that the matter stands is this. In so far as the
microcosm is a circumscribed system of being--a thinking substance, a
personality--it is of the nature of a first cause, free to act in any
direction as to its thinking and willing, even though its thinking
should be irrational as to truth, and its willing impossible as to
execution. But in so far as the microcosm enters into relation with the
macrocosm, the system of external causation which it encounters
determines the character of its volitions. For although these volitions
are themselves of the nature of first causes, it is no contradiction to
say that they are--at all events in large measure--determined by other
and external causes. This is no contradiction because, although they are
thus determined, it does not follow that they are thus determined
_necessarily_, and this makes all the difference between the theory of
will as bond or free. In any stream of secondary causation each member
of the series is understood to determine the next member of necessity;
and it is because this notion is imported into psychology that the
theory of determinism regards it as axiomatic that, if our volitions are
in any way caused at all, they can only be caused by way of necessity;
and hence that under the operation of any given set of motives the
action of the will can only take place in the direction of the
resultant. But any such axiom is valid only within the region of second
causes. On the hypothesis that volitions are first causes, the axiom is
irrelevant to them; for although it may be true that they are determined
by causes from without, it may not be true that they are thus determined
of necessity: their intrinsic character as themselves first causes,
although not isolating them from any possible contact with other causes,
nevertheless does protect them from being necessarily coerced by these
causes, and therefore from becoming but the mere effects of them. Such
influence, or determination, as is exerted upon the Will by these
external causes is exerted only because any individual mind is not
itself a macrocosm, but a microcosm in relation to a macrocosm. If it
were itself a macrocosm, standing out of relation to all other being,
its prime causation would, of course, be wholly uninfluenced by any
other causation; its volitions would then be concerned only with the
determination of its own thoughts in a constant stream of purely
subjective contemplation, such as that which the Hindoo philosophy
attributes to God. But as the human mind discovers itself as existing in
close and complex relations with an external world of an orderly
character, the human mind finds that it is, as before said, _expedient_
to adapt the course of its own causal activity so as to bring it into
harmony with the external order. For, although its own causal activity
is primal, it by no means follows that on this account it is almighty;
hence, even although it be primal, it is nevertheless under the
necessity of adopting means in order to secure its ends--or, in other
words, of adjusting its volitions (if they are to be practically
efficient) to the conditions which are imposed upon its activity by the
orderly system of the external world. Which is merely another way of
stating the conclusion previously reached--viz. that the only necessity
which can be proved to govern our volitions is the necessity which is
imposed by our own considerations of reason and morality. Although we
find that it is expedient to adapt our own causal activity to that
larger system of causal activity by which we are surrounded--seeing that
we must do so necessarily if we are to act at all--it by no means
follows that we are bound to will what is expedient. In other words, the
necessity laid upon us by the system of external causation is a
necessity to adopt means for the attainment of ends; not a necessity to
will the ends. And although in many cases this distinction may appear to
be practically unmeaning--seeing that no man wills what he knows to be
impossible of execution, and therefore that to say he is necessarily
prevented from doing a certain thing seems practically equivalent to
saying that he is necessarily prevented from willing that thing--in all
cases where any question of moral responsibility can possibly obtain,
the distinction is one of fundamental importance. For, as already shown,
any question of moral responsibility can only obtain where two or more
lines of action are alike possible, and therefore where no necessity is
laid upon the man in respect of carrying out his volitions, in whichever
direction they may eventually proceed. Although in any event he is
necessarily bound to adopt means in order to secure his ends, the moral
quality of his choice has reference only to the ends which he chooses;
not at all to the fact that he has to employ means for the purpose of
attaining them. And even though his choice be influenced by his physical
and social environment--as it must be if it be either rational on the
one hand or moral on the other--it does not follow that this influence
is of a kind to neutralize or destroy the causal nature of his own
volition. For the influence which is thus exerted cannot be exerted
necessarily, unless we suppose that the Will is not a first cause, which
is the possibility now under consideration. If the Will is a first
cause, the influences brought to bear upon it by its relation to other
causes--and in virtue of which it is constituted, not only a cause
primal, but also a cause rational and moral--these influences differ
_toto coelo_ from those which are exercised by any members in a series
of secondary causes upon the next succeeding causes. And the difference
consists in the absence of necessary or unconditional sequence in the
one case, and its presence in the other. However strong the determining
influence of a motive may be, if the Will is a first cause, the motive
must belong to a different order of causal relation from a motor; for,
no matter how strong the determining influence may be, _ex hypothesi_ it
can never attain to the strength of necessity; the Will must ever remain
free to overcome such influence by an adequate exercise of its own power
of spontaneous action, or of supplying _de novo_ an additional access of
strength to some other motive. Of course, as a general rule, the Will
allows itself to be influenced by motives supplied immediately by its
relations with the external world; but this is so only because the
thinking substance well knows that it is expedient so to fall in with
the general stream of external causation. Hence, as a general rule, it
is only in cases where the stream of external causation is drawing the
will in different directions that the causal activity of the Will itself
is called into play. Or rather, I should say, it is only in such cases
that we become conscious of the fact. In the case of every voluntary
movement the primal activity of Will must be concerned (and this even in
the case of the lower animals); but as the vast majority of such
movements are performed by way of response to frequently recurring
circumstances, the response which experience has shown to be most
expedient is given, as it were, automatically, or without the occurrence
of any adverse motive. But in cases where motives are drawing in
different directions, we become conscious of an effort of Will in
choosing one or other line of conduct, and, according to our present
hypothesis, this consciousness of effort is an expression of the work
which the Will is doing in the way of spontaneous causation.
Thus, upon the whole, if we identify the principle of causation with the
principle of mind--as we are bound to do by the theory of Monism--we
thereby draw a great and fundamental distinction between causation as
this occurs in the external world, and as it occurs within the limits of
our own subjectivity. And the distinction consists in the unconditional
nature of a causal sequence in the external world, as against the
conditional nature of it in the other case; the condition to the
effective operation of a motive--as distinguished from a motor--is the
acquiescence of the first cause upon which that motive is operating.
To the foregoing argument it may be objected that by expressly regarding
the human mind as a first cause of its own volitions, I imply that that
mind can itself have had no cause, which appears to be self-evidently
absurd. But here again the absurdity only arises from our inveterate
habit of regarding the principle of causation as logically prior to that
of mind. If we expressly refuse to do this, there is nothing absurd in
supposing the principle of mind wherever it occurs, as itself uncaused.
For if, as we are now supposing, this principle is identical with that
of causation, to say that any mind is caused would be to say that a
cause is the cause of itself, which would be really absurd. Under the
present point of view, therefore, it would be a meaningless question to
ask for the cause of a human mind, since, _ex hypothesi_, a human mind
is a part of the self-existing substance, although not on this account
self-existing as to its individual personality. As argued in a previous
chapter, the personality appears to arise on account of circumscription,
or the isolation of a constituent part of the World-eject. Therefore,
although it may be reasonable to ask for a cause of this
circumscription--or of the personality--it is not reasonable to ask for
a cause of the substance which is thus circumscribed, or of the quality
of spontaneity which that substance exhibits.
I will now state the whole case in another way. When we regard the facts
of volition from the stand-point of psychology, the only theory of them
which is open to us is, as we have before seen, that of determinism.
Moreover, within these limits that theory is perfectly true. Psychology,
as such, cannot recognize any principle more ultimate than natural
causation, seeing that, like any other of her sisters in the family of
sciences, her whole work and duty are confined to the investigation of
this principle. But, just as in the case of all the other sciences, when
her investigations have been pushed to the point where they encounter
the problem of explaining this principle itself, her investigations
must necessarily cease; this principle is for all the sciences the
ultimate datum, behind which they cannot go without ceasing to be
sciences. But it does not follow that because the area of science is
limited by that of causation, therefore we are precluded from asking any
questions as to the nature of this ultimate datum. Of course any
questions which we may thus ask cannot possibly be answered by science;
they are questions of philosophy, in the consideration of which science,
from her very nature and essential limitation of her office, can have no
voice. Now, if on taking up the principle of causation where this is
left by science--viz. as the ultimate or unanalyzable _datum_ of
experience, upon which all her investigations are founded, and by which
they are all limited--philosophy finds any reason to surmise that it is
resolvable into the principle of mind, philosophy is thus able to
suggest that any distinction between mental processes as determinate or
free, is really a meaningless distinction. For, according to this
suggestion, the issue is no longer as to whether these processes are
caused or uncaused; the very idea of cause has been abolished as one
which belongs only to that lower level of inquiry with which science, or
sensuous experience, is concerned. Here, no doubt, the question is a
thoroughly real one, and, as shown in previous chapters, can only be
answered in the way of determinism. But so soon as we ascend to the
philosophical theory of Monism, and so transcend the conditions of
sensuous experience, the question whether volitions are caused or
uncaused becomes, as I have said, a meaningless question, or a question
the terms of which are not correctly stated. If it be the case that all
causality is of a nature psychical, volition and causation are one and
the same thing, differing only in relation to our modes of apprehension.
It would therefore be equally meaningless to say that either is the
cause of the other--just as it would be equally meaningless to say that
neurosis is the cause of psychosis, or that psychosis is the cause of
neurosis. Or thus, if volition and causation are one and the same thing,
the only reason why they ever appear diverse is because the one is known
ontologically, while the other is known phenomenally. Were it possible
that the orbit of my own personality could be widened so as to include
within my own subjectivity the whole universe of causality, I should
find--according to Monism--that all causation would become transformed
into volition. Hence, the only reason why there now appears to be so
great an antithesis between these two principles, is because the
volition which is going on outside of my own consciousness can only be
known to me objectively,--or at most ejectively,--on which account the
principle of causality appears to me phenomenally as the most ultimate,
or most unanalyzable, principle in the phenomenal universe.
Upon the whole, then, I conclude that this is the teaching of Monism. If
we view the facts of human volition relatively, or within the four
corners of psychological science, there is no escape from the conclusion
that they are determined with all the rigour which belongs to natural
causation in general. For every sequence of mental changes and every
sequence of cerebral changes, although phenomenally so diverse, are
taken by this theory to be ontologically identical; and therefore the
sequence of mental changes must be determined with the same degree of
'necessity' as is that of the cerebral changes. In short, mental
causation is taken to be but the obverse aspect of physical causation,
and, as previously remarked, it is impossible that the doctrine of
determinism could be taught in a manner more emphatic. But, on the other
hand, the theory of Monism is bound to go further than this. From the
very fact of its having gone so far as to identify all physical
processes with psychical processes, it cannot refuse to take the further
and final step of identifying the most ultimate known principle of the
one with the most ultimate known principle of the other; it is bound to
recognize in natural causation the phenomenal aspect of that which is
known ontologically as volition. But if these two principles are thus
regarded as identical, it clearly becomes as unmeaning to ask whether
the one is the cause of the other, as it would be to ask whether the one
wills the other. For, _ex hypothesi_, the two things being one thing,
or but different modes of viewing the same thing, it becomes mere
nonsense to speak of either determining the other; they are both but
different expressions of the same ultimate fact, namely the fact of
Being as Being.
If this result should be deemed unsatisfactory on account of its
vagueness, let it be remembered that nothing is gained on the side of
clearness by the converse supposition--viz. that priority should be
assigned to the principle of causality. For, if we say it is
inconceivable that anything should come into existence without a
cause--not even excepting the principle of mind itself--then the
question immediately arises--If all volition is caused, what is the
cause of volition? What caused this cause? And so on till we arrive at
the question, What caused the principle of causality? which is absurd.
So that whether we regard mind as prior to cause, or cause as prior to
mind, or neither as prior to the other, we arrive at precisely the same
difficulty. And the difficulty is a hopeless one, because it concerns
the ultimate question of Being as Being, or the final mystery of things.
Or, to state the matter in another way. An explanation means the
reference of observed effects to known causes, or the inclusion of
previously unknown causes among causes better known. Hence it is
obvious, from the very meaning of what we call an explanation, that at
the base of all possible explanations there must lie a great
Inexplicable, which, just because more ultimate than any of our
possible explanations, does not itself require to be explained. To
suppose that it does require to be explained, would be to suppose, that
there is something still more ultimate into which, if known, this
Inexplicable could be merged. Hence, unless we postulate an infinite
series of possible explanations, there must be a basal mystery
somewhere, which, in virtue of its constituting the ground of all
possible explanations, cannot be, and does not require to be, itself
explained. What is this basal mystery? Materialism supposes it to be
lodged in Matter to the exclusion of Mind, while Idealism in its extreme
forms takes the converse view. Theism supposes that it is an intelligent
Person, who is held--and logically enough--not to be able to give any
explanation of his own existence; he is, as it is said, self-existent,
and, if asked to give any account of his being, would only be able to
restate the fact of his being in the words, 'I am that I am.' Lastly,
Pantheism, or Monism, supposes the ultimate mystery to be lodged in the
universe as a whole. Now, in the present connexion the question before
us is simply this--Are we to regard the principle of causality or the
principle of mind as the ultimate mystery? And to this question I answer
that to me it appears most reasonable to assign priority to mind. For,
on the one hand, our only knowledge of causation is empirical, while
even as such it is only possible in the same way as our knowledge of
objective existence in general is possible--namely, by way of inference
from our own mental modifications, which therefore must necessarily have
priority so far as we are ourselves concerned. Next, on the other hand,
even if we were to grant that the principle of causality is the prius,
or the ultimate and inexplicable mystery, I cannot see that it is really
available to explain the fact of personality. To me it appears that,
within the range of human observation, this is the fact that most wears
the appearance of finality, or of that unanalyzable and inexplicable
nature which we are bound to believe must belong to the ultimate mystery
of Being. But, be this as it may, the speculative difficulty of
assigning priority to mind is certainly no greater than that of
assigning it to causality; and this, as above remarked, is a sufficient
answer to the question before us. According to Monism, however, there is
no need to assign priority to either principle, seeing that one is but a
phenomenal expression of the other.
Only one further question remains to be considered. From what I have
just said on the subject of Personality, it will be apparent that the
theory of Monism is in conflict with that of Theism only in so far as
personality appears to imply limitation. This is a point which I have
previously considered in these pages (Chapter iv, p. 109), with the
result of appearing to show that the conflict is one which would
probably vanish could we rise above the necessary limitations of human
thought. Therefore, it here seems worth while to ask, What can be said
by the philosophical theory of Monism to the old theological dilemma
touching free-will and predestination? Or, even apart from any question
of Theism, what position does Monism suppose the psychical activity of
man to hold in relation to that of the universe? Of course the latter
statement of the question is included in the former; and, therefore, we
may present it thus;--If the human will is free, and the theory of
Theism substantially true, how are we to reconcile the fact with the
theory?
According to the theory of Theism as sanctioned by Monism, what we
apprehend as natural causation is the obverse of a part of a _summum
genus_--i.e. the part falling within human observation whose whole is
the Absolute Volition. This Volition, being absolute, can nowhere meet
with restraint; it is therefore absolutely free, and can never
contradict itself. Thus, those circumscribed portions of it which we
know as human minds--and which, on account of being so circumscribed,
are free within themselves--do not in their freedom conflict with the
Absolute Volition. The Absolute Volition and the Relative Volition are
always in unison. It is not that the Absolute Volition unconditionally
determines the Relative Volition--else the Relative Volition would not
be free; but it is that the Absolute Volition invariably assents to the
Relative Volition as to the activity of an integral part of itself. This
will be at once evident if we consider that our only idea of
determination--i.e. causation--is, upon the theistic theory, derived
from our observing the consistency of the Divine Will, whether as
revealed subjectively in the causal operations of our own minds, or
objectively in the causal operations of Nature. Therefore, the idea of
causation as between the Absolute Volition and the Relative Volition is
an idea destitute of meaning. One Relative Volition may act causally on
another. Relative Volition, because each is wholly external to each. But
all Relative Volitions are constituent parts of the Absolute Volition,
which, therefore, cannot act causally _on_ them, though it always acts
substantially _with_ them. Or, otherwise phrased, if the subject is a
constituent part of its own World-eject--the volition of which is always
self-consistent--it follows that the volition of the subject must always
be coincident with that of its World-eject; and this without being
determined in any other sense than the smaller size of a part can be
said to be determined by the larger size of its whole: i.e. the
determination--if we choose so to call it--is not a causal one, but
arises immediately from the inherent nature of the case. The Absolute
Volition within itself is free; the Relative Volition within itself is
free; but there can be no conflict between these two freedoms. For, if
there were a conflict, it must be caused; but where is the cause of this
conflict to come from? Not from the Absolute Volition, which is
everywhere self-consistent; not from the Relative Volition, which is
wholly contained within the Absolute. Thus, regarded from within its own
system, the Relative Volition is free; while, regarded from the system
of its World-eject, the Relative Volition is predestined. But the
freedom is not incompatible with the predestination, nor the
predestination with the freedom. They stand to each other in the
relation of complementary truths, the apparent contradiction of which
arises only from the apparently fundamental antithesis between mind and
cause which it is the privilege of Monism to abolish.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: 'Whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily
contain it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can
ever after exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it
hath not actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree' (Locke). To
this argument Mill answers, 'How vastly nobler and more precious, for
instance, are the vegetables and animals than the soil and manure out of
which, and by the properties of which, they are raised up! But this
stricture is not worthy of Mill. The soil and manure do not constitute
the whole cause of the plants and animals. We must trace these and many
other con-causes (conditions) back and back till we come to 'whatsoever
is first of all things': it is merely childish to choose some few of the
conditions, and arbitrarily to regard them as alone the efficient
causes.]
[Footnote 14: _Collected Essays_, vol. ix. 'Evolution and Ethics,' p.
140.]
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Oxford HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
End of Project Gutenberg's Mind and Motion and Monism, by George John Romanes