LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
The limitation of scope which eminent Professors of a certain school
of modern science have laid down for themselves is forcibly expressed
by one of the ablest of their champions thus:--
"No sane man has ever pretended, since science became a
definite body of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope
to know or conceive the possibility of knowing whence
the mechanism has come, why it is there, whither it is
going, or what may be beyond and beside it which our
senses are incapable of appreciating. These things are
not 'explained' by science and never can be."--SIR E. RAY
LANKESTER.
I should myself hesitate to promulgate such a markedly _non-possumus_
and _ignorabimus_ statement concerning the scope of physical science,
even as narrowly and popularly understood; but it illuminates the
position taken up by those _savants_ who are commonly known as
Materialists, and explains their expressed though non-personal
hostility to other scientific men who seek to exceed the boundaries
laid down, and investigate things beyond the immediate range of the
senses.
Eliminating the future tense from the statement, however, I can
agree with it. The instrument of translation from the mental to the
physical, and back from the physical to the mental, is undoubtedly
the brain, but as to how the translation is accomplished, I venture
to say, we have not the inkling of an idea. Nevertheless, hints which
may gradually lead towards a partial understanding of psycho-physical
processes may be gained by study of exceptional cases: for such study
is often more instructive than continued scrutiny of the merely
normal.
The fact of human consciousness, though it raises the problem to a
high degree of conspicuousness, by no means exhausts the difficulty;
for it is one which faces us in connexion with every form of life.
The association of life with matter, and of mind with life, are
problems of similar order, and a glimmering of understanding of
the one may be expected to throw light upon the other. But until
we know more of the method by which the simplest and most familiar
psycho-physical interaction occurs--until we know enough to see
how the gulf between two apparently different Modes of Being is
bridged--it is safest to observe and accumulate facts, and to be very
chary of making more than the most tentative and cautious of working
hypotheses. For to frame even a tentative hypothesis, of any helpful
kind, may require some clue which as yet we do not possess.
I have been struck by the position taken by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell in
his notable small book _Evolution and the War_, the early chapters of
which, on Germany of the past and present, I would like unreservedly
to commend to the reader. Indeed, commendation of a friendly and
non-patronising kind may well extend to the whole book, although it
must be admitted that here and there mere exposition of Darwinism is
suspended, and difficult and debatable questions are touched upon.
On these questions I would not like to be understood as expressing
a hasty opinion, either against or for the views of the author.
The points at issue between us are more or less fine-drawn, and
cannot be dealt with parenthetically; nor do I ever propose to deal
with them in a controversial manner. The author, as a biologist of
fame, is more than entitled to such expression of his own views
as he has cared to give. I quote with admiration, not necessarily
with agreement, a few passages from the part dealing with the
relation between mind and matter, and especially with the wide and
revolutionary difference between man and animal caused by either the
evolution or the incoming of free and conscious Choice.
He will not allow, with Bergson and others, that the roots of
consciousness, in its lower grades, go deep down into the animal,
and even perhaps into the vegetable, kingdom; he has no patience
with those who associate elementary consciousness and freedom and
indeterminateness not merely with human life but with all life, and
who detect rudiments of purpose and intelligence in the protozoa.
Nor, on the other hand, does he approve the dogmatic teaching of the
'ultra-scientific' school, which, being obsessed by the idea of man's
animal origin, interprets human nature solely in terms of protoplasm.
He opposes the possibility of this by saying:--
"However fruitful and interesting it may be to remember that we are
rooted deep in the natal mud, our possession of consciousness and the
sense of freedom is a vital and overmastering distinction."
On the more interesting of the above-mentioned alternatives Dr.
Chalmers Mitchell expresses himself thus:--
"The Bergsonian interpretation does nothing to make
consciousness and freedom more intelligible; and by
extending them from man, in whom we know them to exist,
to animals, in which their presence is at best an
inference, it not only robs them of definiteness and
reality, but it blurs the real distinction between men
and animals, and evades the most difficult problem
of science and philosophy. The facts are more truly
represented by such phraseology as that animals
are instinctive, man is intelligent, animals are
irresponsible, man is responsible, animals are automata,
man is free; or if you like, that God gave animals a
beautiful body, man a rational soul...."
And soon afterwards he continues:--
"Not 'envisaging itself,' not being at once actor, spectator, and
critic, 'living in the flashing moment,' not seeing the past and the
present and the future separately, this is the highest at which we
can put the consciousness of animals, and herein lies the distinction
between man and the animals which makes the overwhelming difference.
"Must we then suppose, with Russel Wallace, that
somewhere on the upward path from the tropical forests
to the groves of Paradise, a soul was interpolated from
an outside source into the gorilla-like ancestry of man?
I do not think so, although I not only admit but assert
that such a view gives a more accurate statement of fact
than does either of the fashionable doctrines that I
have discussed. I believe with Darwin, that as the body
of man has been evolved from the body of animals, so the
intellectual, emotional, and moral faculties of man have
been evolved from the qualities of animals. I help myself
towards the comprehension of the process by reflecting on
two phenomena of observation [which he proceeds to cite].
I help myself, and perchance may help others; no more;
could I speak dogmatically on what is the central mystery
of all science and all philosophy and all thought, my
words would roll with the thunder of Sinai."
Let it not be supposed for a moment that this distinguished biologist
is in agreement with me on many matters dealt with in the present book.
If he were, he would, I believe, achieve a more admirable and eloquent
work than is consistent with the technically 'apologetic' tone which,
in the present state of the scientific atmosphere, it behoves me to
take. To guard against unwelcome misrepresentation of his views, and
yet at the same time to indicate their force, I will make one more
quotation:--
"Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a
lover of the scalpel and microscope, and of patient,
empirical observation, as one who dislikes all forms
of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the
implications even of the phrase that thought is a
secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of the
liver, I assert as a biological fact that the moral
law is as real and as external to man as the starry
vault. It has no secure seat in any single man or in any
single nation. It is the work of the blood and tears
of long generations of men. It is not, in man, inborn
or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his
customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation
and sustenance are the crowning glory of man, and his
consciousness of it puts him in a high place above the
animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall,
but the struggle of individual lives and of individual
nations must be measured not by their immediate needs,
but as they tend to the debasement or perfection of man's
great achievement."
My own view, which in such matters I only put forth with diffidence
and brevity, is more in favour of Continuity. I do not trace so
catastrophic a break between man and animals, nor between animal and
vegetable, perhaps not even between organised and unorganised forms of
matter, as does Dr. Chalmers Mitchell.
I would venture to extend the range of the term 'soul' down to a very
large denominator,--to cases in which the magnitude of the fraction
becomes excessively minute,--and tentatively admit to the possibility
of survival, though not individual survival, every form of life. As to
Individuality and Personality--they can only survive where they already
exist; when they really exist they persist; but bare survival, as an
alternative to improbable extinction, may be widespread.
Matter forms an instrument, a means of manifestation, but it need
not be the only one possible. We have utilised matter to build up
this beautiful bodily mechanism, but, when that is done with, _the
constructive ability remains_; and it can be expected to exercise
its organising powers in other than material environment. If this
hypothesis be true at all (and admittedly I am now making hypothesis)
_it must be true of all forms of life_; for what the process of
evolution has accomplished here may be accomplished elsewhere, under
conditions at present unknown.[37] So I venture to surmise that the
surroundings of non-material existence will be far more homely and
habitual than people in general have been accustomed to think likely.
And how do I know that the visible material body of anything is all
the body, or all the existence, it possesses? Why should not things
exist also, or have etherial counterparts, in an etherial world?
Perhaps everything has already an etherial counterpart, of which our
senses tell us the material aspect only. I do not know. Such an idea
may be quoted as an absurdity; but if the evidence drives me in that
direction, in that direction I will go, without undue resistance.
There have been those who do not wait to be driven, but who lead; and
the inspired guidance of Plotinus in that direction may secure more
attention, and attract more disciples, when the way is illuminated by
discoverable facts.
Meanwhile facts await discovery.
* * * * *
Passages from Plotinus, it may be remembered, are eloquently
translated by F. W. H. Myers, from the obscure and often
ungrammatical Greek, in _Human Personality_, vol. ii. pp. 289-291;
and readers of S.P.R. _Proceedings_, vol. xxii, pp. 108-172, will
remember the development by Mrs. Verall of the [Greek: kai autos
ouranos akumôn] motto prefixed to F. W. H. Myers's post-humously
published poem on Tennyson in _Fragments of Prose and Poetry_.
My reference just above to teachings of Plotinus about the kind of
things to be met with in the other world, or the etherial world, or
whatever it may be called, is due to information from Professor J.
H. Muirhead that, roughly speaking, Plotinus teaches that things
there are on the same plan as things here: each thing here having
its counterpart or corresponding existence there, though glorified
and fuller of reality. Not to misrepresent this doctrine, but to
illustrate it as far as can be by a short passage, Professor Muirhead
has given me the following translation from the _Enneads_:--
"But again let us speak thus: For since we hold that
_this_ universe is framed after the pattern of _That_,
every living thing must needs first be There; and since
Its Being is perfect, all must be There. Heaven then must
There be a living thing nor void of what are here called
stars; indeed such things belong to heaven. Clearly too
the earth which is There is not an empty void, but much
more full of life, wherein are all creatures that are
here called land animals and plants that are rooted in
life. And sea is There, and all water in ebb and flow and
in abiding life, and all creatures that are in the water.
And air is a part of the all that is There, and creatures
of the air in accordance with the nature and laws of air.
For in the Living how should living things fail? How then
can any living thing fail to be There, seeing that as
each of the great parts of nature is, so needs must be
the living things that therein are? As then Heaven is,
and There exists, so are and exist all the creatures that
inhabit it; nor can these fail to be, else would those
(on earth?) not be."
_Enn._ VI. vii.
The reason why this strange utterance or speculation is reproduced
here is because it seems to some extent to correspond with curious
statements recorded in another part of this book; _e.g._ in Chapter
XIV, Part II.
I expect that it would be misleading to suppose that the terms used by
Plotinus really signify any difference of locality. It may be nearer
the truth to suppose that when freed from our restricting and only
matter-revealing senses we become aware of much that was and is 'here'
all the time, interfused with the existence which we knew;--forming
part indeed of the one and only complete existence, of which our
present normal knowledge is limited to a single aspect. We might think
and speak of many interpenetrating universes, and yet recognise that
ultimately they must be all one. It is not likely that the Present
differs from what we now call the Future except in our mode of
perceiving it.
[Footnote 37: I wish to emphasise this paragraph, as
perhaps an important one.]