Mind and the Brain — Book 3 - The Union of the Soul and the Body - Chapter 1 - The Mind Has an Incomplete Life

CHAPTER I THE MIND HAS AN INCOMPLETE LIFE

The problem of the union of the mind and the body is not one of those which present themselves in pure speculation; it has its roots in experimental facts, and is forced upon us by the necessity of explaining observations such as those we are about to quote.

The force of our consciousness, the correctness of our judgments, our tempers and our characters, the state of health of our minds, and also their troubles, their weaknesses, and even their existence, are all in a state of strict dependence on the condition of our bodies, more precisely with that of our nervous systems, or, more precisely still, with the state of those three pounds of proteid substance which each of us has at the back of his forehead, and which are called our brains.

This is daily demonstrated by thousands upon thousands of observations.

The question is to know how this union of the body with the consciousness is to be explained, it being assumed that the two terms of this union present a great difference in their nature.

The easier it seems to demonstrate that this union exists, the more difficult it appears to explain how it is realised; and the proof of this difficulty is the number of divergent interpretations given to it.

Were it a simple question of fact, the perpetual discussions and controversies upon it would not arise.

Many problems here present themselves.

The first is that of the genesis or origin of the consciousness.

It has to be explained how a psychical phenomenon can appear in the midst of material ones.

In general, one begins by supposing that the material phenomena are produced first; they consist, for instance, in the working of the nervous centres.

All this is physical or chemical, and therefore material.

Then at a given moment, after this mechanical process, a quite different phenomenon emerges.

This is thought, consciousness, emotion.

Then comes the question whether this production of thought in the midst of physical phenomena is capable of explanation, and how thought is connected with its physical antecedents.

What is the nature of the link between them?

Is it a relation of cause to effect, of genesis?

or a coincidence?

or the interaction of two distinct forces?

Is this relation constant or necessary?

Can the mind enjoy an existence independent of the brain?

Can it survive the death of the brain?

The second question is that of knowing what is the rôle, the utility, and the efficacity of the psychical phenomenon.

Once formed, this phenomenon evolves in a certain direction and assumes to us who have consciousness of it a very great importance.

What is its action on the material phenomena of the brain which surround it?

Does it develop according to laws of its own, which have no relation to the laws of brain action?

Does it exercise any action on these intra-cerebral functions?

Does it exercise any action on the centrifugal currents which go to the motor nerves?

Is it capable of exciting a movement?

or is it deprived of all power of creating effect?

We will briefly examine the principal solutions which the imagination of mankind has found for these very difficult problems.

Some of the best known of these solutions bear the names of spiritualism, materialism, parallelism, and monism.

We will speak of these and of some others also.

Before beginning our critical statement, let us recall some of the results of our previous analyses which here intrude themselves, to use the ambitious language of Kant, as the prolegomena to every future solution which claims the title of science.

In fact, we are now no longer at the outset of our investigation.

We have had to acknowledge the exactness of certain facts, and we are bound to admit their consequences.

Notably, the definition of psychical phenomena at which we arrived, not without some trouble, will henceforth play a rather large part in our discussion.

It will force us to question a great metaphysical principle which, up till now, has been almost universally considered as governing the problem of the union of the mind with the body.

This principle bears the name of the _axiom of heterogeneity_, or the principle of _psycho-physical dualism_.

No philosopher has more clearly formulated it, and more logically deduced its consequences, than Flournoy.

This author has written a little pamphlet called _Métaphysique et Psychologie_, wherein he briefly sets forth all the known systems of metaphysics by reducing them to the so-called principle of heterogeneity; after this, the same principle enables him to "execute" them.

He formulates it in the following terms: "body and mind, consciousness and the molecular cerebral movement of the brain, the psychical fact and the physical fact, although simultaneous, are heterogeneous, unconnected, irreducible, and obstinately two."

[41] The same author adds: "this is evident of itself, and axiomatic.

Every physical, chemical, or physiological event, in the last resort, simply consists, according to science, in a more or less rapid displacement of a certain number of material elements, in a change of their mutual distances or of their modes of grouping.

Now, what can there be in common, I ask you, what analogy can you see, between this drawing together or moving apart of material masses in space, and the fact of having a feeling of joy, the recollection of an absent friend, the perception of a gas jet, a desire, or of an act of volition of any kind?"

And further on: "All that we can say to connect two events so absolutely dissimilar is, that they take place _at the same time_....

This does not mean that we wish to reduce them to unity, or to join them together by the link of causality ...

it is impossible to conceive any real connection, any internal relation between these two unconnected things."

Let us not hesitate to denounce as false this proposition which is presented to us as an axiom.

On looking closely into it, we shall perceive that the principle of heterogeneity does not contain the consequences it is sought to ascribe to it.

It seems to me it should be split up into two propositions of very unequal value: 1, the mind and body are heterogeneous; 2, by virtue of this heterogeneity it is not possible to understand any direct relation between the two.

Now, if the first proposition is absolutely correct, in the sense that consciousness and matter are heterogeneous, the second proposition seems to us directly contrary to the facts, which show us that the phenomena of consciousness are incomplete phenomena.

The consciousness is not sufficient for itself; as we have said, it cannot exist by itself.

This again, if you like, is an axiom, or rather it is a fact shown by observation and confirmed by reflection.

Mind and matter brought down to the essential, to the consciousness and its object, form a natural whole, and the difficulty does not consist in uniting but in separating them.

Consider the following fact: "I experience a sensation, and I have consciousness of it."

This is the coupling of two things--a sensation and a cognition.

The two elements, if we insist upon it, are heterogeneous, and they differ qualitatively; but notwithstanding the existing prejudice by reason of which no direct relation, no commerce, can be admitted between heterogeneous facts, the alliance of the consciousness and the sensation is the natural and primitive fact.

They can only be separated by analysis, and a scrupulous mind might even ask whether one has the right to separate them.

I have a sensation, and I have consciousness of it.

If not two facts, they are one and the same.

Now, sensation is matter and my consciousness is mind.

If I am judging an assortment of stuffs, this assortment, or the sensation I have of them, is a particle of matter, a material state, and my judgment on this sensation is the psychical phenomenon.

We can neither believe, nor desire, nor do any act of our intelligence without realising this welding together of mind and matter.

They are as inseparable as motion and the object that moves; and this comparison, though far-fetched, is really very convenient.

Motion cannot exist without a mobile object;

and an object, on the other hand, can exist without movement.

In the same way, sensation may exist without the consciousness; but the converse proposition, consciousness without sensation, without an object, an empty consciousness or a "pure thought," cannot be understood.

Let us mark clearly how this union is put forward by us.

We describe it after nature.

It is observation which reveals to us the union and the fusion of the two terms into one.

Or, rather, we do not even perceive their union until the moment when, by a process of analysis, we succeed in convincing ourselves that that which we at first considered single is really double, or, if you like, can be made into two by the reason, without being so in reality.

Thus it happens that we bring this big problem in metaphysics on to the field of observation.

Our solution vaguely resembles that which has sometimes been presented under the ancient name of _physical influx_, or under the more modern name of _inter-actionism_.

There are many authors who maintain that the soul can act directly on the body and modify it, and this is what is called inter-actionism.

Thereby is understood, if I mistake not, an action from cause to effect, produced between two terms which enjoy a certain independence with regard to each other.

This interpretation is indubitably close to ours, though not to be confused with it.

My personal interpretation sets aside the idea of all independence of the mind, since it attributes to the mind an incomplete and, as it were, a virtual existence.

If we had to seek paternity for ideas I would much rather turn to Aristotle.

It was not without some surprise that I was able to convince myself that the above theory of the relations between the soul and the body is to be found almost in its entirety in the great philosopher.

It is true that it is mixed up with many accessory ideas which are out of date and which we now reject; but the essential of the theory is there very clearly formulated, and that is the important point.

A few details on this subject will not be out of place.

I give them, not from the original source, which I am not erudite enough to consult direct, but from the learned treatise which Bain has published on the psychology of Aristotle, as an appendix to his work on the Senses and the Intelligence.

The whole metaphysics of Aristotle is dominated by the distinction between form and matter.

This distinction is borrowed from the most familiar fact in the sensible world--the form of solid objects.

We may name a substance without troubling ourselves as to the form it possesses, and we may name the form without regard to the substance that it clothes.

But this distinction is a purely abstract one, for there can be no real separation of form from matter, no form without matter, and no matter without form.

The two terms are correlative;

each one implies the other, and neither can be realised or actualised without the other.

Every individual substance can be considered from a triple point of view: 1st, form; 2nd, matter; and 3rd, the compound or aggregate of form and matter, the inseparable _Ens_, which transports us out of the domain of logic and abstraction into that of reality.

Aristotle recognises between these two logical correlatives a difference in rank.

Form is superior, nobler, the higher in dignity, nearer to the perfect entity; matter is inferior, more modest, more distant from perfection.

On account of its hierarchical inferiority, matter is often presented as the second, or _correlatum_, and form as the first, or _relatum_.

This difference in rank is so strongly marked, that these two correlations are likewise conceived in a different form--that of the potential and the actual.

Matter is the potential, imperfect, roughly outlined element which is not yet actual, and may perhaps never become so.

Form is the actual, the energy, the entelechy which actualises the potential and determines the final compound.

These few definitions will make clear the singularly ingenious idea of Aristotle on the nature of the body, the soul, and of their union.

The body is matter which is only intelligible as the _correlatum_ of form;

it can neither exist by itself nor be known by itself--that is to say, when considered outside this relation.

The soul is form, the actual.

By uniting with the body it constitutes the living subject.

The soul is the _relatum_, and is unintelligible and void of sense without its _correlatum_.

"The soul," says Aristotle, "is not a variety of body, but it could not exist without a body: the soul is not a body, but something which belongs or is relative to a body."

The animated subject is a form plunged and engaged in matter, and all its actions and passions are so likewise.

Each has its formal side which concerns the soul, and its material side which concerns the body.

The emotion which belongs to the animated subject or aggregate of soul and body is a complex fact having two aspects logically distinguishable from each other, each of which is correlative to the other and implies it.

It is thus not only with our passions, but also with our perceptions, our imaginations, reminiscences, reasonings, and efforts of attention to learn.

Intelligence, like emotion, is a phenomenon not simply of the corporeal organism nor of the [Greek: Nous] only, but of the commonalty or association of which they are members, and when the intelligence weakens it is not because the [Greek: Nous] is altered, but because the association is destroyed by the ruin of the corporeal organism.

These few notes, which I have taken in their integrity from Bain's text, allow us thoroughly to comprehend the thought of Aristotle, and it seems to me that the Greek philosopher, by making of the soul and body two correlative terms, has formed a comparison of great exactness.

I also much admire his idea according to which it is through the union of the body and soul that the whole, which till then was only possible, goes forth from the domain of logic and becomes actual.

The soul actualises the body, and becomes, as he said, its entelechy.

These views are too close to those I have myself just set forth for it to be necessary to dwell on their resemblance.

The latter would become still stronger if we separated from the thought of Aristotle a few developments which are not essential, though he allowed them great importance: I refer to the continual comparison he makes with the form and matter of corporeal objects.

Happy though it may be, this comparison is but a metaphor which perhaps facilitates the understanding of Aristotle's idea, but is not essential to his theory.

For my part, I attach far greater importance to the character of _relatum_, and _correlatum_ ascribed to the two terms mind and matter, and to the actualisation[42] produced by their union.

Let me add another point of comparison.

Aristotle's theory recalls in a striking manner that of Kant on the _a priori_ forms of thought.

The form of thought, or the category, is nothing without the matter of cognition, and the latter is nothing without the application of form.

"Thoughts without content given by sensation are empty; intuitions without concept furnished by the understanding are blind."

There is nothing astonishing in finding here the same illustration, since there is throughout a question of describing the same phenomenon,--the relation of mind to matter.

There remains to us to review the principal types of metaphysical systems.

We shall discuss these by taking as our guide the principle we have just evolved, and which may be thus formulated: _The phenomena of consciousness constitute an incomplete mode of existence.

_ FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: See [Note 1] on p. 3. ] [Footnote 41: For reference, see [Note 18] on p. 73. --ED.

] [Footnote 42: _i.

e. _ rendering actual.

--ED.

] CHAPTER II SPIRITUALISM[43] AND IDEALISM

Flournoy has somewhere written that the chief interest of the systems of metaphysics lies less in the intellectual constructions they raise than in the aspirations of the mind and of the heart to which they correspond.

Without taking literally this terribly sceptical opinion, it would be highly useful to begin the study of any metaphysical system by the psychology of its author.

The value of each system would be better understood, and their reasons would be comprehended.

This book is too short to permit us to enter into such biographical details.

I am obliged to take the metaphysical systems _en bloc_, as if they were anonymous works, and to efface all the shades, occasionally so curious, that the thought of each author has introduced into them.

Yet, however brief our statement, it seems indispensable to indicate clearly the physical or moral idea concealed within each system.

SPIRITUALISM

It is known that spiritualism is a doctrine which has for its chief aim the raising of the dignity of man, by recognising in him faculties superior to the properties of matter.

We constantly meet, in spiritualism, with the notion of superior and inferior, understood not only in an intellectual sense but also in the sense of moral worth.

It will also be remarked, as a consequence of the above principle, that a spiritualist does not confine himself to discussing the ideas of his habitual adversary, the materialist; he finds them not only false, but dangerous, and is indignant with them; some persons even ingenuously acknowledge that they hold firmly to certain principles because they fear to be converted to materialism.

I can also discern in this system a very natural horror of death, which inspires in so many people, of whom I am one, both hatred and disgust.

The spiritualist revolts against the prospect of a definitive annihilation of thought, and the system he adopts is largely explained as an effort towards immortality.

This effort has led to the theory of two substances, the soul and the body, which are represented as being as thoroughly separated as possible.

The soul has not its origin in the body, and it derives none of its properties from its fellow; it is a substance created in complete independence relatively to the body; the soul, in its essence, has nothing in common with matter.

The essence of the soul, said Descartes, is thought; the essence of the body is extent.

It follows from this that the soul, in its determinations and actions, is liberated from the laws and necessities of the corporeal nature; it is a free power, a power of indetermination, capable of choice, capable of introducing new, unforeseen, and unforeseeable actions, and on this point opposes itself to corporeal phenomena, which are all subject to a determinism so rigorous that any event could be foreseen if its antecedents were known.

Another consequence of spiritualism is the admission of the immortality of the soul, which, being widely distinct from the body, is not affected by its dissolution; it is, on the contrary, liberated, since death cuts the link which binds them together.

But there is a link, and the explanation of this link brings with it the ruin of the whole system.

One is forced to admit that this principle of the separation of body and soul is liable, in fact, to many exceptions.

Even if they are two isolated powers, the necessities of life oblige them to enter continually into communication with each other.

In the case of perceptions, it is the body which acts on the soul and imparts sensations to it; in movements, it is the soul, on the contrary, which acts on the body, to make it execute its desires and its will.

Spiritualists must acknowledge that they are at some trouble to explain this traffic between the two substances; for, with their respect for the principle of heterogeneity mentioned above, they do not manage to conceive how that contact of the physical and the mental can be made which is constantly necessary in the life of relation.

By what means, have they long asked themselves, can that which is only extent act on that which is only thought?

How can we represent to ourselves this _local_ union of matter with an immaterial principle, which, by its essence, does not exist in space?

The two substances have been so completely separated, to insure the liberty of the soul and its superiority over the body, that it has become impossible to bring them together.

The scission has been too complete.

They cannot be sewn together again.

Such are the principal objections raised against spiritualism.

These objections are derived from points of view which are not ours, and we have therefore no need to estimate their value.

From our point of view, the spiritualist conception has chosen an excellent starting point.

By establishing the consciousness and the object of cognition as two autonomous powers, neither of which is the slave of the other, spiritualism has arrived at an opinion of irreproachable exactness; it is indeed thus that the relations of these two terms must be stated; each has the same importance and the right to the same autonomy.

[44] Yet, spiritualism has not rested there, and, by a lamentable exaggeration, it has thought that the consciousness, which it calls the soul, could exercise its functions in complete independence of the object of cognition, which it calls matter.

There is the error.

It consists in misunderstanding the incomplete and, as it were, virtual existence of the consciousness.

This refutation is enough as regards spiritualism.

Nothing more need be added.

IDEALISM

Idealism is an exceedingly complex system, varying much with varying authors, very polymorphous, and consequently very difficult to discuss.

The ancient hylozoism, the monadism of Leibnitz, and the recent panpsychism of M. Strong are only different forms of the same doctrine.

Like spiritualism, with which it is connected by many ties, idealism is a philosophy which expresses some disdain for matter, but the thoughts which have sought to shelter themselves under this philosophy are so varied that it would be perilous to try to define them briefly.

There can be discussed in idealism a certain number of affirmations which form the basis of the system.

None of these affirmations is, strictly speaking, demonstrated or demonstrable; but they offer very different degrees of probability, and it is for this reason that we shall notice them.

Amongst these affirmations there are some that we have already met with in our study of the definition of sensation; others will be newer to us.

1. Here is one which seems to arise directly from the facts, and appears for a long time to have constituted an impregnable position for idealists.

It may be expressed in three words: _esse est percipi_.

Starting with the observation that every time we bear witness to the existence of the external world, it is because we perceive it, idealists admit that the existence of this external world shares exactly the lot of our perception, and that like it it is discontinuous and intermittent.

When we close our eyes, it ceases to exist, like a torch which is extinguished, and lights up again when we open them.

We have already discussed this proposition, and have shown that it contains nothing imperative; and we may very well decline to subscribe to it.

2. There follows a second proposition, barely distinct from the previous one.

There should be nothing else in objects but that which we perceive, and that of which we have consciousness should be, in the fullest possible acceptation of the words, the measure of what is.

Consequently there should be no need to seek, under the object perceived, another and larger reality, a source from which might flow wider knowledge than that we at present possess.

This is as disputable as the preceding affirmation, and for the same reasons.

3. The third proposition is the heart of the idealist thesis.

It is sometimes presented as a deduction from the foregoing, but it is nevertheless thoroughly distinct from it, and the preceding affirmations might legitimately be accepted and this new one rejected.

This proposition may be expressed thus: _Everything that is perceived is psychical.

_ It is not only idealists who subscribe to this opinion, however, and we have seen, when dealing with the definition of matter, that it is widely spread.

We understand by it that the objects we perceive exist in the consciousness, are of the consciousness, and are constituted by ideas; the whole world is nothing but idea and representation; and, since our mind is taken to be of a psychical nature, the result is that everything, absolutely everything, the person who knows and the thing known, are all psychical.

This is panpsychism.

Flournoy, on this point, says, with a charm coloured by irony: "We henceforth experience a sweet family feeling, we find ourselves, so to speak, _at home_ in the midst of this universe ..."

[45] We have demonstrated above that the unity here attained is purely verbal, since we cannot succeed in suppressing the essential differences of things.

4. Now comes an affirmation on the genesis of things.

After having admitted that the object is an idea of the mind, one of its manifestations, or one of its moods, the idealists go so far as to say that the consciousness is the generating power of ideas, and, consequently, the generating cause of the universe.

It is thought which creates the world.

That is the final conclusion.

I indicated, beforehand, in the chapters on the definition of sensation and on the distinction between the consciousness and the object, the reasons which lead me to reject the premises of idealism.

It will be sufficient to offer here a criticism on its last conclusion: "It is the mind that creates the world."

This thesis strikes at the duality--consciousness and object; it gives the supremacy to the consciousness by making of the object an effect or property of the former.

We can object that this genesis cannot be clearly represented, and that for the very simple reason that it is impossible to clearly accept "mind" as a separate entity and distinct from matter.

It is easy to affirm this separation, thanks to the psittacism of the words, which are here used like counterfeit coin, but we cannot represent it to ourselves, for it corresponds to nothing.

The consciousness constitutes all that is mental in the world; nothing else can be described as mental.

Now this consciousness only exists as an act; it is, in other terms, an incomplete form of existence, which does not exist apart from its object, of which the true name is matter.

It is therefore very difficult to understand this affirmation, "It is the mind that creates the world," since to be able to do so, we should have to imagine a consciousness without an object.

Moreover, should we even succeed in doing so, we should be none the more disposed, on that account, to give assent to this proposition.

Consciousness and matter represent to us the most different and antithetical terms of the whole of the knowable.

Were the hypothesis to be advanced that one of these elements is capable of engendering the other, we should immediately have to ask ourselves why this generating power and this pre-eminence should be attributed to one rather than to the other element.

Who can claim that one solution is more clear, more reasonable, or more probable than the other?

One of the great advantages of the history of philosophy here asserts itself.

This history shows us that different minds when reflecting on the same problems have come to conceive solutions which have appeared to them clear, and consequently were possible; now, as these solutions are often contradictory, nothing shows better than their collation the distance between possibility and fact.

Thus the materialists, who, like the idealists, have put forward a genetic theory of the mind, have conceived mind as produced by matter;--a conception diametrically opposed to that of the idealists.

It may be said that these two conceptions, opposed in sense, annul each other, and that each of these two philosophical systems has rendered us service by demonstrating the error of the opposing system.