Part 25 (2/2)
The opponents of a theory of freedom make much of the determination of the will by motives. In their argument, the will is treated as if it were some separate material thing, the motive another equally separate thing which, when brought into contact with the will, sets it in motion in somewhat the same manner as the powder in the gun drives the ball.
But the motive is not something external to consciousness, something foreign, that, introduced, impels the will to action; nor can the will be compared to an organ of the body, the motion of which is given us through our senses as the motion of a part, not of the whole body. The functions of the body are, in this sense, a part of the material world to us. But the will is no material thing, no separate organ of consciousness in this sense. In the will, consciousness expresses itself; and we cannot say that it is only a part of consciousness that thus expresses itself. The motive, as conscious, belongs to that consciousness which finds expression in the will.
A similar form of theory to that just noticed regards the will as determined especially by feeling. But feeling belongs as evidently to consciousness as does will, nor can we say that one part of consciousness feels and another wills, the one part being the active mover, the other the pa.s.sive moved; the division into parts is a material one applicable to things occupying s.p.a.ce, but not to consciousness. The notion here of mover and moved is very similar to that noticed above, of motion as cause, movement as effect.
It is sometimes said that the desirability of an object moves or determines the will. Here arises the question as to whether the desirability of an object lies in the object or is only dependent upon consciousness as a quality of feeling. Thus we come, by closer a.n.a.lysis, to the fundamental problem of the connection of consciousness with the external world. It is often said that desirability is a mere predication of consciousness and does not lie in the object or end itself. That desirability is a predication of consciousness is true in a sense. And yet it is evident that this predication corresponds to actualities existing in the thing or end, on account of which it is p.r.o.nounced desirable or, under proper conditions, desired. When we a.n.a.lyze the state of consciousness itself, we find it impossible to separate the desirability as predicated by consciousness and the desirability as predicated of the end, the excited feeling and the feeling as excited by the object. From one point of view, excitation and consciousness are the two sides of the conditions, both of which are essential to the result; but, from another point of view, it is equally true that the desire of the end is always a part of consciousness, which expresses itself in the will according to its own inherent nature.
The act of the will, as following excitation, is sometimes treated as its mere result, hence subject to it, subordinate and pa.s.sive; on this principle, we could also define brain-action as subject to nerve-action and pa.s.sive in comparison, wherever it follows. The mere conception of the conservation of force would make it impossible to suppose a result of force to be less than preceding force of which it is the result. We do not call the evolution of organic life on the earth subject or subordinate to the motion of the nebular mists, or pa.s.sive with respect to them. The mere sequence of one event upon another in time does not justify our p.r.o.nouncing the one subordinate to the other or pa.s.sive with respect to it, the whole sum of matter and force remaining always the same, and a resultant in any particular instance exactly representing its factors.
From our examination of the above arguments, we perceive that the materialist uses both the concomitance of consciousness with material processes, and, again, the sequence of particular conscious states upon material processes, as proof of the subordination and pa.s.sivity or dependence of consciousness, as proof that the latter is effect of the material as cause; indeed, we are not at all sure that he does not often confuse the two arguments from sequence and from concomitance. On the other hand, the argument of sequence is often used to prove the greater importance and activity of consciousness in contrast to matter, consciousness being regarded as antecedent to excitation in general or to some particular excitation. But consciousness is not the ”prius” of its excitation in time, since its very definition includes activity and this is not possible without excitation; consciousness is always the consciousness of something. To regard consciousness as the ”logical prius” of matter or of excitation by matter may be possible, but the standpoint is either a purely fanciful or a purely dogmatic one. With regard to its priority in respect to a particular excitation, the remarks made above hold good, that mere sequence does not prove subordination or pa.s.sivity as distinguished from activity. The fact of concomitance is also sometimes treated as a part of theories of the causal nature of consciousness, the brain being regarded as the mere organ of mind, the pa.s.sive instrument upon which it acts. In this case, however, as in the opposite argument that consciousness is dependent upon brain-action, there is probably some indistinct idea of sequence at work. The argument applies equally well, indeed, in either direction, the materialistic or its opposite, and merely this fact would lead us to suspect that it can be conclusive in neither.
Thus, in hunting for some cause and effect in the activity of the will, we bring to light, in the end, only a certain concomitance and sequence.
That which we call ”explanation” of natural process is, in fact, in all cases, merely a finer a.n.a.lysis of concomitance or sequence, or the a.n.a.lysis of some new phase of it. We have only the finer elements of the process a.n.a.lyzed before us in any case, although we are often inclined to treat these elements as if they were the essence and cause of the process to which they belong. We explain, for instance, the green color of the leaf by the continually renewed presence of a certain chemical combination; yet the green color is not less real and essential than the chemical composition which constantly accompanies it. The musical note is not the less real to our ear because we can make the vibrations of the string and the air perceptible to our eye, or because we can observe to some extent, and infer further, vibrations of parts of the ear that are the physiological accompaniment of the note heard. The light of the fire is not the less real because of the heat that I feel from it, nor is either less actual because I can a.n.a.lyze the process of combustion in the case. The shape of the leaf to my touch does not make its greenness of color the less real to my eye, nor does change of form prevent change of color or prove it less essential in any case. The smell of the rose does not render its color less real and essential, and, _vice versa_, the color does not render the smell less an essential part of reality.
Neither does the activity of the brain render the activity of consciousness less real, or interfere with its freedom, any more than the activity of the consciousness renders that of the brain less actual or interferes with its free action and reaction. My knowledge of a thing given me through one sense is totally different from the knowledge of it given me through other senses; yet I do not find this various knowledge contradictory or irreconcilable. Why, then, do I find such great difficulty in reconciling the simple facts of consciousness and brain-activity? And why should there be such an inclination to give greater prominence to physiological process than to mental process, to regard the only method of reconciling the two that of proclaiming the dependence of consciousness?
The solution of the question is not so difficult to find. In the first place, our knowledge of the concomitance of brain-process and consciousness, or at least of the constant uniformity of this concomitance, is only comparatively recent. Further, this knowledge is not given us immediately, but is the conclusion of a process of reasoning. While such concomitance as we immediately perceive--the concomitance of certain impressions on one sense with certain other impressions upon other senses--appears to us so natural as to need no comment, the newness and mediate nature of our knowledge of this other concomitance incline us to regard it as strange and needing some especial ”explanation.” While the concomitant impressions upon the senses, wherever they are constant, become united in our conception to a single whole, we fail to unite the elements of this mediately known concomitance to such a whole; doubtless, however, if a perception of all the details of our own brain-activity were the invariable accompaniment of thought, we should thus unite them. We can no more ”explain” why the two activities are concomitant, except as we show it to be a fact and a.n.a.lyze it into its elements, than we can show why just Prussian blue should be the characteristic of one chemical compound and the green of plant-life of another, why the connection of the colors should not be the reverse. The importance we accord the physiological accompaniments of mental process is partly accounted for by the significance which attaches to more recent knowledge as const.i.tuting scientific progress; in the effort to bring together in our conception the two elements of consciousness and brain-action, to whose a.s.sociation we are not accustomed by immediate perception, we are led to lay especial weight upon the facts of recent discovery, which are connected with so great advance in science and have done away with so many superst.i.tions. And, finally, in the rebound from the old superst.i.tions, the tendency is to exaggerated views in the opposite direction. The attempt to correct spiritualistic ideas of a soul superior to the rest of nature and no part of it has resulted in materialism. And by the physiological basis we now think to ”explain” the facts of psychology. ”Notable enough,”
says Carlyle, ”wilt thou find the potency of Names; Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work and Demonology, we have now named Madness, and Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting that still the new question comes upon us: What is Madness, what are Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye or without it?”
If the connection of physiological and psychological processes requires ”explanation,” beyond that of a.n.a.lysis, why should we not feel ourselves equally required to explain, in like manner, the connection of light with heat and sound, and form with color? Why is it more comprehensible that the ball can be at the same time round to my touch and red or gray to my eye, and that the rose can both smell sweet and be yellow in tint?
Why should we, in this particular instance, make such a strenuous effort to find reasons which can never be given in this case any more than in the others, and which we do not, moreover, demand in the others? Why cannot we accept the simple fact of concomitance in this case also? Our attempts to show the reason of brain-activity by means of mind-activity, or, _vice versa_, to explain mental activity as caused by, and dependent upon, physiological activity, must end equally in failure, in a one-sided dogmatism. It is the concomitance of the two, to the thought of which we are not yet used, that thwarts us. And yet Zeno, the sceptic, found as great difficulties in sequence, and proved, to his satisfaction and that of his followers, the utter impossibility of many things which we accept as simple facts without troubling ourselves to solve his problems.
We have seen that any explanation of facts beyond a.n.a.lysis, except as we a.s.sume some transcendental intuition, is impossible. The search for some further explanation embodies the last remnant of the idea of some special separate agent behind each single event and process, with which early superst.i.tion was animated. Driven by the gradual spread of knowledge to more and more obscure details in concomitance, and to ever greater distance of time in sequence, it has reached the final shadows of the one, and the furthest ends of evolution, whither thought seldom travels, in the other. That we expect other explanation than a.n.a.lysis, or read into a.n.a.lysis more than its real worth, is the result of an indistinctness and confusion in our thought, which has not yet lost the habit of infusing into generalizations and abstractions a vitality of their own apart from reality. We continually hope and strive for some explanation that shall give us more than nature, and yet, strange to say, we endeavor to found our theories in and on nature. We acknowledge the scientific truth of the indestructibility of matter and force, the constancy of their sum, and yet we nevertheless continue to construct our many-storied theories of causes and essences, failing to notice that we are bringing all our concepts from a time when the equivalence of results and conditions, of results and their factors, was not yet comprehended.
FOOTNOTES:
[131] See Part I. p. 107 _et seq._
[132] ”Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus,” p. 363. See also, however, the ”Grundlegung der Ethik,” p. 289.
[133] ”Problems of Life and Mind,” Ser. I. Vol. I. pp. 308, 309.
[134] ”Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls,” pp. 352 _et seq._
CHAPTER IV
THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THOUGHT, FEELING, AND WILL IN EVOLUTION
Hume, in his essay on the Pa.s.sions, writes: ”What is commonly, in a popular sense, called reason, and is so much recommended in moral discourses, is nothing but a general and calm pa.s.sion which takes a comprehensive and a distant view of its object, and actuates the will, without exciting any sensible emotion. A man, we say, is diligent in his profession from reason; that is, from a calm desire of riches and fortune. A man adheres to justice from reason; that is, from a calm regard to public good, or to a character with himself and others. The same objects which recommend themselves to reason in this sense of the word, are also the objects of pa.s.sion, when they are brought near to us, and acquire some other advantages, either of external situation, or congruity to our internal temper; and by that means excite a turbulent and sensible emotion. Evil at a great distance is avoided we say from reason; evil near at hand produces aversion, horror, fear, and is the object of pa.s.sion.” We know no state of consciousness from which elements of thought are excluded; consciousness is not a state of rest, but a continual pa.s.sage from percept to concept, or from concept to percept, or if from percept to percept even then with the intervention of concepts. Judgment, exclusion and inclusion, has part in all consciousness; and thus pleasure and pain must be regarded as always accompanied by thought-elements, though the thought-factors may escape notice because of the prominence of violent emotion, just as, in like manner, feeling may draw less attention when of a less turbulent nature.
This is not equivalent to saying that emotion must always be accompanied by a representation of its object. To this last statement might be objected that emotion may not be, at first, connected with its proper object, just as so-called purely physical pain may not be, in the beginning, combined with any perception of the object producing it, may not even be localized, in fact. But to this objection may be answered that our conception of ”its” object, in the case of emotion, is similar to our conception of ”the” end of any particular act; that which we regard as ”the” object of the emotion may be entirely different from the object in the consciousness of the being subject to the emotion. That is to say, emotion speedily connects itself with _some_ object, or even if felt for some time as vague want is yet combined with thought, in that we make mental search for its object or, where it is too faint to induce this action, tend to turn to memories or imaginations sad or joyful, according as the feeling tinges our mood with exhilaration or sadness; but the objects with which it connects itself in thought may be quite other than those which onlookers regard as its proper object. Into many an emotion of childhood and growing adolescence, for instance, the adult reads a meaning and object of which he is aware the individual subject to the emotion has no thought. Physical feeling may not be connected with any distinct perception of the object producing it (as, for instance, when one bruises oneself in the dark), but it is never unconnected with thought-images. The intermediate links between this outwardly stimulated physical feeling and so-called purely mental emotion are represented by localized organic feelings, pa.s.sing by imperceptible degrees into non-localized feeling experienced as mood.
But feeling on any plane is not, as conscious, uncombined with thought.
It follows that, as connected with the human will, emotion is never uncombined with thought. This fact is implied in the definition of will as the conscious determination on some definite course of conduct which, as definite, is an exclusion of other courses, and thus involves judgment. Where action takes place without conscious predetermination, we call it ”organic,” ”automatic,” ”reflex,” or ”involuntary,” the pain or pleasure connected with the act rising into our individual, centralized consciousness when the action has already taken place or during its progress. In the latter case, part of the act rises into consciousness as result, as already performed, and the will may then interpose to check and prevent the elements not yet performed.
The question as to whether thought is always accompanied by feeling, at least by feeling as pleasure or pain, may appear more difficult than the previous one. That thought is not always connected with violent emotion as pleasure or pain is evident. But, as Hoffding says, ”feeling may be strong and deep without being violent.” If we examine carefully any train even of abstract and apparently, at first glance, wholly unemotional reasoning, we can generally trace a distinct vein of varying feeling accompanying the thought,--perhaps extreme interest in the problem involved and pleasure in its solution, hope as we seem to be on the point of finding the key to it, disappointment when the hope proves a delusive one, shame or impatience at our failure, or pride in our readiness, and exultation when we have finished our work. All these feelings may relate to the mere solution of the problem as end, or may pa.s.s beyond it to ends more or less distant and complicated, to which the solution of the problem then appears as means. Even if we could suppose all other feeling to be excluded, we cannot conceive of a train of thought untinged with mood,--interest or weariness, exhilaration or depression,--the dim complex of perhaps many elements, but admitting of general cla.s.sification on the side of either the pleasurable or the painful, the agreeable or the disagreeable.
Is feeling the result of thought, or thought the result of feeling?
<script>