FOOTNOTES:

Wallace practically abandons his own ground, not only in his later works in ascribing much to natural selection which he was at first inclined to believe the effect of some supernatural cause, and omitting from his chapters on the application of the conception of evolution to man several arguments for supernatural intercession employed in his earlier work, but even in his first book, by admitting that natural selection takes advantage of mental superiority just as it does of physical superiority. We may notice at this point, however, a consistent inconsistency of his, in that, though he denies the existence of consciousness in matter, he leaves no logical room for the opposite theory of a gradual development of consciousness, since he asserts that all instinctive actions were at first self-conscious. This position is held by others also.

We may note here an objection of Wallace's that "becauseman's physical structure has been developed from an animal form by natural selection, it does not necessarily follow that his mental nature, even though developedpari passuwith it, has been developed by the same causes only." The question may be again repeated as to what is meant by cause; and it will be well to keep distinct, in our thought, transcendental cause and cosmic conditions. We must admit that we have no proof of the absence of transcendental causes. Neither the constancy of nature nor the inseparability and indestructibility of matter and motion can prove the absence of such causes, which might be entirely consistent with these things; we have no data from which to argue that they are not so.

But though the law of Excluded Middle must hold good here as elsewhere, it is also to be noticed that the absence of proof in the natural order of things, with respect to the non-existence of transcendental causes, is not equivalent to the presence of proof of the opposite. We cannot infer, from the fact that no proof can be given of the non-existence of transcendental causes, that therefore proof can be given of the existence of such causes; or, from the fact that transcendental causes may be, that therefore transcendental causes are; they may also not be. There is, in fact, absence of proof for either view. Of the transcendental, if it exists, we can know by definition absolutely nothing. The man who endeavors to prove its existence generally bases his argument on this very fact in order to disprove the validity of any argument of his opponent from natural facts; when he, therefore, after legitimately silencing his opponent, goes on himself to prove the transcendental, he is guilty of self-contradiction. When Fiske asserts that there is no problem "in the simplest and most exact departments of science which does not speedily lead us to a transcendental problem that we can neither solve nor elude,"[129]we may admit the point, but surely it does not follow, because we cannot solve it, that therefore we must solve it, far less that we must solve it in one particular way. If we cannot solve it, we cannot solve it, and there is an end to the matter, unless we find new proof. We may not be able, as Fiske says, to elude the problem, but we certainly are able to elude the answering of it, and must do so perforce if the first part of the assertion,—namely, that we cannot answer it,—be correct. When Fiske urgesus to accept one view because "the alternative view contains difficulties at least as great," we fail to perceive any grounds in this position for such acceptance. To Fiske's question as to whether we are to regard the work of the Creator as like that of the child, who builds houses just for the pleasure of knocking them down again, we may answer that the existence of a Creator must first be proved before we, from a scientific basis, may make any inference as to his purpose; and that we certainly cannot use an assumption of his existence in order to protest against a theory of Disteleology,—as Fiske seems to do,—if we use the teleological argument to prove his existence.

We may furthermore protest against the elevation of any negative term, as, for instance, Spencer's "Unknowable," to a term signifying a positive existence. We do not know whether there is any positive Transcendental that is to us unknowable; this mere negative term is admissible only on the assumption that it expresses such an absence of knowledge. The Unknowable assumed as existent entity is the Unknowable known,—a self-contradiction.

A similar criticism may be applied to Spencer's use in his "First Principles" of the word "Force," spelled with a capital, and defined as designating "Absolute Force," an "Absolute, Unconditioned Reality," "Unconditioned Cause,"[130]etc. The attribution of reality to a mere mental abstraction is a survival of old conceptions repudiated by Spencer in their older form. Of forces we know much, but of abstract Force nothing,—except as an abstraction from reality; and the dangers in the use of such a term are made manifest by Spencer's elevation of this concept to the character assigned it by the other terms quoted.

To sum up. We have found in nature only variables, no constant and invariable factor, no independent one according to which the others vary; we have found no cause that was not also an effect; that is, we have discovered nothing but a chain of phenomena bearing constant relations to each other, no causes except in this sense. We have no precedent or data from which to assert that chemical combinations could not have resulted in protoplasm and in living protoplasm, no data from which to assert that mere evolution could not have produced consciousness. As a matter of fact, however, we find the relations of consciousnessand physiological process as constant as those of the different forms of material force, and while discovering no grounds upon which to pronounce either consciousness or physiological process the more essential, find none, either, for pronouncing one more than the other independent of what we call natural law. The logic of all our experience leads us to believe that neither protoplasm, nor the earth, nor any of the parts of the universe, could have originated otherwise than under natural law, that is, as the result of preceding natural conditions which must have contained all the factors united in the result, and would thus explain to us, if we knew them, in as far as any process is explained by analysis, the results arising from them. We know matter and motion only as united; we know no state of absolute rest, and we have no grounds for supposing any initial state of such absolute rest, or any state in which motion not previously existent in the universe entered. On the other hand, we have no proof of the absence of consciousness outside animal life, and no proof of the non-existence of transcendental causes, though likewise no proof of their existence.

FOOTNOTES:[112]"Origin of Species," 6th ed., Vol. I. p. 320.[113]"Lecture on Cell-souls and Soul-cells," 1878.[114]"Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls," p. 349et seq.[115]See Part I. p. 161.[116]"Der menschliche Wille," p. 13.[117]On the Motions of the Tendrils of Plants; among the essays of Knight published under the title, "A Selection from Physiological and Horticultural Papers," 1841.[118]See "Insectivorous Plants," Chaps. I. and II.[119]"The Movements of Plants," Chap. III.[120]See experiments made by Eimer: "Entstehung der Arten," etc., p. 263et seq.[121]E. Pflüger: "Die sensorischen Functionen des Rückenmarks der Wirbelthiere," 1853.[122]See Lange: "Geschichte des Materialismus," II. Theil, p. 486.[123]"The Science of Ethics," p. 60.[124]"Der thierische Wille," p. 161.[125]See, for instance, Eimer: "Entstehung der Arten," p. 283.[126]Carneri's instance, cited in support of his theory of the possibility of sensation without pleasure or pain, that certain nerves connected with fine sense-perception, may yet be cut without special pain to the owner, is a poor one, first, because highly developed nerves, the media of fine perceptions, are especially inapt examples for citation in support of any theory of primitive sensation in lower organisms, and, second, because the problem of pain and pleasure in such cases is very different from the problem of pain and pleasure in connection with ordinary excitation of nerve endings or the outer covering of the organism from which the nervous system has developed. The fact that, in highly developed organisms, some parts are less susceptible of pleasure and pain might as easily be construed into an argument that corresponding parts of lower organisms differ, in the same manner, in susceptibility. Furthermore, sensation being admitted, as Carneri admits it, or rather asserts it, of all forms of animal life, it is difficult to conceive how he can interpret the phenomena of appetition and repulsion as devoid of feeling. Most authors have argued, with much more reason, that pleasure and pain are primordial. Carneri's further argument that he who conceives the lower species as feeling pleasure and pain introduces an immense amount of pain into the world (p. 113, "Grundlegung der Ethik") is quite aside from the question as to the facts of the case. Nor can man create pain by his conception of its existence, or destroy it, if it exists, by a refusal to acknowledge its existence.[127]See Part I. pp. 19, 22.[128]"Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls", p. 350et seq.[129]See Part I. p. 80.[130]Pp. 170, 192d.

[112]"Origin of Species," 6th ed., Vol. I. p. 320.

[113]"Lecture on Cell-souls and Soul-cells," 1878.

[114]"Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls," p. 349et seq.

[115]See Part I. p. 161.

[116]"Der menschliche Wille," p. 13.

[117]On the Motions of the Tendrils of Plants; among the essays of Knight published under the title, "A Selection from Physiological and Horticultural Papers," 1841.

[118]See "Insectivorous Plants," Chaps. I. and II.

[119]"The Movements of Plants," Chap. III.

[120]See experiments made by Eimer: "Entstehung der Arten," etc., p. 263et seq.

[121]E. Pflüger: "Die sensorischen Functionen des Rückenmarks der Wirbelthiere," 1853.

[122]See Lange: "Geschichte des Materialismus," II. Theil, p. 486.

[123]"The Science of Ethics," p. 60.

[124]"Der thierische Wille," p. 161.

[125]See, for instance, Eimer: "Entstehung der Arten," p. 283.

[126]Carneri's instance, cited in support of his theory of the possibility of sensation without pleasure or pain, that certain nerves connected with fine sense-perception, may yet be cut without special pain to the owner, is a poor one, first, because highly developed nerves, the media of fine perceptions, are especially inapt examples for citation in support of any theory of primitive sensation in lower organisms, and, second, because the problem of pain and pleasure in such cases is very different from the problem of pain and pleasure in connection with ordinary excitation of nerve endings or the outer covering of the organism from which the nervous system has developed. The fact that, in highly developed organisms, some parts are less susceptible of pleasure and pain might as easily be construed into an argument that corresponding parts of lower organisms differ, in the same manner, in susceptibility. Furthermore, sensation being admitted, as Carneri admits it, or rather asserts it, of all forms of animal life, it is difficult to conceive how he can interpret the phenomena of appetition and repulsion as devoid of feeling. Most authors have argued, with much more reason, that pleasure and pain are primordial. Carneri's further argument that he who conceives the lower species as feeling pleasure and pain introduces an immense amount of pain into the world (p. 113, "Grundlegung der Ethik") is quite aside from the question as to the facts of the case. Nor can man create pain by his conception of its existence, or destroy it, if it exists, by a refusal to acknowledge its existence.

[127]See Part I. pp. 19, 22.

[128]"Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls", p. 350et seq.

[129]See Part I. p. 80.

[130]Pp. 170, 192d.

In any discussion of the will, we are met at the outset by the difficulties of definition, on which whole chapters might be, and have been, written. But one great difficulty has already been considered in the discussions of the previous chapter, in the questions as to the existence of consciousness in inorganic nature, in organisms which differ from our own in not possessing a centralized nervous system, and in connection with actions of our own body known to our centralized consciousness only as results. Leaving these questions open, as we have found it necessary to do, and confining ourselves, in speaking of consciousness, to consciousness as we immediately know it, or as we may, with some degree of probability, infer it in animals constituted similarly to ourselves, we find one obstacle to our definition removed. For by will is generally meant a psychical faculty; and to speak of "unconscious will" is either a self-contradiction or a mere figure of speech.

We shall also find, I think, that the most essential characteristic of the will as a psychical faculty is that it is connected with action which has in view some end consciously sought; action to which there corresponds no conscious end, whether a long premeditated end or an end instantaneously comprehended and assumed in the moment of need, we term reflex. The question may arise as to whether there are not acts which we name merely "involuntary," which must be classified, from a pyschological standpoint, as midway between the voluntary and the reflex. But it may be answered that here, as everywhere in connection with the organic, there is difficulty in drawing distinct lines; there are psychical conditions in which some strong emotion, for instance, terror, so takes possession of the mind as almost to exclude plan of action, and the individual appears to act, as we say, "unconsciously"; but I think this very adverb solves, for us, to all practicalpurposes, the question we have put. When we analyze such psychical conditions, we often find that, besides emotion, there was some degree of preconception of action, though the emotion so absorbed our attention at the time that the other appeared subordinate and was easily forgotten; but the fact that we term action of this sort, where we fail to discover preconception, "unconsciously" performed, would go to confirm the definition with which we began, though we may have difficulty in deciding whether or not a particular action comes under the head of willed action, that is, action to a preconceived end.

Another question which has been frequently asked, in analyses of the will, is whether mere abstinence from action, the negation of action, can be classed as an instance of willing, willing being, by definition, an active, not a passive state. It may be answered that, from the physiological point of view, a point of view not to be wholly disregarded even by the conservative psychologist, the arresting action of the will as the control of lower by higher centres, is its most important function. And to this physiological fact corresponds the psychological fact that no stronger exertion of will-power is known to us than that sometimes necessary to the attainment of mere passivity. A definition that would exclude such passive states from the province of the will must exclude, on the same principle, all other willing not issuing in muscular action, and so all voluntary control of thought. The choice between activity and passivity may be as real and as difficult as between two different forms of activity.

We have here introduced the concept of choice, and it may be well to define this, and its significance in our definition of will, more exactly. Voluntary action is, we say, often preceded by long deliberation and severe struggle, ending finally in the choice of one of the many modes of action deliberated. We can conceive of this struggle as not so long, as shorter and shorter, until it occupies so little time and attention as to be scarcely perceptible. But we can conceive, also, of a premeditation which includes no struggle, in which one motive appears so strong as to exclude consideration of any but the one end, and the deliberation has reference only to the best means of attaining that end. The murderer, inspired by a desire for revenge, may seek his end with the same directness, if not the same instantaneousness, or with the same directness and instantaneousness, as the dogwho snaps at a piece of meat; yet we call his action voluntary, whatever we may think of the dog's action, our conception of which may be rendered indistinct by our uncertainty as to the nature of instinct and the part it plays in the action of other species. We call the action of the murderer voluntary because we conceive that he consciously sought the end involved. We are even inclined to call it voluntary in cases where the criminal is moved by momentary passion, since we conceive that he might have exerted self-control.

Our conception of will is, therefore, closely bound up with the conception of conscious end, distant or near. Our association of choice with the act is not always exact; we may conceive of the choice as actually taking place between one of several ends deliberated upon, or as involved in the conscious determination of any end, even though no other was deliberated upon, even though all others were excluded from consciousness by passion; since we conceive that as all definition is, in fact, exclusion, so the determination of one end is in effect the negation of others that might have been sought, if only in the form of the contrary of action, inaction.

We are thus brought, first of all, to a consideration of the meaning of the term "end." As we have seen in the last chapter, an end is that part of the results of an action which consciousness especially holds in view in the performance of an act. The end in view has sometimes been called the cause of the act, but it is evident, as both Gizycki and Stephen have shown, that a future state, that is, something which at the time of willing does not exist, cannot move the will; though the representation of a hoped-for end is concerned in action,—in just what capacity we have yet to determine. It has also been urged that nothing external can act upon the will, but only internal states of consciousness. All depends, here, upon the definition of external and internal. The distinction between the two is a legitimate one where it calls attention to the difference between that which is at present perceived and that which is only remembered, or imagined from the elements given by memory. But whatisan object, as present to me, beyond what it is to my consciousness? My knowledge of a thing is made up of various elements contributed through the different senses; and this assertion is exactly the same as the statement that a thing is the sum of its qualities. My idea ofthe fire, the lamp, or any other object as external, arises from the fact that it appeals to more of my senses than one, that, if withdrawn from one or from all but one, it may still be perceived by the other or others, or that, if withdrawn from all of them for a time by some obstacle, it may be perceived again when this obstacle is removed; but beyond perception or memory of perception, in any case, I have no consciousness of the object. The perception is not, however, something distinct from consciousness, butisconsciousness. The error above noticed arises from the conception of consciousness as a sort of place, another space into which we cannot get objects from external space; the conception is a crude one, yet it often enters into psychological speculation. The perceived, that is the external, does, as a matter of fact, affect our will.

There may thus be two definitions of the term "internal" and two of "external," as the words are generally used. Internal may mean either within the body or within consciousness, external may mean external to the body or external to consciousness. The two meanings are, in both cases, commonly confused,—that is, consciousness is looked upon, as has been said, as a sort of internal space within the body to which external things cannot get admission. "External to consciousness" should refer simply to that which the individual or individuals considered do not perceive, of which they are unconscious. That of which we are conscious is in consciousness. But all manner of ingenious jugglery is played with the help of the metaphysical dualism implied in the other definition of the terms. The objection of a possibility of this duality of meaning applies to Barratt's use of the term "external" at the opening of his book on Ethics, and the objection of a possibility of a similar duality applies to many other expressions in the propositions and definitions with which he begins,—to such expressions, for instance, as "relative to our faculties," "state of consciousness," etc.[131]Objection may also be taken to such quantification of the predicate as is found in Cor. 1 of Prop. I.

To return to the question of the will. The thought-image, memory or perception, with its associations, has been termed the excitation or the motive and said to move or determine the will to some end. Thus the perception of the burning house issaid to be that which leads me to give an alarm, or the perception of the smoking lamp that which moves me to turn it down. To this form of statement is often objected that mere thought or perception can never move the will, but that feeling is required to do this. A further discussion may arise as to whether it is feeling in the form of pleasure or of pain which moves the will. Many authors regard anticipated pleasure as a constant motive; Rolph, on the contrary, as we have seen, inclines to the view that it is always some present pain by which we are moved to action. And it is argued that, since the direction of the will is determined by pleasure or by pain, that is by motives, the will is not free.

Again, the physiologist calls attention to the fact that the so-called free action of the will has for its basis physiological processes, all of which are in accordance with the strict uniformity of nature, all subject to law, and all, as we must believe, capable of exact prediction from the conditions which produce them, if we but comprehended these conditions. There is no gap in these processes where free will might interpose; the whole thought-process, the deliberation preceding decision, the moral struggle if there is one, the decision itself, and its realization in action, have for their foundation physiological function, which is as much determined by necessity as any of the processes in inorganic nature. The results of past experience, not of the experience of the individual only but of that of the whole species inherited as inborn tendency and capacity and modified by individual circumstances, are stored up in the organism, the point of centralization being the brain; any single excitation sets this whole complicated machinery in motion and the result is the act. The individual, not understanding this complicated process of reaction, not being able to trace the results of experience to their source, to descend the whole scale of being to the beginnings of life and note the gradual development of tendency, and seeing the inadequacy of the excitation in itself to account for the action following, attributes to this a peculiar character, regarding that which is really result as absolute beginning, independent cause.

We may consider the matter from still another point of view. We may inquire whether the freedom predicated of the human will is predicated of that alone, or of will in the whole range ofanimal life. And if it be predicated of the human will alone, we may ask at just what point of the evolution this is supposed to arise, whether, in the gradual development, any particular point can be found or assumed to exist, of which we can say: Here the animal ceases and man begins. Or if freedom is asserted of the whole range of animal will, not, however, of plant movement or the motions of the inorganic, we may again inquire as to the point of exact division between the animal and the plant. Evolution is, by definition, a gradual process, a growth in which there are no gaps, and of which our finest and most minute calculations by infinitesimals can give us only a faint conception. Where is there any point of such a process at which we can suppose the entrance of a totally new principle that cannot be regarded as another expression of force or merely a new form of animal function, but as directly opposed to developed function and to the force that is subject to natural law?

The Evolutionist may state the problem in still a new form, as follows: The survival of any organism at a given period is determined by the fitness of that organism for the conditions of the environment at that period. The form and function of the animal are thus, at each moment, determined by the environment. And since only functions in harmony with the environment render the organism capable of survival under that environment, the functions of surviving organisms are in a direction favorable to the preservation of the form of which they are the functions. Since, moreover, self-preservation in some form, whether as preservation of the whole organism or as preservation of a part through satisfaction of its function (rendered possible only through harmony between the function and the environment), always constitutes the end sought by the will, the individual appears to himself to will ends, whereas these are all determined for him by the survival of the fittest, whose function he inherits and carries out subject only to the modification of the peculiar elements of his own environment. If we suppose, at any point of development, an action not in accord with that which the laws of nature necessitate decided upon by the will, such an action cannot be carried out. But even a decision is impossible contrary to natural law, since in preceding evolution there has been no point at which nature has not in like manner determined action, and the present decision, being the expression of function attained as the resultof evolution, must be as much determined as the action which follows.

Or if we return to our conception of the development of stable from unstable conditions, we may consider all evolution of higher function as increased adaptation, that is, as harmony with an ever wider circle of nature, the reason appearing as corresponding concomitant knowledge of this widening circle, to which the function of the organism is adjusted. The reflection preceding decision on an end consists in the imagination, by aid of the memory of past experience, of some of the constant results of particular function, to which function, however, the organism is irresistibly moved. Thus that which is generally regarded as the greatest independence of nature is, in reality, the greatest subjection to nature considered as a whole, although this wider subjection means an increasing independence of the mere excitation of the moment. The ability to weigh all sides of a question, sometimes termed Freedom, is rather the widest adaptation, which means the widest determination by nature. The lower organisms may be, as Rolph and Alexander assert, as well adapted to their particular environment as the higher; but the higher are adapted to a wider environment, to more of the variations of the conditions on the earth's surface. Man is the most widely adapted of all animals. This is a fact which we express when we say that man's power of adaptation is greatest,—that is, that there are latent tendencies in him, the result of former adaptations, which may correspond sufficiently to new environment,i.e.to environment involving many new elements, to enable him to survive. This wider adaptation expresses itself especially in the higher development of the nervous centres, to which man's higher reason corresponds; it is through the reason especially that his adaptiveness comes to light.

The statistician often has considerable to say against a doctrine of freedom of the will. He calls attention to the necessary character of human action as evidenced by its uniformities under uniform circumstances, in the various important relations of life. These uniformities are not less than those which statistics reveal in disease and death and other events classed as not under the control of the will.

And to all this evidence we may add that of the history of the mental life of the species, derived from the combined labors ofthe geologist, the ethnologist, the philologist, and the historian. Everything goes to prove an evolution in the mental life of man, as gradual, and as much subject to the influence of the environment, as his physical evolution has been. Carneri says, "The eternal laws of mind point out the way upon which man has to proceed; it is the same way by which man has become man, and by which mankind must go forward even if it does not will thus to proceed."[132]

And again, the authorities on mental disease demonstrate the constant relations, not only of general health of brain to health of mind, and of disease of brain to mental unsoundness, but also of particular physical symptoms to particular mental symptoms. This constancy of relations is revealed with more certainty and distinctness by every step in the progress of medical knowledge. The specialist in mental disease inquires with reason how we can acknowledge the physical processes of the body to be governed by natural law, yet assert the emancipation from law of the psychical processes which vary concomitantly with these in a manner that science shows to be perfectly constant. To the testimony of Psychiatry may be added that of the comparatively new science of Criminology.

And, finally, Evolutional Ethics demonstrates the constancy of character, the persistence of habit, and the uniformity of its change under the influence of environment. If there is no persistence of character and uniformity in its action, we have no reason, as various authors have shown, for trust or distrust, for praise or blame; and, I think we may add, none for love or dislike, reverence or contempt, enthusiasm or coldness, in the contemplation of character or conduct. If the fact that a man acts honorably, kindly, nobly, in one instance is not a warranty that we may with reason expect him to act similarly again under similar circumstances, allowance being made for error in our interpretation of motive (which may have been merely self-interested where we thought it disinterested) and for changes produced in character by the environment between the first act and the opportunity of the second, then character is merely a jumbled chaos of chance, and the name "habit" a contradiction in terms. We may, perhaps, respect the single act, but we haveno reason for respecting the individual performing it, since the "individual" cannot be regarded as coëxtensive with a single act of his life, and least of all when the act gives no clew to a permanent basis issuing in uniform action of which law can be predicated. In this case, the noble deed, or any number of noble deeds, afford us no security that the next act of the person performing them, or all the rest of the acts of his life, may not be wholly ignoble, base, and vile.

In the face of all the considerations thus offered us, we cannot well find reason for accrediting the will with a peculiar position in the universe, as emancipated from the natural law which we discover in all other phenomena. But it behooves us, in this connection, to inquire as to just what is the significance of the term "natural law." It has already been implicitly defined in our previous considerations. Lewes and several other modern philosophical writers have given excellent definitions of the expression. Lewes writes as follows: "Law is only one of two conceptions, (1) a notation of the process observed in phenomena, which process we mentally detach and generalize by extending it to all similar phenomena; (2) an abstract Type, which, though originally constructed from the observed Process, does nevertheless depart from what is really observed, and substitutes an Ideal Process, constructing whatwould bethe course of the process were the conditions different from those actually present. The first conception is so far real that it expresses theobserved series of positions. It is the process of phenomena, not an agent apart from them, not an agencydetermining them, but simply the idealsummation of their positions.... Phenomena, in so far as they are ruled, regulated, determined in this direction rather than in that, and necessarily determined in the direction taken,... are determined by no external agent corresponding to Law, but by their coöperant factors internal and external; alter one of these factors and the product will be differently determined. It is owing to the very general misconception of the nature of Law, that there arises the misconception of Necessity; the fact that events arrive irresistibly when their conditions are present is confounded with the conception that the events must arrive whether the conditions be present or not, being fatally predetermined. Necessity simply says that whatever is, is, and will vary with varying conditions."[133]Neither Natural Law nor Necessityis an entity extraneous to phenomena which governs or compels them; the two are generalizations merely by which we express a certain uniformity that we find universal.

Let us return to our analysis of the organic as matter and of function as its motion. Go as far as we like in our analysis, and we still have left positive entities of matter and force, or matter, motion, and the equivalent of motion in resistance; moreover, we cannot suppose either matter or force to decrease by our analysis. Here, therefore, we have indestructible entities, and these, not Law and Necessity, are the positive factors. But if the final divisions of matter leave us still positive factors, then the combinations of these must be positive also; not only the theoretical atoms of the chemist, or the organic cells with their motions and functions, but the combinations of these in organisms, must be positive.

It is said that the organism answers to its environment "as the clay to the mould"; that it is formed by the environment and adjusted to it. Here we may inquire whether the adjustment referred to is present adjustment or that of the whole development of the organism. If present action of the environment is all that is had in view, it may be objected that not anything in the environment, and not the whole environment, is more positive than the organism. The one of the two factors cannot be regarded as positive, the other as merely negative, the environment as the active and formative, the organism as the passive and formed, the environment as determining, the organism as determined.

But we may also consider the organism in the process of development. In this case, we seem to find reason for regarding it as purely the product of the environment in which it has arisen. The product it certainly is in one sense; that is, it is the end-form of a series of changes which we may suppose originally inorganic matter, or (if we prefer to begin with the lowest form of life) simplest forms of organic matter, to have undergone. But the present forms of matter everywhere are, in like manner, the products of the past changes of matter; if we trace these changes which have produced present forms, in the case of the inorganic as well as that of the organic, back to any point of time which we may choose as a beginning, we shall find in neither case more matter or a greater amount of force than at the presentperiod; we shall find the same matter in different combinations, the same force in other forms. Present forms are not greater or less than past ones, but their exact equivalents; the beginning was not greater than the end; the producing forms and forces were not greater than are their products. By a backward course of thought comprehending evolution we may bring unity into our conception of the organic, but we find no new factors of force, and need to avoid laying stress upon the process to the depreciation of the importance of the product. We may be led to suspect that our search after new and more important factors was only another form of the search after an independent cause according to which all other phenomena may be said to vary. Our mathematical habit of selecting some one side of natural process as independent, in order to trace, by its variation, the variation of the others, leads us to regard the one side, phase, or portion, of phenomena as actually thus independent; although we forget, in this assumption, that we may select any phase for our mathematical independent, and are not confined to any particular one. The organism is itself a part of the environment regarded as conditioning, when we consider the development of other organisms, or change in inorganic matter, with which it is in contact. Our minds are unable to comprehend the whole of nature as variation only, and we fasten on some one part of the process as independent of the general change or as holding a unique position in it, from which to consider the variation of the rest. And the conception of some one part of phenomena as cause disappointing us, on closer investigation, as far as merely present phenomena are concerned, we remove the conception farther back into a dim past which we fail to analyze in thought with the same completeness with which we analyze the present. We are not, however, in the habit of tracing back any other than just the organic forms to an arbitrary point which we call the beginning, and emphasizing this in distinction from present conditions; in considering the inorganic, we simply notice present conditions and mark the result of action and reaction between this and that other form of matter with which it comes in contact.

The action of the animal at any moment may be said to be determined by the tendency or potential energy inherent in it at the moment, and the influence exerted by a particular excitation; this is a matter of action and reaction; but the force representedby both sides, by that of organism and by that of environment, is equally positive and equally represented again in the result. Particular emphasis has been laid, now on the positive activity of the organism by one school of writers, now on the activity of the environment as moving the organism to action by another school; but both sides contribute to the result. Where action and reaction in inorganic matter are considered, we do not regard either of two incident forces as alone positive; nor do we regard one as overcome by the other in the sense that it is not fully represented in the result.

Again, if we return to the dispute as to the importance of the physiological "basis" of action, the remark may be repeated, that it is mere dogmatism to select some one phase of phenomena as the only essential phase, while all other phases are regarded as non-essential or subordinate. The materialist who derides the idea of a "Ding-an-sich" is himself assuming something very like it, when he endeavors to prove matter to be the cause, essence, or independent, of which consciousness is the mere effect, property, or dependent.

Even if it could be said with truth that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile (and the analogy does not hold), it should be borne in mind that the bile is no mere dependent creation of the liver, but that, before it became bile, it existed in another form, was, in fact, a part of the liver of which it is regarded as the dependent creation. Matter and force have simply changed form; that is all. The later form is not rendered secondary in importance or less positive by the fact of its sequence upon the other form. The conditions equal the result; they are not greater than it. Where is there, on closer analysis, passivity as distinguished from activity? All force is, by definition, active; and all matter represents force. We find simple equivalence, that is, a uniformity of relation between preceding conditions and succeeding conditions. Our "Natural Law" and "Necessity" resolve themselves into this. Yet the conception of law as something extraneous to things, something without them not included in their primary nature but controlling them, is a very common conception. Thus Du Prel, though rejecting other forms of teleological argument, bases a whole course of teleological reasoning upon the mere fact of law.[134]However, weknow of natural law merely as an expression of uniformities, a generalization from the relations of things; we have no reason for treating it as extraneous to the nature of things themselves; and nature itself furnishes us with no reason for supposing the relations of things to be of more significance than things themselves; relations are not entities.

If man be part of nature, it is strange that the force within him should be regarded as so shaped and compelled, the force without him, on the other hand, as so compelling and mighty. No part of nature is, as a matter of fact, compelled. All things act and react spontaneously from their own nature, and man in the same manner acts from his. Law cannot be defined as determining action and reaction, nor can Necessity; they are not entities. Force is sometimes called the determining factor, but an abstract Force we do not know; we know force only as motion or the equivalent of motion in resistance, or as the conceived potentiality of motion. The concept of potentiality of motion is, however, again only a device of reason for bringing unity into our conception of things by accounting for the appearance of motion where before it was not. Potentiality is no existence, no reality; actual potentiality is a contradiction in terms. Nature contains only actualities. Force is the abstract term by which we include motion, resistance, and the conceived potentiality of motion, under one head. Motion again is often defined as the cause of movement; but such a conception makes the abstract notion of a thing the cause of the thing itself, unless by motion as the cause we understand the preceding motion, and by movement as the effect we mean the succeeding motion, in which case we have to bear in mind the equivalence of conditions and results. Nor do we know motion as something apart from matter, moving it; we know no abstract motion; we know only things as moving, changing, and resisting motion. There is no outside cause given us in our experience as the mover, from which things are to be distinguished as the passive moved. Things move. And in correspondence with the activity of things is doubtless the sense of freedom in the exertion of the will. Outer compulsion, resistance to the carrying out of a course decided upon or desired, has sometimes been interpreted as the negation of freedom of the will; but it has with reason been objected to this definition that the very strongest sense of inner freedom may exist in connectionwith such compulsion. It may be supposed that, as long as there is action in the brain, the corresponding sense of freedom will exist; or, lest this statement be interpreted as materialistic, we may say instead: As long as consciousness exists, it must by definition exist as activity, with which the sense of freedom is indissolubly connected.

But we may look at the matter from the more purely psychological side. 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 passive moved; the division into parts is a material one applicable to things occupying space, 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 analysis, 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 notlie 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 pronounced desirable or, under proper conditions, desired. When we analyze 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 passive; on this principle, we could also define brain-action as subject to nerve-action and passive 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 passive with respect to them. The mere sequence of one event upon another in time does not justify our pronouncing the one subordinate to the other or passive 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 passivity 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 includesactivity 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 passivity 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 passive 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 analysis of concomitance or sequence, or the analysis of some new phase of it. We have only the finer elements of the process analyzed 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 analyze 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 realand 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 analyze 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 constituting scientific progress; in the effort to bring together in ourconception the two elements of consciousness and brain-action, to whose association 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 superstitions. And, finally, in the rebound from the old superstitions, 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 analysis, 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 analysis, except as we assume 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 superstition 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 analysis, or read into analysis 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.

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