[80] This article is the substance of a private communication from Prof. Ernst Mach to the Editor ofThe Monist—published in the present form with Prof. Mach's consent. Translated from Professor Mach's MS. by Thomas J. McCormack.
I have read Dr. Carus's article "Feeling and Motion"[81] with care, and have also perused Clifford's essay on "The Nature of Things in Themselves." Let me attempt to present the points in which our agreements and differences consist.
[81]The Open Court, Nos. 153 and 154.
To begin with, I state with pleasure that the monistic tendency of both endeavors is in the direction that appears to me to be the true one and that is most likely to afford elucidation. Consequently, agreement in matters of detail is of subordinate importance and is only a question of time.
Let me cite, first, a few passages from "Feeling and Motion" to which I give my full assent. They are the following:
"The interconvertibility of motion and feeling is an error."
"Feeling is real as much as are matter and motion."
"Its reality accordingly is most immediate and direct, so that it would be ridiculous to doubt it."
"Man's method of understanding the process of nature is that of abstraction."
"Every concept is formed for some purpose, and every concept by serving one purpose necessarily becomes one-sided…. We must bear in mind…. (1) the purpose it has to serve, and (2) that the totality of things from which abstractions can be made is one indivisible whole…. We must not imagine that the one side only is true reality."
Some years ago I should also have agreedin totowith the passages in which Dr. Carus speaks of the animation of all nature, and of the feeling that accompanieseverymotion. To-day this form of expression would not, it seems to me, correctly characterise the matter. If I were now prematurely to advance a definitive formulation, I should fear lest, so far as myself and perhaps others are concerned, important aspects might remain concealed.
I shall next cite the passages with respect to which I do not agree with Dr. Carus, and then I shall endeavor to state wherein our differences of opinion consist:
"All seriesA B C… areaccompaniedby α β γ." [TheA B C… series of Dr. Carus has a different meaning from mine.]
"We may representmotionor we may representmindas the basis of the world, or we may conceive them as being on equal terms." [I cannot agree with a co-ordination of "motion" and "mind."]
"They [viz. feeling and motion] are as inseparable as are the two sides of a sheet of paper." [Fechner says, "As inseparable as the concave and convex sides of the same circle." This appears to me an inapposite simile in so far as adualityis predicated where in my view aunityalone exists.]
My view of the problem is as follows: We have colors, sounds, pressures, and so forth (A B C…), which, as simplest component parts, make up the world. In addition thereto, percepts (resolvable into α β γ …), feelings, and so forth, more or less composite. How α β γ … differ fromA B C… I will not define here, for I do not know exactly. It is enough for the time being that they do differ fromA B C…, as the latter do from one another. And let us now leave α β γ … entirely out of account and put ourselves in a time and state in which there are onlyA B C. Now I say, that if I see a tree with green leaves (A), with a hard (B), gray (C) trunk, thatA B Careelementsof the world. I sayelements—and not sensations, also not motions—because it is not my purpose at this place to arrive at either a psychological or a physiological or a physicaltheory, but to proceeddescriptively. The every-day man, indeed, takes greenness, grayness, hardness, or complexes thereof it may be, for constituent parts of the world—for he does not trouble himself about a psychologico-physiological theory—and does not learn moreover anything more about the world; from his point of view he is right. Similarly, for the descriptive physicist the question is also one merely of the dependencies ofA B C… on one another; for him tooA B C…, or complexes thereof, are and remain constituent parts of the world.
If, however, I close my eye (K), withdraw my feeling hand (L),A B C… disappear. If I contemplateA B C… inthisdependence they are mysensations. This is but a special point of view within the first.
According to my conception, therefore,the same A B C… is both element of theworld(the "outer" world, namely) and element offeeling.
The question how feeling arises out of the physical element has for me no significance, since both areone and the same. The parallelism stands to reason, since each is parallel to itself. It is nottwosides of the same paper (which latter is invested with a metaphysical rôle in the simile), but simply thesamething.
A perfect physics could strive to accomplish nothing more than to make us familiar beforehand with whatever it were possible for us to come acrosssensorily; that is, we should have knowledge of the interrelation ofA B C. A perfect psychology would supply the interrelation of α β γ. Leaving out of account the theoretical intermediaries of physics—physiology and psychology—questions like "How does feeling arise from motion" would never come up. However, the artificial inventions of a physical or psychological theory, must not be introduced into a general discussion of this character—for they are necessarily "one-sided."
I may now set forth my differing point of view with regard to the idea of "motion." A motion is either perceptible by the senses, as the displacing of a chair in a room or the vibration of a string, or it is only supplied, added (hypothetical), like the oscillation of the ether, the motion of molecules and atoms, and so forth. In the first instance the motion iscomposedofA B C…, it is itself merely a certain relation betweenA B C…, and plays therefore in the discussion now in hand no especial part. In the second instance the hypothetical motion, under especially favorable circumstances, can become perceptible by the senses. In which case the first instance recurs. As long as this is not the case, or in circumstances in which thiscan never happen(the case of the motions of atoms and molecules), we have to do with anoumenon, that is, a mere mental auxiliary, an artificial expedient, the purpose of which is solely to indicate, to represent, after the fashion of a model, the connection betweenA B C…, to make it more familiar to us. It is a thing of thought, an entity of the mind (α β γ …). I cannot believe that this is to be co-ordinated withA B C… in the same way asA B C… among each other are. Putting together motion and feeling goes as much against me as would say the co-ordination of numbers and colors. Perhaps I stand quite alone in this, for physicists have accustomed us to regard the motions of atoms as "more real" than the green of trees. In the latter I see a (sensory) fact, in the former aGedankending, a thing of thought. The billions of ether-vibrations which the physicist for his special purposesmentally annexesto the green, are not to be co-ordinated with the green, which is given immediately.
When a piece of zinc and a piece of copper, united by a wire, are dipped in sulphuric acid and deflect a magnetic needle in the vicinity of the wire, the unprepossesseddiscovererof the fact discerns naught of motion beyond the deflection of the needle and the diffusion in the fluid. Everything reverts to certain combinations ofA B C. Electricity is a thing of thought, a mental adjunct; its motion another; its magnetic field still another. All these noumena are implements of physical science, contrived for very special purposes. They are discarded, cast aside, when the interconnection ofA B C… has become familiar; forthis lastis the very gist of the affair. The implement is not of the samedignity, or reality, asA B C…, and must not be placed in the same category, must not be co-ordinated with it where general considerations are involved to which physics with its special objects does not extend.
The green (A) of the tree is not only adjoined to the presence of the sun (B), but also to the deflection of the needle (X), by my optic nerve. Familiarising intermediary connections to-day by motions, to-morrow by some other means, is the business of the special sciences, and can only disturb and obscure a general discussion. What should we say of a cosmology from a pharmaceutical point of view? In principle, this very thing is done, it seems to me, when physical augers and saws are employed in all fields of work, as is universally the case.
So much for the juxtaposition of motion and feeling. Perhaps I alone am right, perhaps I alone am wrong.
* * * * *
According to my conception accordingly "material" processes are not "accompanied" by "feelings," but arethe same(A B C…); only the relation in which we consider them makes them at one time physical elements and at another time feelings.
The relation in which "percepts" and "feelings" as distinguished from "sensations" stand to sensations, is not clear to me. I am much inclined to regard these feelings as a species of sensation (co-ordinate with sensations). How the representative percepts of imagination and memory are connected with sensations, what relation they bear to them, I dare venture no opinion. The relation of α β γ … toA B C… is the point regarding which I do not feel sufficiently sure. RegardingA B C… (world of sense in its objective and subjective significance) I believe I am clear.
Dr. Carus in a private letter to me says: "It almost seems as if you transform allA B C… series into the corresponding α β γ … series."
This is not the case. I designate by α β γ … representative percepts (not sensations), and say simply thatA B C…,the same A B C…, play, according to circumstances, now the rôle of physical elements, now the role of sensations. I callA B C…, therefore,elements, pure and simple.
Mine is not the Berkeleian point of view. The latter has been mistakenly attributed to me time and again, the separation that I make ofA B C… from α β γ … not having been sharply discriminated and it not having been borne in mind that I callA B C… alonesensations, not however α β γ. Clifford, with his "mind-stuff," approaches very near to Berkeley.
Monism, as yet, I cannot thoroughlyfollow out; because I am lacking in clearness with regard to the relation of α β γ … toA B C…, which can only be supplied by further physiologico-psychological investigations; but I believe that the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the sameA B C… are both physical and psychical elements. As regards the psychical "accompanying" the physical, the question How? continually recurs. Either they are two incompatible things (Dubois) or their relation is bound up in a third thing ("thing-of-itself"). By viewing the matter astwo sidesof the same thing, not much more is gained, to my mind, than a momentary satisfaction.
All non-monistic points of view are, in my opinion, artificial constructions, which arise by investing with very far-reaching extensions of meaning psychological or physical special-conceptions, which have a limited value, applicable only within the department in question for the elucidation of the facts of that department. The overvaluing of psychological conceptions leads to spiritualistic systems, the overrating of physical conceptions to materialistic systems. Naturally in the latter systemsmotionplays a great rôle; for through a mistaken conception of theprinciple of energy, people have come to believe that everything in physics can be explained by motion. But explanations by motions have, as a matter of fact, nothing to do with the principle of energy. The majority of physicists, it is true, believe and disseminate this opinion. If, when a physicist speaks of motion and nothing but motion, the question is askedWhatmoves? in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred nothing palpable or demonstrable is brought forward in answer, but hypothetical atoms or hypothetical fluids are adduced which execute motions still more hypothetical. Even in the domain of physics itself, the business of which is to proceed from the sensory and to return to the sensory, I can regard these "motions" at best only as provisorily tolerated intermediaries ofthoughts, that have no right to be ranked on equal terms with reality, let alone placed above it.
Still less can I allow "motion" the right to create a world-problem where none exists, and thereby to conceal the real point of attack in the investigation of reality.
I may add that some years ago I took exactly Dr. Carus's point of view, which I presented in a lecture on Psycho-physics published in 1863 in theOesterreichische Zeitschrift für praktische Heilkunde.
With regard to Clifford I may make the following remarks. The notion "eject" pleases me very much. I have long had the idea in mind, but have not defined it because its limitation is not clear to me; nor has Clifford given me any light on the subject. Is the representation in us of the material nature of things wecannot lay hold of(the sun, the moon) to be called an eject? Are the abstract concepts of physical hypotheses, which in their very nature can never become sense-affective, ejects? Such things are abstract in widely differing degrees, and are bound up with the sensory in very unequal proportions; the impossibility of becoming sense-affective is partly absolute, partly only relative, that is, it exists for the time being.
I do not at all agree with Clifford's notion "mind-stuff"; in this I wholly concur with Dr. Carus. It is not unbiased philosophising to come down in the end to apsychologicalnotion ascomprehensive of the world,—a notion on the face of it pre-eminently one-sided.
* * * * *
In connection with the subject under discussion, I might incidentally make mention of Mr. Charles S. Peirce's article "The Architecture of Theories" in the last number ofThe Monist. One Mr. Peirce, a mathematician,[82] has made some very valuable investigations, similar to Grassmann's. This author's view of the evolution of natural laws does not strike me as so singular. If predominance be given in our conception of the world to the spiritualistic or psychical aspect, the laws of nature may be regarded as tremendous phenomena of memory; as I attempted some years ago to set forth in a lecture of mine. The idea of their evolution is then very near at hand. Of course I do not think that for the time being we can gain much light from this view. For the present the "scientific method" in the grooves of which we have moved for three hundred years, continues to be the most fruitful. It is advisable to be very cautious in advancing beyond this. It is for this reason also that I do not think very much of the fruitfulness of the idea that the entire world is animated and feeling. We have as yet too little insight into the psychical, and still less into the connection between brain-organisation and brain-function and psychical process. Of what advantage to us is the assumption of feeling in cells in which every clue is missing by which to proceed from the psychical assumed to the physical connected with it. It seems to me that the physical and psychical investigation of sensations is for the time being the only thing that can be entered upon with any prospect of accomplishing anything. In this we shall first learn the proper formulation of questions that are to form the subject of further investigations.
[82] Mr. Benjamin Peirce, father of Mr. Charles S. Peirce.—ED.
When a man who has done so much valuable work for the progress of science as Professor Ernst Mach finds it necessary to change the position he has taken,—a position which has appeared to many thinkers as a satisfactory solution of the most intricate problem in the philosophical and psycho-physical field,—there must exist in the solution some difficulty which has either been overlooked or at least too little appreciated. If there is a flaw in it, I wish it to be exposed. And convinced that its discovery must be of general interest, I take pleasure in publishing Professor Mach's criticism of the view which I have defended in a former article of mine.
The main source of most differences, it seems to me, springs from misapprehensions. I shall therefore attempt to elucidate the subject with reference to the objections presented by Professor Mach.
#Recapitulation.#
The main idea set forth in my article "Feeling and Motion" may be briefly recapitulated as follows. Our feelings are phenomena which to an observer who could see all the processes taking place in our brain, would appear as motions of a special kind. Motions and feelings are two aspects of one and the same reality. But feeling cannot be explained as transformed motion. Accordingly, the elements of the conscious feeling which now exists and now disappears, must have existed before. The presence of elements of feeling must be an additional feature of the processes of nature not included in the term motion, and not observable in motions, yet inseparably bound up in motions. Or, in other words, feelings and the elements of feeling are the subjective aspect of what objectively appears as and is called motions.
The term "elements of feeling" employed in this sense has been adopted from Clifford. The idea that feelings and motions are two aspects of one and the same reality has been held by several psychologists; among whom are the founders of the science of psycho-physics, especially Fechner.
Professor Mach says: "Putting together motion and feeling goes as much against me as would, say, the co-ordination of numbers and colors."
#Justification of juxtaposition.#
The putting together of two concepts depends upon the purpose of our investigation. Motion and feeling, in spite of their disparity, have one quality in common which justifies their juxtaposition. Both in their spheres are terms of the most general circumscription.
#Feeling described.#
By feelings I understand those features of our experience which constitute what may be called the awareness of the present state. Feeling comprehends all the many degrees of awareness in pleasures and pains, sensations and thoughts, emotions and ideals. It constitutes the subjectivity of our existence and furnishes the basis of all psychic life. Feeling is the most general term of its kind.
#Motion described.#
By motion I understand all kinds of changes in the objective world that can either be directly observed or are supposed to be observable. Indeed all changes taking place must, objectively represented, be thought of as motions.
Feeling and motion being each the broadest concept of its kind, the question, In what relation do motions stand to feelings? appears to be quite legitimate.
* * * * *
Concerning the relation that obtains between feeling and motion, Professor Mach objects to the use of the expression "feeling accompanies motion." "Material processes," he says, "are not accompanied by feeling, but both are the same." And in another passage, "The parallelism stands to reason, since everything is parallel to itself."
#The term "accompany" inadequate.#
I grant most willingly that the term "accompany" is inadequate, and I admit that a certain feeling and a certain motion form one inseparable process. There is no duality of feeling and motion, both are different abstractions made from one and the same reality. I do not say that feeling and motion are identical, not that they are one and the same; but I do say that they are one. There is no such thing as pure feeling; real feeling is at the same time motion. Feeling by itself does not exist in reality. Pure feeling is a mere abstraction. And wherever the expression parallelism between feeling and motion has been used, it can mean only a parallelism between the two spheres of abstraction.
Professor Mach continues: "They [motion and feeling] are not two sides of the same paper (which latter is invested with a metaphysical rôle in the simile), but simply thesamething."
#Fechner's simile.#
For the same reason Professor Mach objects to Fechner's comparison. Yet it seems to me that Fechner hit the mark when he compared feeling and motion to the inside and the outside curves of a circle; they are entirely different and yet the same. The inside curve is concave, the outside curve is convex. If we construct rules relating first to the concave inside and then to the convex outside, we shall notice a parallelism in the formulas; yet this parallelism will appear only in the abstractions which have been made of one and the same thing from different standpoints and serving different purposes. The abstract conceptions form two parallel systems, but the real thing can be represented as parallel only in the sense that it is parallel to itself. If we consider the real thing, it represents a parallelism of identity. There is but one line, and this one line is concave if viewed from the inside, it is convex if viewed from the outside.
#The simile of a sheet of paper.#
The simile which I introduced of the two sides of one and the same sheet of paper was devised to convey no other meaning than this construction of Fechner's comparison. The paper is invested with a metaphysical rôle only in the case where the simile is otherwise construed. There is no page which exists of itself as a mere mathematical plane independent of the paper of which it forms a side. Thus there can never be in reality a page without its counterpage. The paper, its size and color, belong to the page and constitute its properties.
Thus the abstraction 'feeling' represents my looking at the one side of reality. I leave, and from the subjective standpoint I have to leave, the other side out of account. Yet the other side of the sheet is inseparable from the one at which I am now looking, just as much as feeling is inseparable from motion. And I am constrained to admit the truth of the reverse also: motion is inseparable from feeling, but with the limitation that motions need not be on their subjective side actual feelings; they may be only elements of feeling which under certain conditions become actual.
#The metaphysical misinterpretation.#
I am aware that my comparison of feeling and motion to the two sides of one sheet of paper may be easily misinterpreted. But is not that a danger to which all comparisons are subject? A comparison is always imperfect, or as the Romans used to say, it limps: "Omne simile claudicat." And is not reality liable to be misinterpreted in the same way? Have not some philosophers thus introduced the metaphysical explanation of the unknowableness of things in themselves? Such philosophers conceive the two sides of a sheet of paper (the abstract mathematical planes of the pages) as phenomenal and the paper as their metaphysical essence. The size of the sheet, the color of the paper, and all its other qualities are in a metaphysical world-conception represented as properties of which the thing is possessed—not as constituting the thing, but as essentially different from it.
It appears to me that Professor Mach in spite of his opposition to Fechner's simile and to the expression that feeling and motion are two aspects of one and the same reality, entertains the same view. At least his words: "Only the relation in which we consider them makes them at one time physical elements, at another time feelings," are to that effect.
#Professor Mach's problem.#
The difference between Professor Mach's view and mine may appear greater than it is, because the problem which Professor Mach treats in his article "The Analysis of the Sensations," lies in quite a different field from that of the problem of the relation of feeling to motion. The problem being different, the same and similar terms are not only used for different purposes, but demand also different comparisons. Professor Mach's symbolsA B C… and α β γ … represent a contrast different from that of feeling and motion. They represent the contrast of sensations and thoughts. Sensations, such as green and hard, are colors, pressures, tastes, etc; thoughts are memory-images, concepts, volitions, etc.
Professor Mach says: "How the representative percepts of imagination and memory are connected with sensations, what relations they bear to them, as to this I dare venture no opinion…. Monism, as yet, I cannot thoroughly follow out; because I am lacking in clearness with regard to the relation of α β γ … toA B C…; but I believe that the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the sameA B C… are both physical and psychical elements."
My symbolsA B C… and α β γ … represent the contrast of physical and psychical elements, not of sensations and thoughts. Concerning thoughts, Professor Mach says he is much inclined to co-ordinate them with sensations so that his Greek symbols might differ from his Italic symbols not otherwise than the latter, viz.A B C…; differ among themselves. Taking this ground, I believe, it would be preferable to symbolise them accordingly among the Italic letters, perhaps asX Y Z. In the diagrams on page 407 they are called Μμ, Νν, Σς.
#Feeling, sense-impression and sensation defined.#
According to my terminology, feeling, as explained above, is the most general term expressing any kind and degree of subjective awareness. A sense-impression is a single irritation of one of the senses, the irritation being a special kind of motion plus a special and correspondent kind of feeling. A sensation is a sense-impression that has by repetition acquired meaning. A later sense-impression, when felt to be the same in kind as a former sense-impression, constitutes, be it ever so dimly, an awareness of having to deal with the same kind of cause of a sense-impression; thus giving meaning to it. By sensation, accordingly, I understand a sense-impression which has acquired meaning. And feelings that have acquired meaning, I should call mental states. Representative feelings (feelings that have a meaning) are the elements of mind.
#Thought and thinking defined.#
By thinking I understand the interaction that takes place between representative feelings. Such are the comparisons of sensations with memory-pictures, or of memory-pictures among themselves, the experimenting with memory-pictures so as to plan new combinations, etc. The products of thinking are called thoughts; and by thought in the narrower sense is commonly understood abstract thought which on earth is the exclusive privilege of man.
If I am not mistaken Professor Mach understands by sensations (represented by him asA B C…) what I should call sense-impressions; while thoughts, memories, and volitions (represented by him as α β γ …) form what I should call mind, or all kinds of mental states, that is, the domain of representations.
The higher spheres of thought, or representative feelings, grow out of and upon the lower spheres. Sense-impressions, as I have attempted to explain in the article "The Origin of Mind" (The Monist, No. 1), are the data which are worked out into concepts and ideas; they are the basis upon which the whole structure of mind rests. The reflex motions of simple irritations, being modified in higher spheres by the rich material of experience consisting of memory-images, and by the possibility of forethought created through experience, become volitions.
#Monism and the origin of mind.#
A monistic explanation of the rise of mind from elements that are not mind is possible only on the supposition that the objective processes of motion are not mere motions but that they are at the same time elements of feeling.
Is this not the same position as Professor Mach's, where he says that "the first step towards a competent monism lies in the assertion that the sameA B C… are both physical and psychical elements"? and again: "The sameA B C… are both elements of theworld(the 'outer'[83] world namely) and elements of feeling."
[83] Professor Mach here says "outer world." I should prefer to replace it by the expression "objective world," because the motions of a man's brain belong to the outer world of all other men. To make sure of including the actions of my own body in this outer world, I should prefer the term "objective world," making feelings alone (to the exclusion of the subject's own motions) the constituents of the subjective world.
#Agreement with Professor Mach.#
Considering the two last-quoted sentences of Professor Mach, it appears to me that all differences vanish into verbal misunderstandings. Yet since I am not at all sure about it, I may be pardoned for becoming rather too explicit. The adjoined diagram may assist me in making my ideas clear.
[Illustration: Fig. I. Fig. II.]
#Explanation of the diagrams.#
Let the large circle of both figures represent a sentient being, a man. The periphery is his skin. The small circle enclosingKandLis a sensory organ; the other small circle enclosingMandNrepresents the hemispheres of his brain.AandBare processes taking place outside of the skin of this man.Aproduces an effect inK;BinL. The lineRrepresents a reflex motion.MandNare concepts and abstract ideas derived from such impressions asKandL. The lineSrepresents an act of volition.
All these symbols represent motions in the objective world. We know through physiological investigations thatK,L,M, andNare motions; in our individual experience they appear as feelings.
The second figure represents in agreement with my system of symbols the states of awareness, in Greek letters. Certain physiological processes (K L R,M N Sof Figure I) appear subjectively as states of awareness (i. e. κ λ ρ, μ ν ς of Figure II). YetAandBremain to the thinking subject mere motions. If they possess also a subjective side, although only in the shape of potential feeling, it does not and it cannot appear.
#Sensations not elementary.#
Professor Mach calls green, hard, etc., which in a certain relation are our sensations, "the elements of the world." These processes characterised as "green," "hard," etc., are in my opinion too special and at the same time too complicated to be considered elementary. I grant that they are elements of mind, because if further analysed, they cease to be mental phenomena. But they are not elementsper se, not elements of the world. It remains doubtful to me whether Professor Mach understands by his term "sensation" onlyKκ andLλ or the whole relationsA Kκ, andB Lλ. Taking it that he representsA B C… as both elements of the world and sensations, it almost appears certain to me that his term "sensation" stands for the whole processA Kκ, and that he considers the scientific analysis of this process intoAthe outside thing, intoKthe nerve-vibration corresponding in form to the outside thing, and κ the feeling that takes place in experiencing the sense-impressionA K, as an artificial procedure that serves no other purpose than that of familiarising us with certain groups of elements and their connections. The processesA Kκ,B Lλ, in that case would be considered by Professor Mach as the actual facts, while theAandB, theKandL, the κ and λ represent mere abstract representations without real existence, invented by scientists in order to describe the realitiesA Kκ,B Lλ, etc., with the greatest exactness as well as economy of thought. In their separate abstractness they are the tools of science only and we must not take them for more than they are worth.
#Thoughts as mental implements.#
If this be so, I understand Professor Mach very well and I agree with him when he looks upon allMandNwith their respective μ and ν as being "noumena,Gedankendinge, things of thought." They are mental tools. Sense-impressions are realities, but mental representations are implements; they are auxiliaries for dealing with realities; they are "the augers and saws" employed in the different fields of cognition.
#Persistence of the elements of mind.#
Professor Mach says in his article "The Analysis of the Sensations": "WhenI(the ego) cease to perceive the sensation green, when I die, then the elements no longer occur in their customary, common way of association. That is all. Only an ideal mental economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist." The term sensations, it appears to me, can in this passage be interpreted neither asKκ only, nor as the whole relationsA Kκ, but as anyA B C… relations; and since Professor Mach has not excluded from them the element of feeling, I should have to represent them byAα,Bβ,Cγ…. Sensations as I understand the term (viz.A Kκ,B Lλ), are elements of mind; if they are further analysed they cease to be mental states. Says Professor Mach: "If I close my eye (K) withdraw my feeling hand (L),A B C… disappear. In this dependenceA B C… are called sensations." Should we not rather say, they cease to be sensations, if this dependence ceases? Accordingly, sensations and sense-impressions are for this and for other reasons not indecomposable, not ultimate atoms. The elements of mind can be further analysed into the elements of the elements of mind. The elements of mind do not persist; but the ultimate elements of the elements of mind, whatever they are, do (or at least may) persist.
When speaking of the elements of the elements of mind we cease to deal with objects of actual experience as much as a physicist or chemist does who speaks about atoms. Nevertheless the analysis is as legitimate in our case as it is in the chemist's. If in the above quoted passage I am allowed to replace Professor Mach's term "sensations" by elements of sense-impressions, I should not hesitate unreservedly to accept his idea. These elements of sensations would be all kinds of natural processes, all kinds of motion. They would be physical actions which are not mere motions but also and at the same time elements of feeling.
#Ideas as contrivances for comprehension.#
It is true that abstract concepts, and especially scientific terms and theories, are mere contrivances to understand the connections among, and the qualities of, real things. Ideas are not the real things, but their representations, and some ideas are not even representations; they are solely of an auxiliary nature and comparable to tools. They are used as working hypotheses wherever the real state of things is in part hidden from us, until we have found the actual connections. As soon as the actual connections are found we can and must lay down our tools.
In a certain sense all words and concepts are tools for dealing with the realities they represent. But some words are tools in a special sense. They have been invented for acquiring a proper representation.
#The dignity of mental tools.#
Professor Mach says: "The implement is not of the same dignity or reality asA B C…." It appears to me that these implements (if they are of the right kind) have almost a higher dignity (although not reality) than the material to which they are applied. My respect for tools is very great, for tools are the most important factors, perhaps the decisive factors, in the evolution of man. The usage of tools has matured, nay created the human mind, and words,—scientific and abstract terms and theories not excluded,—are the most important and most sacred tools of all.
Some ideas, it is true, have to be laid aside like tools that are no longer wanted; but there are other ideas which we cannot lay aside, because they have more value than the ideas of a mere working hypothesis. Some ideas are indispensable and will remain indispensable; we shall always have to employ them in order to represent in our mind the connection between certain facts. If we see a train pass into a tunnel and emerge from it at the other end, we will connect in our mind these two sensations by the thought of the train's passage from one end to the other. This idea is not a sensation; it is a noumenon. Shall it therefore be called amerenoumenon, a tool that has to be discarded as soon as we are accustomed to expect a train to emerge from the one end of a tunnel soon after it has disappeared into it at the other end?
#Noumena legitimate, if representing realities.#
There are scientific concepts which, for some reason or other, can never become objects of direct observation; they can never become sensations. Nevertheless we must think them together with certain sensations as indispensable connecting events taking place behind the stage and hidden from our eyes. Our conception of a train hidden from sight in a tunnel, it is true, is a noumenon, but it is a legitimate noumenon, it represents a reality. So also many scientific ideas, although undoubtedly things of thought, are legitimate noumena. If they contain and in so far as they do contain nothing but formulated features of reality or inevitable conclusions from verified and verifiable experiences, these things of thought represent something real, which means that if we were in possession of microscopes of sufficient power, or if we could look behind the veil that hides them from our sight, we should see them, just as we should see the train if the rock through which the tunnel leads were transparent.
Concerning the origin of feeling Professor Mach says: "The question how feeling arises out of the physical element has for me no significance." I agree that we cannot ask how feeling arises out of the physical element. But feeling being a fleeting phenomenon, to propose the problem of the origin of feelinghasa significance.
#Physical elements with and without feeling.#
Some physical elements—namely, those of our own body—are indubitably possessed of the subjective phenomena of feeling. And as to certain other physical elements, observable in our fellow creatures, that is in men and animals, no one would think of denying their presence either. But there are physical elements which we regard as bare of all feeling. The wind that blows, and the avalanche that plunges into the valley are not supposed to be feelings. Yet the energy of the wind and the energy of the avalanche may be utilised and ultimately stored up in food. The food may be changed into human energy and then the element of feeling appears as if called forth out of the void. We agree that feeling has not been changed from motion. But if feeling was not motion before, what was it? Feeling cannot be a creation from nothing. Consequently it must in its elements have existed before. Feeling, namely actual feeling, must be regarded as a special mode of action of the elements of feeling. If all that which we can observe in motion, all that which the term motion comprises, constituting the objective changes taking place in nature, contains nothing of feeling or of the elements of feeling, we must yet attach to every motion the presence of this element of feeling.
#Elements of feeling not observable.#
That the potential subjectivity of the physical elements, namely the elements of feeling, cannot be seen; as motions can be seen and objectively observed, is not a reason that militates against this view; for it is the nature of all subjective states to be felt only by the feeling subject. If all feelings are objectively unobservable except by their correspondent motions, the elements of feeling can form no exception to the general rule.
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#The animation of all nature.#
Professor Mach says: "Some years ago I should have agreedin totowith the passages in which Dr. Carus speaks of the animation of all nature and of the feeling that accompanies every motion."
#Nature not all feeling.#
Let me here emphasise that I have termed nature "alive" not in the sense that every motion is supposed to be accompanied with sensation, nor with any kind of feeling, but with an element of feeling only. I am aware that the term element of feeling may be easily misunderstood, and it seems advisable to guard against such misconceptions. Actual feeling I suppose originates from the elements of feeling similarly as an electric current originates under certain special conditions. Sulphuric acid dissolves zinc and sets energy free which appears in the copper wire as electricity. It is an instance of the transformation of potential energy into kinetic energy.
#The term "elements of feeling" inappropriate.#
To use the expression "elements of feeling" is no more or less allowable than to speak of the stored up energy from which electricity is produced, as elements of electricity. The latter expression is inappropriate, because we are in possession of better terms, because our range of experience in the subject is wider. But suppose that among all molar and molecular motions we were only acquainted with electricity and knew nothing of potential energy, could we not for want of a better word form the term "elements of electricity"?
#What the elements of feeling are not.#
The elements of feeling should not be supposed to be feelings on a very small scale. The elements of feeling may be and for aught we know are as much unlike actual feelings as mechanical motion, or chemical dissolution is unlike electricity. The essential features of feeling may be, and I believe they are, produced through the form in which their elements co-operate. Similarly the different pieces of a clock and the atoms of which it consists contain nothing of the clock; and if we should call the heaviness of a weight, the swinging property of the pendulum, the tension of the spring, etc., etc., elements of chronometry, it might appear ridiculous, because we know so many other processes, viz. all different ways of performing work, for which these qualities can be used. The action of a spring, of a suspended weight, of a mere pendulum are not by themselves elements of chronometry; they become a chronometrical arrangement only by their proper combination with a dial and hands attached, and by being correctly regulated in adaptation to temperature and many other conditions.
* * * * *
It is not plausible that the earth, when in its gaseous state, was the habitation of any feeling beings, and it is actually impossible that it harbored feeling beings as they exist now. Feeling accordingly must have originated, and the question how feeling originates is a problem that suggests itself naturally to the psychologist as well as the philosopher.
#Vital energy a unique form of energy.#
The kinetic energy liberated in our actions, in brain-activity as well as muscular motions, is produced from the potential energy stored up in our tissues. This energy,quaenergy, is the same energy which we meet everywhere in nature. All kinds of energy are interconvertible. Yet we must bear in mind that the vital energy displayed in animal organisms is a special and indeed a unique form of energy. It is as different from other forms of energy as is, for instance, electricity from molar motion.
#Physiology and psychology not applied mechanics.#
In former times physics and chemistry were considered as applied mechanics, and physiology as applied chemistry. This position, however, is wrong and had to be abandoned. Mechanical, chemical, physiological, and psychical processes exhibit radically different conditions. The student of mechanics, the chemist, the physiologist, the psychologist, each one of them attempts to solve a different problem. They accordingly deal with different sets of abstractions. The processes which constitute the subject-matter of the physiologist's and psychologist's work are different from those of the mechanical philosopher and of the chemist. The abstraction of the so-called purely mechanical excludes such processes as chemical combinations; it is limited to molar mechanics only. The term molecular mechanics is an attempt at widening the domain of mechanics. But the terms of neither molecular nor molar mechanics contain anything of the properly physiological nature observed in vegetal and animal life. The latter is a very complicated process which may briefly be described as assimilation of living forms. The laws of molar and molecular motions are not annulled, yet they are superseded; they remain, yet some additional important traits appear. Different conditions and complications show different features and the characteristics of organised life are not the molar or molecular mechanics of their motions but their properly physiological features.
Mechanical laws accordingly cannot explain physiological action, and still less have they anything in common with ideas, or thoughts, or feelings. Accordingly, the attempt to apply mechanics to any other than mechanical considerations isprima facieto be rejected. We must never forget that all our scientific inquiries deal with certain sides of reality only.
#The higher view of the whole.#
The abstractions of the mechanical philosopher as well as those of the physiologist and psychologist are one-sided aspects only of reality. Yet it is quite legitimate to take a higher standpoint in order to classify our notions so that the general views comprise the special views and to determine the relations among the several in their kind most general views. In this way we can shape our entire knowledge into an harmonious world-conception representing the whole as a whole. This I tried to do when, following the precedent of Fechner and Clifford, I proposed the problem of the origin of actual feelings from the non-feeling elements-of-feeling, the former depending upon a special combination or form of action of the latter, and the latter being a universal feature of reality.
#The additional feature in a stone's fall.#
When we observe some very simple process in nature, e. g. the fall of a stone, we represent it as a motion. We formulate the operation of the stone's fall into a law, describing its mode of action as it holds good in all cases of the same kind. But the motion observable and representable in our mind is not all that takes place. There must be some additional feature which in a further development will appear as man's consciousness.
To regard the fall of a stone as only a very simple instance of essentially the same process that takes place when a man does an act, i. e. performs a motion accompanied with consciousness, appears at first sight strange or even absurd. But we cannot escape the assumption that in a certain respect it is the same thing. We are inevitably driven to adopt this monistic conception of things by inexorable logical arguments; and we are supported in it by the observation of natural processes.
#Human activity and energy.#
Human action develops by degrees out of other natural processes, and we have sufficient evidence to believe that humanity with its civilisation, science, art, and all its ideals—so far as the energy alone, spent in human activity, is considered—is but a differentiation of natural forces that has come to pass on the cooled off surface of the earth under the influence of solar heat. Man is transformed solar heat. All the forces animating the planetary system are differentiations from the heat of which our solar system was possessed when in a nebular state. And what is the heat of which nebular masses are possessed? It is the motion of celestial bodies, of comets, or of so called world-dust, changed by collision into molecular motion.
But in human activity there is some additional element, that of purely subjective awareness, which is neither energy in itself nor can have been transformed from energy; it must have existed potentially. Accordingly we assume that also in the more primitive processes of nature there is some additional element which in its full development appears as feeling and reaches its highest stage known to us, in the consciousness of man.
#Organised life and feeling.#
There is a very original view concerning the origin of life advocated in this number ofThe Monistby Dr. George M. Gould in his article on "Immortality."[84] The problem of the origin of life (namely, of organised life) is so closely connected with the problem of the origin of feeling, that the one cannot be solved without solving the other. Feeling such as we are familiar with is an exclusive property of organised life and a few incidental remarks on Dr. Gould's proposition will therefore not be out of place.
[84] It cannot be denied that many ideas set forth by Dr. Gould in his presentation of the problem of immortality contain a deep truth. The brilliant and forcible language in which the author treats his subject is admirable. But the passages on the externality of life present a conception which stands in direct opposition to the views that have been editorially upheld inThe Open Courtas well as theMonist.
#Dr. Gould's dualism.#
In introducing here the views of Dr. Gould in a discussion with Professor Mach, I am fully aware of the great difference that obtains between the two. While Professor Mach's thought moves in an outspoken monistic direction, Dr. Gould presents a bold dualism, attributing to all life, to the lichen on the withered rock no less than to the human soul, an extramundane origin. Why should we not then rather adopt the more consistent theological supernaturalism which attributes to inorganic nature also an extramundane origin, thus to realise by a short cut a complete unitary world-conception?
Dr. Gould's proposition is contained in the following:
"Certain confused and confusion-breeding philosophers, in the interests of a theoretical monism or pantheism pretend to find, or to believe, that the organic is born out of the inorganic, that the physical world shows evidence of design, that life and mentality were implicate and latent in pre-existent matter. Yet they will accept the evidence against spontaneous generation derived from the fact that if you kill all organic life by intense heat and then exclude life from without you will never find life to arise. But it is plain that in the condensation of the dust of space into suns and planets, all organic life was killed in the hottest of all conceivable heat. But as the planets cool, life appears. It must have come from without, and must therefore be a universal self-existent power."
#What can externality of life mean?#
The idea that "life must have come from without" is not quite clear. Does Dr. Gould mean "from without our planetary system, out of other planetary systems"? If so, the same objection holds good: In other planetary systems also when they were in a nebular state "all organic[85] life was killed in the hottest of all conceivable heat." Shall we perhaps consider the cold interstellar regions as the place whence life does come? And if "from without" means "from without the whole universe," we should be driven back to the old supernaturalistic dualism which regards nature as dead and life as a foreign element that has been blown into the nostrils of material forms so as to animate them.
[85] Dr. Gould does not seem to make a distinction between "organic" and "organised." We should here prefer the expression "organised life." Carbon is an "organic substance" but not an "organised substance." A cell and its protoplasm, however, are "organised substance."
#A modern thinker on the externality of life.#
Dr. Gould proposes his theory of the external origin of life, with great confidence, in the name of modern science. Must we add that modern science is very far from sustaining his view? Professor Clifford touches the subject of spontaneous generation in his article "Virchow on the Teaching of Science." He says:
"Why do the experiments all 'go against' spontaneous generation? What the experiments really prove is that the coincidence which would form aBacterium—already a definite structure reproducing its like—does not occur in a test-tube during the periods yet observed…. The experiments have nothing whatever to say to the production of enormously simpler forms, in the vast range of the ocean, during the ages of the earth's existence…. We know from physical reasons that the earth was once in a liquid state from excessive heat. Then there could have been no living matter upon it. Now there is. Consequently non-living matter has been turned into living mattersomehow. We can only get out of spontaneous generation by the supposition made by Sir W. Thompson, in jest or earnest, that some piece of living matter came to the earth from outside, perhaps with a meteorite. I wish to treat all hypotheses with respect, and to have no preferences which are not entirely founded on reason; and yet whenever I contemplate this
simpler protoplasmic shapeWhich came down in a fire-escape,
an internal monitor, of which I can give no rational account, invariably whispers 'Fiddlesticks!'"
#Difficulties of Dr. Gould's position.#
Suppose, however, Dr. Gould's assumption were accepted, suppose that life had come from without, matter were of itself lifeless, and life, the "self-existent power," had ensouled some dead organic substances so as to cause their organisation, would we be any wiser through this hypothesis? The assumption instead of diminishing the difficulties in the problem of life, would increase them. New questions arise: What must this "self-existent power" be conceived to be? Does it exist without a physical basis (to use Professor Huxley's phrase)? How does it differ from energy? Is not all power energy of some kind? And are not all kinds of energy interconvertible? Has this self-existent power the faculty of changing other energy into itself, into life, or is it only supposed to utilise it? In the latter case it would be aDing an sich, not in but behind the functions of organisms; and in both cases it would form an exception to the law of the conservation of energy, for "the self-existent power of life" would be an ever-increasing power. One life-germ only may have come from spheres unknown into the universe, and by utilising the mechanical energy of the material world has animated at least our earth, and may animate in a similar way all the globes in the milky way. That life-germ, however,—if it was anything like a real life-germ, such as our naturalists know of,—must have consisted of organic substance. What a strange coincidence, that outside of the world also organic substances are found! Life-germs are not simple substance, but highly complex organisms. Accordingly, the question presents itself, How has this life-germ been formed? What conditions in another world radically different from ours have moulded it and combined its parts into this special life-germ so extraordinarily adaptable to our material universe? Or must we suppose that the first life-germ was formed out of the cosmic substance of our universe by a non-material spark of life, (whatever life may mean,) that had dropped in somehow into the material world from without?
If life is a self-existent power, why does it always appear dependent upon and vary with the organisation, which it is supposed to have formed? Why has life never been observed in its self-existence? So far as we have ever been able to observe life, it is matter organised and organising more matter. All the difficulties disappear if we say, Life does not produce organisation, it is organisation.
* * * * *
#Organisms nor aggregates of cells.#
Dr. Gould, in appealing to the latest scientific researches as proving "the dependence of all organisation upon life," especially mentions his friend Dr. Edmund Montgomery and also Professor Frommen's article "Zelle" (Eulenburg's "Realencyclopädie der gesammten Heilkunde," 1890). Now it is true, as Dr. Gould says, that "the body of animals is not an aggregate of cells." It is as little a mere aggregate of cells as a watch is a mere aggregate of metal, or as a hexagon a mere aggregate of lines. The body of animals is an organism; which means, it is an interacting whole of a special form built of irritable substance. A highly complex organism is not and cannot be considered as a compound of its diverse organs, but as a differentiation. Its unity is preserved in the differentiation, yet this unity does not exist outside of or apart from the differentiated parts.
#Disparity of life and matter.#
I fully assent to Professor Huxley's proposition, approvingly quoted by Dr. Gould, that "materialism is the most baseless of all dogmas." I also believe in theomne vivum ex vivo; but I do not consider it with Dr. Gould as an axiom, nor can I accept the consequence which Dr. Gould derives from it, "that life [viz. organised life] is more certain and enduring than matter, soul than sense." It is true that "matter and life" are "as far apart as heaven and earth." Farther indeed, for they are two abstractions of an entirely disparate character. No passage through spatial distance, be it ever so large, could bring both concepts together. They are and remain as different, as is for instance the idea expressed in a sentence from the ink with which it is written. Ideas contain no ink and ink contains no ideas. Yet this does not prove that ideas exist by themselves in a ghostlike abstractness apart not only from ink, but also from feeling brain-substance. Nor does the disparity of the terms life and matter prove the abstract or independent existence of life outside of matter.
If life for some such reasons as hold good only in so far as they refute the old-style materialism, could or should be considered as being some self-existent power having come into the world "to bite" at matter, we might also consider the hexagon as a something that came into the mathematical world from without. The hexagon cannot be explained as a mere aggregate of lines, accordingly hexagoneity must be a self-existent power; it must have come from without, utilising lines for its hexagonic existence.
Organised life must have originated from non-organised elements by organisation, and thus a new sphere is created which introduces new conditions. The laws of organised life are not purely mechanical laws, nor physical laws, nor chemical laws, but they are a peculiar kind of laws; just as different as chemical laws are from purely mechanical laws (the latter not including such phenomena as are generally called chemical affinity).
#Natural laws and monism.#
Natural laws are formulas describing facts as they take place under certain conditions. Accordingly if special conditions arise we shall have a special set of laws. Monism assumes that all the laws of nature agree among themselves; there is no contradiction among them possible. Yet there may be an infinite variety of applications. The processes of organised life are not mere mechanical processes. The abstractions which we comprise under our mechanical terms do not cover certain features of vital activity and cannot explain them. Physiology is not merely applied physics; it is a province of natural processes that has conditions of its own and the physiological conditions are different from physical conditions. This however does not overthrow monism. We believe none the less in the unity of all natural laws and trust that if the constitution of the cosmos were transparent in its minutest details to our inquiring mind, we should see the same law operating in all the different provinces; we should see in all instances a difference of conditions and consequent thereupon a difference of results that can be formulated in different natural laws, among which there is none contradictory to any other.