The most rational thing to do is to suspect that there may be a third possibility, an alternative supposition which we have not considered. Now thereisan alternative supposition—a supposition moreover which has been frequently made in the history of philosophy, and which is freer from logical objections than either of the views we have ourselves discussed. It may be called thetheory of polyzoism or multiple monadism; and it conceives the matter thus:
Every brain-cell has its own individual consciousness, which no other cell knows anything about, all individual consciousnesses being 'ejective' to each other. There is, however, among the cells one central or pontifical one to whichourconsciousness is attached. But the events of all the other cells physically influence this arch-cell; and through producing their joint effects on it, these other cells may be said to 'combine.' The arch-cell is, in fact, one of those 'external media' without which we saw that no fusion or integration of a number of things can occur. The physical modifications of the arch-cell thus form a sequence of results in the production whereof every other cell has a share, so that, as one might say, every other cell is represented therein. And similarly, the conscious correlates to these physical modifications form a sequence of thoughts or feelings, each one of which is, as to its substantive being, an integral and uncompounded psychic thing, but each one of which may (in the exercise of itscognitivefunction) beaware ofthingsmany and complicated in proportion to the number of other cells that have helped to modify the central cell.
By a conception of this sort, one incurs neither of theinternal contradictions which we found to beset the other two theories. One has no unintelligible self-combining of psychic units to account for on the one hand; and on the other hand, one need not treat as the physical counterpart of the stream of consciousness under observation, a 'total brain-activity' which is non-existent as a genuinely physical fact. But, to offset these advantages, one has physiological difficulties and improbabilities. There is no cell or group of cells in the brain of such anatomical or functional pre-eminence as to appear to be the keystone or centre of gravity of the whole system. And even if there were such a cell, the theory of multiple monadism would, in strictness of thought, have no right to stop at it and treat it as a unit. The cell is no more a unit, materially considered, than the total brain is a unit. It is a compound of molecules, just as the brain is a compound of cells and fibres. And the molecules, according to the prevalent physical theories, are in turn compounds of atoms. The theory in question, therefore, if radically carried out, must set up for its elementary and irreducible psycho-physic couple, not the cell and its consciousness, but the primordial and eternal atom and its consciousness. We are back at Leibnitzian monadism, and therewith leave physiology behind us and dive into regions inaccessible to experience and verification; and our doctrine, although not self-contradictory, becomes so remote and unreal as to be almost as bad as if it were. Speculative minds alone will take an interest in it; and metaphysics, not psychology, will be responsible for its career. That the career may be a successful one must be admitted as a possibility—a theory which Leibnitz, Herbart, and Lotze have taken under their protection must have some sort of a destiny.
But is this my last word? By no means. Many readers have certainly been saying to themselves for the last few pages: "Why on earth doesn't the poor man saythe Souland have done with it?" Other readers, of anti-spiritualistic training and prepossessions, advanced thinkers, or popular evolutionists, will perhaps be a little surprisedto find this much-despised word now sprung upon them at the end of so physiological a train of thought. But the plain fact is that all the arguments for a 'pontifical cell' or an 'arch-monad' are also arguments for that well-known spiritual agent in which scholastic psychology and common-sense have always believed. And my only reason for beating the bushes so, and not bringing it in earlier as a possible solution of our difficulties, has been that by this procedure I might perhaps force some of these materialistic minds to feel the more strongly the logical respectability of the spiritualistic position. The fact is that one cannot afford to despise any of these great traditional objects of belief. Whether we realize it or not, there is always a great drift of reasons, positive and negative, towing us in their direction. If there be such entities as Souls in the universe, they may possibly be affected by the manifold occurrences that go on in the nervous centres. To the state of the entire brain at a given moment they may respond by inward modifications of their own. These changes of state may be pulses of consciousness, cognitive of objects few or many, simple or complex. The soul would be thus a medium upon which (to use our earlier phraseology) the manifold brain-processescombine their effects. Not needing to consider it as the 'inner aspect' of any arch-molecule or brain-cell, we escape that physiological improbability; and as its pulses of consciousness are unitary and integral affairs from the outset, we escape the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then 'fuse together' by themselves. The separateness is in the brain-world, on this theory, and the unity in the soul-world; and the only trouble that remains to haunt us is the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort of world or existent thing can affect or influence another at all. This trouble, however, since it also exists inside of both worlds, and involves neither physical improbability nor logical contradiction, is relatively small.
I confess, therefore, that to posit a soul influenced in some mysterious way by the brain-states and responding to them by conscious affections of its own, seems to me the line of least logical resistance, so far as we yet have attained.
If it does not strictlyexplainanything, it is at any rate less positively objectionable than either mind-stuff or a material-monad creed.The barephenomenon,however, theimmediately knownthing which on the mental side is in apposition with the entire brain-process is the state of consciousness and not the soul itself.Many of the stanchest believers in the soul admit that we know it only as an inference from experiencing itsstates. InChapter X, accordingly, we must return to its consideration again, andask ourselves whether, after all, the ascertainment of a blank unmediated correspondence, term for term, of the succession of states of consciousness with the succession of total brain-processes, be not the simplest psycho-physic formula, and the last word of a psychology which contents itself with verifiable laws, and seeks only to be clear, and to avoid unsafe hypotheses.Such a mere admission of the empirical parallelism will there appear the wisest course. By keeping to it, our psychology will remain positivistic and non-metaphysical; and although this is certainly only a provisional halting-place, and things must some day be more thoroughly thought out, we shall abide there in this book, and just as we have rejected mind-dust, we shall take no account of the soul. The spiritualistic reader may nevertheless believe in the soul if he will; whilst the positivistic one who wishes to give a tinge of mystery to the expression of his positivism can continue to say that nature in her unfathomable designs has mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being, but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
[160]Psychol. § 62.
[160]Psychol. § 62.
[161]Ibid.§ 272.
[161]Ibid.§ 272.
[162]Fragments of Science, 5th ed., p. 420.
[162]Fragments of Science, 5th ed., p. 420.
[163]Belfast Address, 'Nature,' August 20, 1874, p. 318. I cannot help remarking that the disparity between motions and feelings on which these authors lay so much stress, is somewhat less absolute than at first sight it seems. There are categories common to the two worlds. Not only temporal succession (as Helmholtz admits, Physiol. Optik, p. 445), but such attributes as intensity, volume, simplicity or complication, smooth or impeded change, rest or agitation, are habitually predicated of both physical facts and mental facts. Where such analogies obtain, the things do have something in common.
[163]Belfast Address, 'Nature,' August 20, 1874, p. 318. I cannot help remarking that the disparity between motions and feelings on which these authors lay so much stress, is somewhat less absolute than at first sight it seems. There are categories common to the two worlds. Not only temporal succession (as Helmholtz admits, Physiol. Optik, p. 445), but such attributes as intensity, volume, simplicity or complication, smooth or impeded change, rest or agitation, are habitually predicated of both physical facts and mental facts. Where such analogies obtain, the things do have something in common.
[164]Psychology, § 131
[164]Psychology, § 131
[165]'Nature,' as above, 317-8.
[165]'Nature,' as above, 317-8.
[166]'Nascent' is Mr. Spencer's great word. In showing how at a certain point consciousness must appear upon the evolving scene this author fairly outdoes himself in vagueness."In its higher forms, Instinct is probably accompanied by a rudimentary consciousness. There cannot be co-ordination of many stimuli without some ganglion through which they are all brought into relation. In the process of bringing them into relation, this ganglion must be subject to the influence of each—must undergo many changes. And the quick succession of changes in a ganglion, implying as it does perpetual experiences of differences and likenesses, constitutes theraw materialof consciousness. Theimplicationis that as fast as Instinct is developed, some kind of consciousness becomes nascent." (Psychology, § 195.)The words 'raw material' and 'implication' which I have italicized are the words which do theevolving. They are supposed to have all the rigor which the 'synthetic philosophy' requires. In the following passage, when 'impressions' pass through a common 'centre of communication' in succession (much as people might pass into a theatre through a turnstile) consciousness, non-existent until then, is supposed to result:"Separate impressions are received by the senses—by different parts of the body. If they go no further than the places at which they are received, they are useless. Or if only some of them are brought into relation with one another, they are useless. That an effectual adjustment may be made, they must be all brought into relation with one another. But this implies some centre of communication common to them all, through which they severally pass; and as they cannot pass through it simultaneously, they must pass through it in succession. So that as the external phenomena responded to become greater in number and more complicated in kind, the variety and rapidity of the changes to which this common centre of communication is subject must increase—there must result an unbroken series of these changes-there must arise a consciousness."Hence the progress of the correspondence between the organism and its environment necessitates a gradual reduction of the sensorial changes to a succession; and by so doingevolves a distinct consciousness—a consciousness that becomes higher as the succession becomes more rapid and the correspondence more complete." (Ibid.§ 179.)It is true that in the Fortnightly Review (vol. xiv, p. 716) Mr. Spencer denies that he means by this passage to tell us anything about the origin of consciousness at all. It resembles, however, too many other places in his Psychology (e.g. §§ 43, 110, 244) not to be taken as a serious attempt to explain how consciousness must at a certain point be 'evolved.' That, when a critic calls his attention to the inanity of his words, Mr. Spencer should say he never meant anything particular by them, is simply an example of the scandalous vagueness with which this sort of 'chromo-philosophy' is carried on.
[166]'Nascent' is Mr. Spencer's great word. In showing how at a certain point consciousness must appear upon the evolving scene this author fairly outdoes himself in vagueness.
"In its higher forms, Instinct is probably accompanied by a rudimentary consciousness. There cannot be co-ordination of many stimuli without some ganglion through which they are all brought into relation. In the process of bringing them into relation, this ganglion must be subject to the influence of each—must undergo many changes. And the quick succession of changes in a ganglion, implying as it does perpetual experiences of differences and likenesses, constitutes theraw materialof consciousness. Theimplicationis that as fast as Instinct is developed, some kind of consciousness becomes nascent." (Psychology, § 195.)
The words 'raw material' and 'implication' which I have italicized are the words which do theevolving. They are supposed to have all the rigor which the 'synthetic philosophy' requires. In the following passage, when 'impressions' pass through a common 'centre of communication' in succession (much as people might pass into a theatre through a turnstile) consciousness, non-existent until then, is supposed to result:
"Separate impressions are received by the senses—by different parts of the body. If they go no further than the places at which they are received, they are useless. Or if only some of them are brought into relation with one another, they are useless. That an effectual adjustment may be made, they must be all brought into relation with one another. But this implies some centre of communication common to them all, through which they severally pass; and as they cannot pass through it simultaneously, they must pass through it in succession. So that as the external phenomena responded to become greater in number and more complicated in kind, the variety and rapidity of the changes to which this common centre of communication is subject must increase—there must result an unbroken series of these changes-there must arise a consciousness.
"Hence the progress of the correspondence between the organism and its environment necessitates a gradual reduction of the sensorial changes to a succession; and by so doingevolves a distinct consciousness—a consciousness that becomes higher as the succession becomes more rapid and the correspondence more complete." (Ibid.§ 179.)
It is true that in the Fortnightly Review (vol. xiv, p. 716) Mr. Spencer denies that he means by this passage to tell us anything about the origin of consciousness at all. It resembles, however, too many other places in his Psychology (e.g. §§ 43, 110, 244) not to be taken as a serious attempt to explain how consciousness must at a certain point be 'evolved.' That, when a critic calls his attention to the inanity of his words, Mr. Spencer should say he never meant anything particular by them, is simply an example of the scandalous vagueness with which this sort of 'chromo-philosophy' is carried on.
[167]His own words are: "Mistakes are made in the sense that he admits having been touched, when in reality it was radiant heat that affected his skin. In our own before-mentioned experiments there was never any deception on the entire palmar side of the hand or on the face. On the back of the hand in one case in a series of 60 stimulations 4 mistakes occurred, in another case 2 mistakes in 45 stimulations. On the extensor side of the upper arm 3 deceptions out of 48 stimulations were noticed, and in the case of another individual, 1 out of 31. In one case over the spine 3 deceptions in a series of 11 excitations were observed; in another, 4 out of 19. On the lumbar spine 6 deceptions came among 29 stimulations, and again 4 out of 7. There is certainly not yet enough material on which to rest a calculation of probabilities, but any one can easily convince himself that on the back there is no question of even a moderately accurate discrimination between warmth and a light pressure so far as but small portions of skin come into play. It has been as yet impossible to make corresponding experiments with regard to sensibility to cold." (Lehrb. d. Anat. u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane (1862), p. 29.)
[167]His own words are: "Mistakes are made in the sense that he admits having been touched, when in reality it was radiant heat that affected his skin. In our own before-mentioned experiments there was never any deception on the entire palmar side of the hand or on the face. On the back of the hand in one case in a series of 60 stimulations 4 mistakes occurred, in another case 2 mistakes in 45 stimulations. On the extensor side of the upper arm 3 deceptions out of 48 stimulations were noticed, and in the case of another individual, 1 out of 31. In one case over the spine 3 deceptions in a series of 11 excitations were observed; in another, 4 out of 19. On the lumbar spine 6 deceptions came among 29 stimulations, and again 4 out of 7. There is certainly not yet enough material on which to rest a calculation of probabilities, but any one can easily convince himself that on the back there is no question of even a moderately accurate discrimination between warmth and a light pressure so far as but small portions of skin come into play. It has been as yet impossible to make corresponding experiments with regard to sensibility to cold." (Lehrb. d. Anat. u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane (1862), p. 29.)
[168]Principles of Psychology, § 60.
[168]Principles of Psychology, § 60.
[169]Oddly enough, Mr. Spencer seems quite unaware of thegeneralfunction of the theory of elementary units of mind-stuff in the evolutionary philosophy. We have seen it to be absolutely indispensable, if that philosophy is to work, to postulate consciousness in the nebula,—-the simplest way being, of course, to suppose every atom animated. Mr. Spencer, however, will have it (e.g. First Principles, § 71) that consciousness is only the occasional result of the 'transformation' of a certain amount of 'physical force' to which it is 'equivalent.' Presumably a brain must already be there before any such 'transformation' can take place; and so the argument quoted in the text stands as a mere local detail, without general bearings.
[169]Oddly enough, Mr. Spencer seems quite unaware of thegeneralfunction of the theory of elementary units of mind-stuff in the evolutionary philosophy. We have seen it to be absolutely indispensable, if that philosophy is to work, to postulate consciousness in the nebula,—-the simplest way being, of course, to suppose every atom animated. Mr. Spencer, however, will have it (e.g. First Principles, § 71) that consciousness is only the occasional result of the 'transformation' of a certain amount of 'physical force' to which it is 'equivalent.' Presumably a brain must already be there before any such 'transformation' can take place; and so the argument quoted in the text stands as a mere local detail, without general bearings.
[170]The compounding of colors may be dealt with in an identical way. Helmholtz has shown that if green light and red light fall simultaneously on the retina, we see the color yellow. The mind-stuff theory would interpret this as a ease where the feeling green and the feeling red 'combine' into thetertium quidof feeling, yellow. What really occurs is no doubt that a third kind of nerve-process is set up when the combined lights impinge on the retina,—not simply the process of red plus the process of green, but something quite different from both or either. Of course, then, thereareno feelings, either of red or of green, present to the mind at all; but the feeling of yellow whichisthere, answers as directly to the nerve-process which momentarily then exists, as the feelings of green and red would answer to their respective nerve-processes did the latter happen to be taking place.
[170]The compounding of colors may be dealt with in an identical way. Helmholtz has shown that if green light and red light fall simultaneously on the retina, we see the color yellow. The mind-stuff theory would interpret this as a ease where the feeling green and the feeling red 'combine' into thetertium quidof feeling, yellow. What really occurs is no doubt that a third kind of nerve-process is set up when the combined lights impinge on the retina,—not simply the process of red plus the process of green, but something quite different from both or either. Of course, then, thereareno feelings, either of red or of green, present to the mind at all; but the feeling of yellow whichisthere, answers as directly to the nerve-process which momentarily then exists, as the feelings of green and red would answer to their respective nerve-processes did the latter happen to be taking place.
[171]Cf. Mill's Logic, book vi, chap. iv, § 3.
[171]Cf. Mill's Logic, book vi, chap. iv, § 3.
[172]I find in my students an almost invincible tendency to think that we can immediately perceive that feelings do combine. "What!" they say, "is not the taste of lemonade composed of that of lemonplusthat of sugar?" This is taking the combining of objects for that of feelings. The physical lemonade contains both the lemon and the sugar, but its taste does not contain their tastes, for if there are any two things which are certainlynotpresent in the taste of lemonade, those are the lemon-sour on the one hand and the sugar-sweet on the other. These tastes are absent utterly. The entirely new taste which is presentresembles, it is true, both those tastes; but inChapter XIIIwe shall see that resemblance can not always be held to involve partial identity.
[172]I find in my students an almost invincible tendency to think that we can immediately perceive that feelings do combine. "What!" they say, "is not the taste of lemonade composed of that of lemonplusthat of sugar?" This is taking the combining of objects for that of feelings. The physical lemonade contains both the lemon and the sugar, but its taste does not contain their tastes, for if there are any two things which are certainlynotpresent in the taste of lemonade, those are the lemon-sour on the one hand and the sugar-sweet on the other. These tastes are absent utterly. The entirely new taste which is presentresembles, it is true, both those tastes; but inChapter XIIIwe shall see that resemblance can not always be held to involve partial identity.
[173]E. Montgomery, in 'Mind,' v, 18-19. See alsopp. 24-5.
[173]E. Montgomery, in 'Mind,' v, 18-19. See alsopp. 24-5.
[174]J. Royce, 'Mind,' vi, p. 376. Lotze has set forth the truth of this law more clearly and copiously than any other writer. Unfortunately he is too lengthy to quote. See his Microcosmus, bk. ii, ch. i, § 5; Metaphysik, §§ 242, 260; Outlines of Metaphysics, part ii, chap. i, §§ 3, 4, 5. Compare also Reid's Intellectual Powers, essay v, chap. iii,ad fin.; Bowne's Metaphysics, pp. 361-76; St. J. Mivart: Nature and Thought, pp. 98-101; E. Gurney: 'Monism,' in 'Mind,' vi, 153; and the article by Prof. Royce, just quoted, on 'Mind-stuff and Reality.'In defence of the mind-stuff view,see W. K. Clifford: 'Mind,' iii, 57 (reprinted in his 'Lectures and Essays,' ii, 71); G. T. Fechner, Psychophysik, Bd. ii, cap. xlv; H. Taine: on Intelligence, bk. iii; E. Haeckel: 'Zellseelen u. Seelenzellen' in Gesammelte pop. Vorträge, Bd. i, p. 143; W. S. Duncan: Conscious Matter,passim; H. Zöllner: Natur d. Cometen, pp. 320 ff.; Alfred Barratt: 'Physical Ethic' and 'Physical Metempiric,'passim; J. Soury: 'Hylozoismus,' in 'Kosmos,' V. Jahrg., Heft x, p. 241; A. Main: 'Mind,' i, 292, 431, 566; ii, 129, 402;Id.Revue Philos., ii, 86, 88, 419; iii, 51, 502; iv, 402; F. W. Frankland: 'Mind,' vi, 116; Whittaker: 'Mind,' vi, 498 (historical); Morton Prince: The Nature of Mind and Human Automatism (1885); A. Riehl: Der philosophische Kriticismus, Bd. ii, Theil 2, 2ter Abschnitt, 2tes Cap. (1887). The clearest of all these Statements is, as far as it goes, that of Prince.
[174]J. Royce, 'Mind,' vi, p. 376. Lotze has set forth the truth of this law more clearly and copiously than any other writer. Unfortunately he is too lengthy to quote. See his Microcosmus, bk. ii, ch. i, § 5; Metaphysik, §§ 242, 260; Outlines of Metaphysics, part ii, chap. i, §§ 3, 4, 5. Compare also Reid's Intellectual Powers, essay v, chap. iii,ad fin.; Bowne's Metaphysics, pp. 361-76; St. J. Mivart: Nature and Thought, pp. 98-101; E. Gurney: 'Monism,' in 'Mind,' vi, 153; and the article by Prof. Royce, just quoted, on 'Mind-stuff and Reality.'
In defence of the mind-stuff view,see W. K. Clifford: 'Mind,' iii, 57 (reprinted in his 'Lectures and Essays,' ii, 71); G. T. Fechner, Psychophysik, Bd. ii, cap. xlv; H. Taine: on Intelligence, bk. iii; E. Haeckel: 'Zellseelen u. Seelenzellen' in Gesammelte pop. Vorträge, Bd. i, p. 143; W. S. Duncan: Conscious Matter,passim; H. Zöllner: Natur d. Cometen, pp. 320 ff.; Alfred Barratt: 'Physical Ethic' and 'Physical Metempiric,'passim; J. Soury: 'Hylozoismus,' in 'Kosmos,' V. Jahrg., Heft x, p. 241; A. Main: 'Mind,' i, 292, 431, 566; ii, 129, 402;Id.Revue Philos., ii, 86, 88, 419; iii, 51, 502; iv, 402; F. W. Frankland: 'Mind,' vi, 116; Whittaker: 'Mind,' vi, 498 (historical); Morton Prince: The Nature of Mind and Human Automatism (1885); A. Riehl: Der philosophische Kriticismus, Bd. ii, Theil 2, 2ter Abschnitt, 2tes Cap. (1887). The clearest of all these Statements is, as far as it goes, that of Prince.
[175]"Someone might say that although it is true that neither a blind man nor a deaf man by himself can compare sounds with colors, yet since one hears and the other sees they might do so both together.... But whether they are apart or close together makes no difference; not even if they permanently keep house together; no, not if they were Siamese twins, or more than Siamese twins, and were inseparably grown together, would it make the assumption any more possible. Only when sound and color are represented in the same reality is it thinkable that they should be compared." (Brentano: Psychologie, p. 209.)
[175]"Someone might say that although it is true that neither a blind man nor a deaf man by himself can compare sounds with colors, yet since one hears and the other sees they might do so both together.... But whether they are apart or close together makes no difference; not even if they permanently keep house together; no, not if they were Siamese twins, or more than Siamese twins, and were inseparably grown together, would it make the assumption any more possible. Only when sound and color are represented in the same reality is it thinkable that they should be compared." (Brentano: Psychologie, p. 209.)
[176]The reader must observe that we are reasoning altogether about theLogicof the mind-stuff theory, about whether it canexist in the constitutionof higher mental states by viewing them asidentical with lower onessummed together. We say the two sorts of fact are not identical: a higher stateisnot a lot of lower states; it is itself. When, however, a lot of lower states have come together, or when certain brain-conditions occur together which,if they occurred separately, would producea lot of lower states, we have not for a moment pretended that a higher state may not emerge. In fact it does emerge under those conditions; and ourChapter IXwill be mainly devoted to the proof of this fact. But such emergence is that of a new psychic entity, and istoto cœlodifferent from such an 'integration' of the lower states as the mind-stuff theory affirms.It may seem strange to suppose that anyone should mistake criticism of a certain theory about a fact for doubt of the fact itself. And yet the confusion is made in high quarters enough to justify our remarks. Mr. J. Ward, in his article Psychology in the Encyclopædia Britannica, speaking of the hypothesis that "a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series," says (p. 39): "Paradox is too mild a word for it, even contradiction will hardly suffice." Whereupon, Professor Bain takes him thus to task: "As to 'a series of states being aware of itself,' I confess I see no insurmountable difficulty. It may be a fact, or not a fact; it may be a very clumsy expression for what it is applied to; but it is neither paradox nor contradiction. A series merely contradicts an individual, or it may be two or more individuals as coexisting; but that is too general to exclude the possibility of self-knowledge. It certainly does not bring the property of self-knowledge into the foreground, which, however, is not the same as denying it. An algebraic series might know itself, without any contradiction: the only thing against it is the want of evidence of the fact." ('Mind,' xi, 459). Prof. Bain thinks, then, that all the bother is about the difficulty of seeing how a series of feelings can have the knowledge of itselfadded to it!!!As if anybody ever was troubled about that. That, notoriously enough, is a fact: our consciousness is a series of feelings to which every now and then isaddeda retrospective consciousness that they have come and gone. What Mr. Ward and I are troubled about is merely the silliness of the mind-stuffists and associationists continuing to say that the 'series of states'isthe 'awareness of itself;' that if the states be posited severally, their collective consciousness iseo ipsogiven; and that we need no farther explanation, or 'evidence of the fact.'
[176]The reader must observe that we are reasoning altogether about theLogicof the mind-stuff theory, about whether it canexist in the constitutionof higher mental states by viewing them asidentical with lower onessummed together. We say the two sorts of fact are not identical: a higher stateisnot a lot of lower states; it is itself. When, however, a lot of lower states have come together, or when certain brain-conditions occur together which,if they occurred separately, would producea lot of lower states, we have not for a moment pretended that a higher state may not emerge. In fact it does emerge under those conditions; and ourChapter IXwill be mainly devoted to the proof of this fact. But such emergence is that of a new psychic entity, and istoto cœlodifferent from such an 'integration' of the lower states as the mind-stuff theory affirms.
It may seem strange to suppose that anyone should mistake criticism of a certain theory about a fact for doubt of the fact itself. And yet the confusion is made in high quarters enough to justify our remarks. Mr. J. Ward, in his article Psychology in the Encyclopædia Britannica, speaking of the hypothesis that "a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series," says (p. 39): "Paradox is too mild a word for it, even contradiction will hardly suffice." Whereupon, Professor Bain takes him thus to task: "As to 'a series of states being aware of itself,' I confess I see no insurmountable difficulty. It may be a fact, or not a fact; it may be a very clumsy expression for what it is applied to; but it is neither paradox nor contradiction. A series merely contradicts an individual, or it may be two or more individuals as coexisting; but that is too general to exclude the possibility of self-knowledge. It certainly does not bring the property of self-knowledge into the foreground, which, however, is not the same as denying it. An algebraic series might know itself, without any contradiction: the only thing against it is the want of evidence of the fact." ('Mind,' xi, 459). Prof. Bain thinks, then, that all the bother is about the difficulty of seeing how a series of feelings can have the knowledge of itselfadded to it!!!As if anybody ever was troubled about that. That, notoriously enough, is a fact: our consciousness is a series of feelings to which every now and then isaddeda retrospective consciousness that they have come and gone. What Mr. Ward and I are troubled about is merely the silliness of the mind-stuffists and associationists continuing to say that the 'series of states'isthe 'awareness of itself;' that if the states be posited severally, their collective consciousness iseo ipsogiven; and that we need no farther explanation, or 'evidence of the fact.'
[177]The writers about 'unconscious cerebration' seem sometimes to mean that and sometimes unconscious thought. The arguments which follow are culled from various quarters. The reader will find them most systematically urged by E. von Hartmann: Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. i; and by E. Colsenet: La Vie Inconsciente de l'Esprit (1880). Consult also T. Laycock: Mind and Brain, vol. i, chap. v (1860); W. B. Carpenter: Mental Physiology, chap. xiii; F. P. Cobbe: Darwinism in Morals and other Essays, essay xi, Unconscious Cerebration (1872); F. Bowen: Modern Philosophy, pp. 428-480; R. H. Hutton: Contemporary Review, vol. xxiv, p. 201; J. S. Mill: Exam. of Hamilton, chap. xv; G. H. Lewes: Problems of Life and Mind, 3d series, Prob. ii, chap. x, and also Prob. iii, chap. ii; D. G. Thompson: A System of Psychology, chap. xxxiii; J. M. Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, chap. iv.
[177]The writers about 'unconscious cerebration' seem sometimes to mean that and sometimes unconscious thought. The arguments which follow are culled from various quarters. The reader will find them most systematically urged by E. von Hartmann: Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. i; and by E. Colsenet: La Vie Inconsciente de l'Esprit (1880). Consult also T. Laycock: Mind and Brain, vol. i, chap. v (1860); W. B. Carpenter: Mental Physiology, chap. xiii; F. P. Cobbe: Darwinism in Morals and other Essays, essay xi, Unconscious Cerebration (1872); F. Bowen: Modern Philosophy, pp. 428-480; R. H. Hutton: Contemporary Review, vol. xxiv, p. 201; J. S. Mill: Exam. of Hamilton, chap. xv; G. H. Lewes: Problems of Life and Mind, 3d series, Prob. ii, chap. x, and also Prob. iii, chap. ii; D. G. Thompson: A System of Psychology, chap. xxxiii; J. M. Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, chap. iv.
[178]Nouveaux Essais, Avant-propos.
[178]Nouveaux Essais, Avant-propos.
[179]J. S. Mill, Exam. of Hamilton, chap. xv.
[179]J. S. Mill, Exam. of Hamilton, chap. xv.
[180]Cf. Dugald Stewart, Elements, chap. ii.
[180]Cf. Dugald Stewart, Elements, chap. ii.
[181]J. E. Maude: 'The Unconscious in Education,' in 'Education,' vol. i, p. 401 (1882).
[181]J. E. Maude: 'The Unconscious in Education,' in 'Education,' vol. i, p. 401 (1882).
[182]Zur Lehre vor Lichtsinne (1878).
[182]Zur Lehre vor Lichtsinne (1878).
[183]Cf. Wundt: Ueber den Einfluss der Philosophie, etc.—Antrittsrede (1876), pp. 10-11;—Helmholtz: Die Thatsachen in der Wahrnehmung (1879), p. 27.
[183]Cf. Wundt: Ueber den Einfluss der Philosophie, etc.—Antrittsrede (1876), pp. 10-11;—Helmholtz: Die Thatsachen in der Wahrnehmung (1879), p. 27.
[184]Cf. Satz vom Grunde, pp. 59-65. Compare also F. Zöllner's Natur der Kometen, pp. 342 ff. and 425.
[184]Cf. Satz vom Grunde, pp. 59-65. Compare also F. Zöllner's Natur der Kometen, pp. 342 ff. and 425.
[185]Cf. the statements from Helmholtz to be found later inChapter XIII.
[185]Cf. the statements from Helmholtz to be found later inChapter XIII.
[186]The text was written before Professor Lipps's Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883) came into my hands. In Chapter III of that book the notion of unconscious thought is subjected to the clearest and most searching criticism which it has yet received. Some passages are so similar to what I have myself written that I must quote them in a note. After proving that dimness and clearness, incompleteness and completeness do not pertain to a state of mindas such—since every state of mind must beexactlywhat it is, and nothing else—but only pertain to the way in which states of mind stand for objects, which they more or less dimly, more or less clearly,represent; Lipps takes the case of those sensations which attention is said to make more clear. "I perceive an object," he says, "now in clear daylight, and again at night. Call the content of the day-perceptiona, and that of the evening-perceptiona1. There will probably be a considerable difference betweenaanda1. The colors ofawill be varied and intense, and will be sharply bounded by each other; those ofa1will be less luminous, and less strongly contrasted, and will approach a common gray or brown, and merge more into each other. Both percepts, however, as such, are completely determinate and distinct from all others. The colors ofa1appear before my eye neither more nor less decidedly dark and blurred than the colors ofaappear bright and sharply bounded. But now I know, or believe I know, that one and the same real Object A corresponds to bothaanda1. I am convinced, moreover, thatarepresents A better than doesa1. Instead, however, of giving to my conviction this, its only correct, expression, and keeping the content of my consciousness and the real object, the representation and what it means, distinct from each other, I substitute the real object for the content of the consciousness, and talk of the experience as if it consisted in one and the same object (namely, the surreptitiously introduced real one), constituting twice over the content of my consciousness, once in a clear and distinct, the other time in an obscure and vague fashion. I talk now of a distincter and of a less distinctconsciousnessof A, whereas I am only justified in talking of two consciousnesses,aanda1, equally distinctin se, but to which the supposed external object A corresponds with different degrees of distinctness." (P. 38-9.)
[186]The text was written before Professor Lipps's Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883) came into my hands. In Chapter III of that book the notion of unconscious thought is subjected to the clearest and most searching criticism which it has yet received. Some passages are so similar to what I have myself written that I must quote them in a note. After proving that dimness and clearness, incompleteness and completeness do not pertain to a state of mindas such—since every state of mind must beexactlywhat it is, and nothing else—but only pertain to the way in which states of mind stand for objects, which they more or less dimly, more or less clearly,represent; Lipps takes the case of those sensations which attention is said to make more clear. "I perceive an object," he says, "now in clear daylight, and again at night. Call the content of the day-perceptiona, and that of the evening-perceptiona1. There will probably be a considerable difference betweenaanda1. The colors ofawill be varied and intense, and will be sharply bounded by each other; those ofa1will be less luminous, and less strongly contrasted, and will approach a common gray or brown, and merge more into each other. Both percepts, however, as such, are completely determinate and distinct from all others. The colors ofa1appear before my eye neither more nor less decidedly dark and blurred than the colors ofaappear bright and sharply bounded. But now I know, or believe I know, that one and the same real Object A corresponds to bothaanda1. I am convinced, moreover, thatarepresents A better than doesa1. Instead, however, of giving to my conviction this, its only correct, expression, and keeping the content of my consciousness and the real object, the representation and what it means, distinct from each other, I substitute the real object for the content of the consciousness, and talk of the experience as if it consisted in one and the same object (namely, the surreptitiously introduced real one), constituting twice over the content of my consciousness, once in a clear and distinct, the other time in an obscure and vague fashion. I talk now of a distincter and of a less distinctconsciousnessof A, whereas I am only justified in talking of two consciousnesses,aanda1, equally distinctin se, but to which the supposed external object A corresponds with different degrees of distinctness." (P. 38-9.)
We have now finished the physiological preliminaries of our subject and must in the remaining chapters study the mental states themselves whose cerebral conditions and concomitants we have been considering hitherto. Beyond the brain, however, there is an outer world to which the brain-states themselves 'correspond.' And it will be well, ere we advance farther, to say a word about the relation of the mind to this larger sphere of physical fact.
That is, the mind which the psychologist studies is the mind of distinct individuals inhabiting definite portions of a real space and of a real time. With any other sort of mind, absolute Intelligence, Mind unattached to a particular body, or Mind not subject to the course of time, the psychologist as such has nothing to do. 'Mind,' in his mouth, is only a class name forminds. Fortunate will it be if his more modest inquiry result in any generalizations which the philosopher devoted to absolute Intelligence as such can use.
To the psychologist, then, the minds he studies areobjects, in a world of other objects. Even when he introspectively analyzes his own mind, and tells what he finds there, he talks about it in an objective way. He says, for instance, that under certain circumstances the color gray appears to him green, and calls the appearance an illusion. This implies that he compares two objects, a real color seen under certain conditions, and a mental perception which he believes to represent it, and that he declares the relation between them to be of a certain kind. In making this critical judgment, the psychologist stands as much outside of the perception which he criticises as he does of the color. Both are his objects. And if this is true of him whenhe reflects on his own conscious states, how much truer is it when he treats of those of others! In German philosophy since Kant the wordErkenntnisstheorie, criticism of the faculty of knowledge, plays a great part. Now the psychologist necessarily becomes such anErkenntnisstheoretiker. But the knowledge he theorizes about is not the bare function of knowledge which Kant criticises—he does not inquire into the possibility of knowledgeüberhaupt. He assumes it to be possible, he does not doubt its presence in himself at the moment he speaks. The knowledge he criticises is the knowledge of particular men about the particular things that surround them. This he may, upon occasion, in the light of hisownunquestioned knowledge, pronounce true or false, and trace the reasons by which it has become one or the other.
It is highly important that this natural-science point of view should be understood at the outset. Otherwise more may be demanded of the psychologist than he ought to be expected to perform.
A diagram will exhibit more emphatically what the assumptions of Psychology must be:
1. The Psychologist2. The Thought Studied3. The Thought's Object4. The Psychologist's Reality
These four squares contain the irreducible data of psychology. No. 1, the psychologist, believes Nos. 2, 3, and 4, which together formhistotal object, to be realities, and reports them and their mutual relations as truly as he can without troubling himself with the puzzle of how he can report them at all. About suchultimatepuzzles he in the main need trouble himself no more than the geometer, the chemist, or the botanist do, who make precisely the same assumptions as he.[187]
Of certain fallacies to which the psychologist is exposed by reason of his peculiar point of view—that of being areporter of subjective as well as of objective facts, we must presently speak. But not until we have considered the methods he uses for ascertaining what the facts in question are.
Introspective Observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always.The word introspection need hardly be defined—it means, of course, the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover.Every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness.So far as I know, the existence of such states has never been doubted by any critic, however sceptical in other respects he may have been. That we havecogitationsof some sort is theinconcussumin a world most of whose other facts have at some time tottered in the breath of philosophic doubt. All people unhesitatingly believe that they feel themselves thinking, and that they distinguish the mental state as an inward activity or passion, from all the objects with which it may cognitively deal.I regard this belief as the most fundamental of all the postulates of Psychology,and shall discard all curious inquiries about its certainty as too metaphysical for the scope of this book.
A Question of Nomenclature.We ought to have some general term by which to designate all states of consciousness merely as such, and apart from their particular quality or cognitive function. Unfortunately most of the terms in use have grave objections. 'Mental state,' 'state of consciousness,' 'conscious modification,' are cumbrous and have no kindred verbs. The same is true of 'subjective condition.' 'Feeling' has the verb 'to feel,' both active and neuter, and such derivatives as 'feelingly,' 'felt,' 'feltness,' etc., which make it extremely convenient. But on the other hand it has specific meanings as well as its generic one, sometimes standing for pleasure and pain, and being sometimes a synonym of 'sensation' as opposed tothought; whereas we wish a term to cover sensation andthought indifferently. Moreover, 'feeling' has acquired in the hearts of platonizing thinkers a very opprobrious set of implications; and since one of the great obstacles to mutual understanding in philosophy is the use of words eulogistically and disparagingly, impartial terms ought always, if possible, to be preferred. The wordpsychosishas been proposed by Mr. Huxley. It has the advantage of being correlative toneurosis(the name applied by the same author to the corresponding nerve-process), and is moreover technical and devoid of partial implications. But it has no verb or other grammatical form allied to it. The expressions 'affection of the soul,' 'modification of the ego,' are clumsy, like 'state of consciousness,' and they implicitly assert theories which it is not well to embody in terminology before they have been openly discussed and approved. 'Idea' is a good vague neutral word, and was by Locke employed in the broadest generic way; but notwithstanding his authority it has not domesticated itself in the language so as to cover bodily sensations, and it moreover has no verb. 'Thought' would be by far the best word to use if it could be made to cover sensations. It has no opprobrious connotation such as 'feeling' has, and it immediately suggests the omnipresence of cognition (or reference to an object other than the mental state itself), which we shall soon see to be of the mental life's essence. But can the expression 'thought of a toothache' ever suggest to the reader the actual present pain itself? It is hardly possible; and we thus seem about to be forced back on somepairof terms like Hume's 'impression and idea,' or Hamilton's 'presentation and representation,' or the ordinary 'feeling and thought,' if we wish to cover the whole ground.
In this quandary we can make no definitive choice, but must, according to the convenience of the context, use sometimes one, sometimes another of the synonyms that have been mentioned.My own partiality is for eitherfeelingorthought.I shall probably often use both words in a wider sense than usual, and alternately startle two classes of readers by their unusual sound; but if the connection makes it clear that mental states at large, irrespectiveof their kind, are meant, this will do no harm, and may even do some good.[188]
The inaccuracy of introspective observationhas been made a subject of debate. It is important to gain some fixed ideas on this point before we proceed.
The commonest spiritualistic opinion is that the Soul orSubjectof the mental life is a metaphysical entity, inaccessible to direct knowledge, and that the various mental states and operations of which we reflectively become aware are objects of an inner sense which does not lay hold of the real agent in itself, any more than sight or hearing gives us direct knowledge of matter in itself. From, this point of view introspection is, of course, incompetent to lay hold of anything more than the Soul'sphenomena. But even then the question remains, How well can it know the phenomena themselves?
Some authors take high ground here and claim for it a sort of infallibility. Thus Ueberweg:
"When a mental image, as such, is the object of my apprehension, there is no meaning in seeking to distinguish its existence in my consciousness (in me) from its existence out of my consciousness (in itself); for the object apprehended is, in this case, one which does not even exist, as the objects of external perception do, in itself outside of my consciousness. It exists only within me."[189]
"When a mental image, as such, is the object of my apprehension, there is no meaning in seeking to distinguish its existence in my consciousness (in me) from its existence out of my consciousness (in itself); for the object apprehended is, in this case, one which does not even exist, as the objects of external perception do, in itself outside of my consciousness. It exists only within me."[189]
And Brentano:
"The phenomena inwardly apprehended are true in themselves. As they appear—of this the evidence with which they are apprehended is a warrant—so they are in reality. Who, then, can deny that in this a great superiority of Psychology over the physical sciences comes to light?"
"The phenomena inwardly apprehended are true in themselves. As they appear—of this the evidence with which they are apprehended is a warrant—so they are in reality. Who, then, can deny that in this a great superiority of Psychology over the physical sciences comes to light?"
And again:
"No one can doubt whether the psychic condition he apprehends in himselfbe, and beso, as he apprehends it. Whoever should doubt this would have reached thatfinisheddoubt which destroys itself in destroying every fixed point from which to make an attack upon knowledge."[190]
"No one can doubt whether the psychic condition he apprehends in himselfbe, and beso, as he apprehends it. Whoever should doubt this would have reached thatfinisheddoubt which destroys itself in destroying every fixed point from which to make an attack upon knowledge."[190]
Others have gone to the opposite extreme, and maintained that we can have no introspective cognition of ourown minds at all. A deliverance of Auguste Comte to this effect has been so often quoted as to be almost classical; and some reference to it seems therefore indispensable here.
Philosophers, says Comte,[191]have
"in these latter days imagined themselves able to distinguish, by a very singular subtlety, two sorts of observation of equal importance, one external, the other internal, the latter being solely destined for the study of intellectual phenomena.... I limit myself to pointing out the principal consideration which proves clearly that this pretended direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure illusion.... It is in fact evident that, by an invincible necessity, the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own proper states. For by whom shall the observation of these be made? It is conceivable that a man might observe himself with respect to thepassionsthat animate him, for the anatomical organs of passion are distinct from those whose function is observation. Though we have all made such observations on ourselves, they can never have much scientific value, and the best mode of knowing the passions will always be that of observing them from without; for every strong state of passion ... is necessarily incompatible with the state of observation. But, as for observing in the same wayintellectualphenomena at the time of their actual presence, that is a manifest impossibility. The thinker cannot divide himself into two, of whom one reasons whilst the other observes him reason. The organ observed and the organ observing being, in this case, identical, how could observation take place? This pretended psychological method is then radically null and void. On the one hand, they advise you to isolate yourself, as far as possible, from every external sensation, especially every intellectual work,—for if you were to busy yourself even with the simplest calculation, what would become ofinternalobservation?—on the other hand, after having with the utmost care attained this state of intellectual slumber, you must begin to contemplate the operations going on in your mind, when nothing there takes place! Our descendants will doubtless see such pretensions some day ridiculed upon the stage. The results of so strange a procedure harmonize entirely with its principle. For all the two thousand years during which metaphysicians have thus cultivated psychology, they are not agreed about one intelligible and established proposition. 'Internal observation' gives almost as many divergent results as there are individuals who think they practise it."
"in these latter days imagined themselves able to distinguish, by a very singular subtlety, two sorts of observation of equal importance, one external, the other internal, the latter being solely destined for the study of intellectual phenomena.... I limit myself to pointing out the principal consideration which proves clearly that this pretended direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure illusion.... It is in fact evident that, by an invincible necessity, the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own proper states. For by whom shall the observation of these be made? It is conceivable that a man might observe himself with respect to thepassionsthat animate him, for the anatomical organs of passion are distinct from those whose function is observation. Though we have all made such observations on ourselves, they can never have much scientific value, and the best mode of knowing the passions will always be that of observing them from without; for every strong state of passion ... is necessarily incompatible with the state of observation. But, as for observing in the same wayintellectualphenomena at the time of their actual presence, that is a manifest impossibility. The thinker cannot divide himself into two, of whom one reasons whilst the other observes him reason. The organ observed and the organ observing being, in this case, identical, how could observation take place? This pretended psychological method is then radically null and void. On the one hand, they advise you to isolate yourself, as far as possible, from every external sensation, especially every intellectual work,—for if you were to busy yourself even with the simplest calculation, what would become ofinternalobservation?—on the other hand, after having with the utmost care attained this state of intellectual slumber, you must begin to contemplate the operations going on in your mind, when nothing there takes place! Our descendants will doubtless see such pretensions some day ridiculed upon the stage. The results of so strange a procedure harmonize entirely with its principle. For all the two thousand years during which metaphysicians have thus cultivated psychology, they are not agreed about one intelligible and established proposition. 'Internal observation' gives almost as many divergent results as there are individuals who think they practise it."
Comte hardly could have known anything of the English, and nothing of the German, empirical psychology. The 'results' which he had in mind when writing were probablyscholastic ones, such as principles of internal activity, the faculties, the ego, theliberum arbitrium indifferentiæ, etc. John Mill, in replying to him,[192]says:
"It might have occurred to M. Comte that a fact may be studied through the medium of memory, not at the very moment of our perceiving it, but the moment after: and this is really the mode in which our best knowledge of our intellectual acts is generally acquired. We reflect on what we have been doing when the act is past, but when its impression in the memory is still fresh. Unless in one of these ways, we could not have acquired the knowledge which nobody denies us to have, of what passes in our minds. M. Comte would scarcely have affirmed that we are not aware of our own intellectual operations. We know of our observings and our reasonings, either at the very time, or by memory the moment after; in either case, by direct knowledge, and not (like things done by us in a state of somnambulism) merely by their results. This simple fact destroys the whole of M. Comte's argument. Whatever we are directly aware of, we can directly observe."
"It might have occurred to M. Comte that a fact may be studied through the medium of memory, not at the very moment of our perceiving it, but the moment after: and this is really the mode in which our best knowledge of our intellectual acts is generally acquired. We reflect on what we have been doing when the act is past, but when its impression in the memory is still fresh. Unless in one of these ways, we could not have acquired the knowledge which nobody denies us to have, of what passes in our minds. M. Comte would scarcely have affirmed that we are not aware of our own intellectual operations. We know of our observings and our reasonings, either at the very time, or by memory the moment after; in either case, by direct knowledge, and not (like things done by us in a state of somnambulism) merely by their results. This simple fact destroys the whole of M. Comte's argument. Whatever we are directly aware of, we can directly observe."
Where now does the truth lie? Our quotation from Mill is obviously the one which expresses the most ofpracticaltruth about the matter. Even the writers who insist upon the absolute veracity of our immediate inner apprehension of a conscious state have to contrast with this the fallibility of ourmemoryorobservationof it, a moment later. No one has emphasized more sharply than Brentano himself the difference between the immediatefeltnessof a feeling, and its perception by a subsequent reflective act. But which mode of consciousness of it is that which the psychologist must depend on? If tohavefeelings or thoughts in their immediacy were enough, babies in the cradle would be psychologists, and infallible ones. But the psychologist must not onlyhavehis mental states in their absolute veritableness, he must report them and write about them, name them, classify and compare them and trace their relations to other things. Whilst alive they are their own property; it is onlypost-mortemthat they become his prey.[193]And as in the naming, classing, and knowingof things in general we are notoriously fallible, why not also here? Comte is quite right in laying stress on the fact that a feeling, to be named, judged, or perceived, must be already past. No subjective state, whilst present, is its own object; its object is always something else. There are, it is true, cases in which we appear to be naming our present feeling, and so to be experiencing and observing the same inner fact at a single stroke, as when we say 'I feel tired,' 'I am angry,' etc. But these are illusory, and a little attention unmasks the illusion. The present conscious state, when I say 'I feel tired,' is not the direct state of tire; when I say 'I feel angry,' it is not the direct state of anger. It is the state ofsaying-I-feel-tired, ofsaying-I-feel-angry,—entirely different matters, so different that the fatigue and anger apparently included in them are considerable modifications of the fatigue and anger directly felt the previous instant. The act of naming them has momentarily detracted from their force.[194]
The only sound grounds on which the infallible veracity of the introspective judgment might be maintained are empirical. If we had reason to think it has never yet deceived us, we might continue to trust it. This is the ground actually maintained by Herr Mohr.
"The illusions of our senses," says this author, "have undermined our belief in the reality of the outer world; but in the sphere of inner observation our confidence is intact, for we have never found ourselves to be in error about the reality of an act of thought or feeling. Wehave never been misled into thinking we werenotin doubt or in anger when these conditions were really states of our consciousness."[195]
"The illusions of our senses," says this author, "have undermined our belief in the reality of the outer world; but in the sphere of inner observation our confidence is intact, for we have never found ourselves to be in error about the reality of an act of thought or feeling. Wehave never been misled into thinking we werenotin doubt or in anger when these conditions were really states of our consciousness."[195]
But sound as the reasoning here would be, were the premises correct, I fear the latter cannot pass. However it may be with such strong feelings as doubt or anger, about weaker feelings, and about therelations to each otherof all feelings, we find ourselves in continual error and uncertainty so soon as we are called on to name and class, and not merely to feel. Who can be sure of the exactorderof his feelings when they are excessively rapid? Who can be sure, in his sensible perception of a chair, how much comes from the eye and how much is supplied out of the previous knowledge of the mind? Who can compare with precision thequantitiesof disparate feelings even where the feelings are very much alike? For instance, where an object is felt now against the back and now against the cheek, which feeling is most extensive? Who can be sure that two given feelings are or are not exactly the same? Who can tell which is briefer or longer than the other when both occupy but an instant of time? Who knows, of many actions, for what motive they were done, or if for any motive at all? Who can enumerate all the distinct ingredients of such a complicated feeling asanger? and who can tell off-hand whether or no a perception ofdistancebe a compound or a simple state of mind? The whole mind-stuff controversy would stop if we could decide conclusively by introspection that what seem to us elementary feelings are really elementary and not compound.
Mr. Sully, in his work on Illusions, has a chapter on those of Introspection from which we might now quote. But, since the rest of this volume will be little more than a collection of illustrations of the difficulty of discovering by direct introspection exactly what our feelings and their relations are, we need not anticipate our own future details, I but just state our general conclusion thatintrospection is difficult and fallible; and that the difficulty is simply that of all observation of whatever kind. Something is beforeus; we do our best to tell what it is, but in spite of our good will we may go astray, and give a description more applicable to some other sort of thing. The only safeguard is in the finalconsensusof our farther knowledge about the thing in question, later views correcting earlier ones, until at last the harmony of a consistent system is reached. Such a system, gradually worked out, is the best guarantee the psychologist can give for the soundness of any particular psychologic observation which he may report. Such a system we ourselves must strive, as far as may be, to attain.
The English writers on psychology, and the school of Herbart in Germany, have in the main contented themselves with such results as the immediate introspection of single individuals gave, and shown what a body of doctrine they may make. The works of Locke, Hume, Reid, Hartley, Stewart, Brown, the Mills, will always be classics in this line; and in Professor Bain's Treatises we have probably the last word of what this method taken mainly by itself can do—the last monument of the youth of our science, still untechnical and generally intelligible, like the Chemistry of Lavoisier, or Anatomy before the microscope was used.
The Experimental Method. But psychology is passing into a less simple phase. Within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen in Germany, carried on by experimental methods, asking of course every moment for introspective data, but eliminating their uncertainty by operating on a large scale and taking statistical means. This method taxes patience to the utmost, and could hardly have arisen in a country whose natives could bebored. Such Germans as Weber, Fechner, Vierordt, and Wundt obviously cannot; and their success has brought into the field an array of younger experimental psychologists, bent on studying theelementsof the mental life, dissecting them out from the gross results in which they are embedded, and as far as possible reducing them to quantitative scales. The simple and open method of attack having done what it can, the method of patience, starving out, and harassing to death is tried; the Mindmust submit to a regularsiege, in which minute advantages gained night and day by the forces that hem her in must sum themselves up at last into her overthrow. There is little of the grand style about these new prism, pendulum, and chronograph-philosophers. They mean business, not chivalry. What generous divination, and that superiority in virtue which was thought by Cicero to give a man the best insight into nature, have failed to do, their spying and scraping, their deadly tenacity and almost diabolic cunning, will doubtless some day bring about.
No general description of the methods of experimental psychology would be instructive to one unfamiliar with the instances of their application, so we will waste no words upon the attempt.The principal fields of experimentationso far have been: 1) the connection of conscious states with their physical conditions, including the whole of brain-physiology, and the recent minutely cultivated physiology of the sense-organs, together with what is technically known as 'psycho-physics,' or the laws of correlation between sensations and the outward stimuli by which they are aroused; 2) the analysis of space-perception into its sensational elements; 3) the measurement of thedurationof the simplest mental processes; 4) that of theaccuracy of reproductionin the memory of sensible experiences and of intervals of space and time; 5) that of the manner in which simple mental statesinfluence each other, call each other up, or inhibit each other's reproduction; 6) that of thenumber of factswhich consciousness can simultaneously discern; finally, 7) that of the elementary laws of oblivescence and retention. It must be said that in some of these fields the results have as yet borne little theoretic fruit commensurate with the great labor expended in their acquisition. But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them they are sure to combine. New ground will from year to year be broken, and theoretic results will grow. Meanwhile the experimental method has quite changed the face of the science so far as the latter is a record of mere work done.
Thecomparative method, finally, supplements the introspectiveand experimental methods. This method presupposes a normal psychology of introspection to be established in its main features. But where the origin of these features, or their dependence upon one another, is in question, it is of the utmost importance to trace the phenomenon considered through all its possible variations of type and combination. So it has come to pass that instincts of animals are ransacked to throw light on our own; and that the reasoning faculties of bees and ants, the minds of savages, infants, madmen, idiots, the deaf and blind, criminals, and eccentrics, are all invoked in support of this or that special theory about some part of our own mental life. The history of sciences, moral and political institutions, and languages, as types of mental product, are pressed into the same service. Messrs. Darwin and Galton have set the example of circulars of questions sent out by the hundred to those supposed able to reply. The custom has spread, and it will be well for us in the next generation if such circulars be not ranked among the common pests of life. Meanwhile information grows, and results emerge. There are great sources of error in the comparative method. The interpretation of the 'psychoses' of animals, savages, and infants is necessarily wild work, in which the personal equation of the investigator has things very much its own way. A savage will be reported to have no moral or religious feeling if his actions shock the observer unduly. A child will be assumed without self-consciousness because he talks of himself in the third person, etc., etc. No rules can be laid down in advance. Comparative observations, to be definite, must usually be made to test some pre-existing hypothesis; and the only thing then is to use as much sagacity as you possess, and to be as candid as you can.
The first of them arises from the Misleading Influence of Speech.Language was originally made by men who were not psychologists, and most men to-day employ almost exclusively the vocabulary of outward things. The cardinal passions of our life, anger, love, fear, hate, hope,and the most comprehensive divisions of our intellectual activity, to remember, expect, think, know, dream, with the broadest genera of æsthetic feeling, joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, are the only facts of a subjective order which this vocabulary deigns to note by special words. The elementary qualities of sensation, bright, loud, red, blue, hot, cold, are, it is true, susceptible of being used in both an objective and a subjective sense. They stand for outer qualities and for the feelings which these arouse. But the objective sense is the original sense; and still to-day we have to describe a large number of sensations by the name of the object from which they have most frequently been got. An orange color, an odor of violets, a cheesy taste, a thunderous sound, a fiery smart, etc., will recall what I mean. This absence of a special vocabulary for subjective facts hinders the study of all but the very coarsest of them. Empiricist writers are very fond of emphasizing one great set of delusions which language inflicts on the mind. Whenever we have made a word, they say, to denote a certain group of phenomena, we are prone to suppose a substantive entity existing beyond the phenomena, of which the word shall be the name. But thelackof a word quite as often leads to the directly opposite error. We are then prone to suppose that no entity can be there; and so we come to overlook phenomena whose existence would be patent to us all, had we only grown up to hear it familiarly recognized in speech.[196]It is hard to focus our attention on the nameless, and so there results a certain vacuousness in the descriptive parts of most psychologies.
But a worse defect than vacuousness comes from the dependence of psychology on common speech. Naming our thought by its own objects, we almost all of us assume that as the objects are, so the thought must be. The thought of several distinct things can only consist of several distinct bits of thought, or 'ideas;' that of an abstract or universal object can only be an abstract or universal idea.As each object may come and go, be forgotten and then thought of again, it is held that the thought of it has a precisely similar independence, self-identity, and mobility. The thought of the object's recurrent identity is regarded as the identity of its recurrent thought; and the perceptions of multiplicity, of coexistence, of succession, are severally conceived to be brought about only through a multiplicity, a coexistence, a succession, of perceptions. The continuous flow of the mental stream is sacrificed, and in its place an atomism, a brickbat plan of construction, is preached, for the existence of which no good introspective grounds can be brought forward, and out of which presently grow all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions, the heritage of woe of students of the mind.
These words are meant to impeach the entire English psychology derived from Locke and Hume, and the entire German psychology derived from Herbart, so far as they both treat 'ideas' as separate subjective entities that come and go. Examples will soon make the matter clearer. Meanwhile our psychologic insight is vitiated by still other snares.
'The Psychologist's Fallacy.' Thegreatsnare of the psychologist is theconfusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental factabout which he is making his report. I shall hereafter call this the 'psychologist's fallacy'par excellence. For some of the mischief, here too, language is to blame. The psychologist, as we remarked above (p. 183), stands outside of the mental state he speaks of. Both itself and its object are objects for him. Now when it is acognitivestate (percept, thought, concept, etc.), he ordinarily has no other way of naming it than as the thought, percept, etc.,of that object. He himself, meanwhile, knowing the self-same object inhisway, gets easily led to suppose that the thought, which isofit, knows it in the same way in which he knows it, although this is often very far from being the case.[197]The most fictitious puzzles have been introduced into our science by this means. The so-called question of presentative or representative perception, of whether anobject is present to the thought that thinks it by a counterfeit image of itself, or directly and without any intervening image at all; the question of nominalism and conceptualism, of the shape in which things are present when only a general notion of them is before the mind; are comparatively easy questions when once the psychologist's fallacy is eliminated from their treatment,—as we shall ere long see (inChapter XII).
Another variety of the psychologist's fallacy is the assumption that the mental state studied must be conscious of itself as the psychologist is conscious of it.The mental state is aware of itself only from within; it grasps what we call its own content, and nothing more. The psychologist, on the contrary, is aware of it from without, and knows its relations with all sorts of other things. What the thought sees is only its own object; what the psychologist sees is the thought's object, plus the thought itself, plus possibly all the rest of the world. We must be very careful therefore, in discussing a state of mind from the psychologist's point of view, to avoid foisting into its own ken matters that are only there for ours. We must avoid substituting what we know the consciousnessis, for what it is a consciousnessof, and counting its outward, and so to speak physical, relations with other facts of the world, in among the objects of which we set it down as aware. Crude as such a confusion of standpoints seems to be when abstractly stated, it is nevertheless a snare into which no psychologist has kept himself at all times from falling, and which forms almost the entire stock-in-trade of certain schools. We cannot be too watchful against its subtly corrupting influence.
Summary. To sum up the chapter, Psychology assumes that thoughts successively occur, and that they know objects in a world which the psychologist also knows.These thoughts are the subjective data of which he treats, and their relations to their objects, to the brain, and to the rest of the world constitute the subject-matter of psychologic science.Its methods are introspection, experimentation, and comparison. But introspection is no sure guide to truthsaboutour mental states; and in particular the poverty of the psychological vocabularyleads us to drop out certain states from our consideration, and to treat others as if they knew themselves and their objects as the psychologist knows both, which is a disastrous fallacy in the science.