Alexander - Samuel Alexander - Space Time and Deity 2

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SPACE, TIME, AND DEITY


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SPACE TIME ANDDEITYTHE GIFFORD LECTURES AT GLASGOW

1916-1918

BYS. ALEXANDERF.B.A., HON. LL.D., D.Lirr., Lirr.D.

HON. FELLOW OF BALLIOL AND LINCOLN COLLEGES, OXFORDHON. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

IN TWO VOLUMESVOL. II

THE HUMANITIES PRESSNEW YORK


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COPYRIGHTFirst Edition 1920Reprinted 1927

REPRINTED, 1950 BYSPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITHTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY


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CONTENTSBOOK III

THE ORDER AND PROBLEMS OF EMPIRICALEXISTENCECHAPTER I

THE CLUE TO QUALITYA. MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS PACK

Introductory ....... 3Identity of mental with its neural process . . -4Consciousness something new in life .... 6Consciousness not an epiphenomenon ... 8No parallelism of neural and mental processes . . -9Causality between mind and brain . . . .12Animism, (i) The argument from meaning . 13(2) The argument from fusion . . . . .18Unity of consciousness . . . . . .22Divided consciousness and the unconscious . . 25

B. THE APPREHENSION OF OTHER MINDSAcquired not by analogy but direct experience . . 3 1The experience is of sociality . . . . 32The grades of such experience . . . . $6


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PAGE

vi SPACE, TIME, AND DEITYCHAPTER II

THE ORDER OF EMPIRICAL QUALITIESA. A FORMULA FOR SPACE-TIME

Time as the mind of Space 3 8Grounds of this formula. The relation of point-instants to one

another . -39Complexities of detail . 4 1Mind a form of Time, not Time a form of mind . 43

B. THE ORDER OF QUALITIESQualities as emergents . . . . -45Time as the generator of qualities . . -47Space -Time anterior to material things. Misconceptions

superseded .... .48Matter . . . . . . . 5 2Secondary qualities. * Permanent secondary qualities . -55Life -61Entelechy. The antithesis of mechanical and vital . . 64Summary. Minds of various levels differ in kind . . 67Corollaries ..... -7

CHAPTER IIITHE EMPIRICAL PROBLEMS

How the problems arise . 74The problems stated . . . . . -75CHAPTER IVMIND AND KNOWING

A. THE COGNITIVE RELATIONCognition as an instance of compresence. Problem T. . . 81Images and memory. Analogues . . . -83


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CONTENTS viiPACK

Comparison of this result with direct experience . . 87Mind never an object to itself ... 89The selectiveness of mind. Problem III. . . .90Things and objects . . . . . 92Alleged reference in cognition to something behind presentation 95Aspects of selectiveness . . . . . -99Corollaries: (i) Various kinds of compresence. (2) Extension

to lower levels. (3) Higher existents than mind. (4) Theobject not dependent on the mind . . . . 102

B. MIND AND BODYExperience of the body in knowing . . . .107The searchlight view of knowing. Its shortcoming . . 109

CHAPTER VMIND AND ITS ACTS

Mental acts responses to objects . . . .116Mind made up of conations . . . . .118Practical and theoretical conation . . . .120Feeling . . . . . .122The contents of the mental act : empirical determinations of

categorial characters . . . . .126The spatio-temporal mental correlate of the quality of sensation. Problem II. . . . . .128

The universal element in sensation . . . -131Intensity of sensing . . . . . .132Has thinking intensity ? . . . . -135Summary . . . . . m -137Secondary qualities and the mind. Secondary qualities and the

sense-organs . . . . . .138


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viii SPACE, TIME, AND DEITYCHAPTER VI

THE WAYS OF APPREHENDING CATEGORIES AND QUALITIESPAGEThe question ....... 143Intuition of Space and Time . . . . .144Cautions against misunderstanding . . . .148

The unity of mind . . . . . 150Intuition and enjoyment of the categories Substance, Causality 151Causality as between mind and things . . . 155Apprehension of matter . . . . .158Apprehension of secondary qualities. Intrinsic extension and

extent . . . . . . .160Intensity of sensum intuited ..... 161Extent of sensum . . . . . .164History of * extensity. Place as " partial content " of sensation 165Remarks on space-perception Motor sensations. Local signs as

peripheral . . . . . . .168Apprehension of life . . . . . 1 70Apprehension of foreign life . . . . .174Apprehension of mind . . . . . .176Order of growth of the forms of apprehension . . 177SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. On Localisation . . .178

CHAPTER VIIAPPEARANCES

Thing as synthesis of appearances. Problem III. . -183The kinds of appearances . . . . .184Variations of real appearances : (i) due to position in place and

time of percipient ; (2) due to varying sensitiveness . 187Mere appearances. Problem IV. . . . .191Variation in primary qualities. Real appearances. Reason of

the appearance . . . . . .192


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CONTENTS ixPACKMere spatial appearances . . . . 197How there can be mistakes in space-perception . . 200

The superiority of touch ..... 203Correctives of defects of intuition .... 205CHAPTER VIIIILLUSION AND IDEAS

Illusory appearances. Problem IV. .... 209The source of illusory appearances . . . .211Their non-mental character ; and how they are possible . 213* Unreality of illusions . . . . .216Memory-appearances . . . . . .218Constructive imagination . . . . .219Assumptions and unrealities ..... 222Appearances in mind itself . . . . .225Public and private, personal and impersonal, experience. Inter-

subjective intercourse : its function . . . 227SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. On the Possibility of Many Spaces or

Times . . . . . . . 233

CHAPTER IXVALUE

A. TERTIARY QUALITIES IN GENERALValues arise from amalgamation of mind with objects. Secondary

and tertiary qualities . . . . .236Appreciations arise from the community of minds . .239The character of the object of value .... 241The experience of values. Values are not qualities . . 243The reality of values ...... 244


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x SPACE, TIME, AND DEITYB. TRUTH AND ERROR FAGK

Reality and truth . . 247Belief .... -247The object of judging . . 249What makes truth true. Not correspondence to reality. But

coherence. What a science is . . . .251Coherence as determined by reality . . 254Incoherence and real opposition . . .256Truth and error related to mind. Truth and reality . . 257No truth or error for a mere individual . . . 260Error as the oblique judgment of reality . . . 261Progress in truth. No degrees of truth or reality ; but of

perfection....... 263Pragmatism .... . 265Mental propositions. Mental error .... 266The science of mind ...... 268Logic . . . . . . . .270

C. GOODNESS AND EVILDifference of goodness and truth .... 273Nature of morality ...... 274Goodness and the good ..... 276Union of mind and objects in goodness.... 278Moral evil ....... 280Progress in morals . . . . . .282Morality not self-contradictory . . . . .282Good and evil in general ..... 283Moral values . . . . . . .285D. BEAUTY AND UGLIN-ESSMeaning of beauty ...... 287Beauty partly real, partly illusory. Natural beauty . . 287Contrast with illusion ...... 290


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CONTENTS xiPAGE

Beauty due in part to mind . . . .291Beauty and coherence...... 293Beauty implies coherence of minds . . . . 294

E. THE RELATIONS OF THE TERTIARY QUALITIESGoodness as inclusive ...... 297Beauty as inclusive ...... 298All values included in truth ..... 299

F. VALUE IN GENERALTertiary qualities as (i) relations ; (2) typical ; (3) social . 302Reflective and instinctive value. Economic values . . 304Value in general. Problem VI. .... 307Darwinism and value ...... 309The range of value. A lacuna . . 310Corollaries . . . , , , . 313

CHAPTER XFREEDOM

Freedom as determination in enjoyment. Problem V. . . 315Verification from experiences of freedom and unfreedom. Con

firmatory exceptions. Lower and higher freedom . .316Freedom and preference . . 3 21Freedom and prediction. The limits of prediction. The cal

culator of Laplace ... . 323Freedom and necessity. Freedom not indetermination . -.329Other mistaken criteria . . 33 1Universality of freedom . 332Summary of the Empirical Problems . -333SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. Have all the Forms of Existence existed

always? . . - 33^


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xii SPACE, TIME, AND DEITYBOOK IVDEITY

CHAPTER IDEITY AND GOD

PAGETwo ways of defining God .... 34.1Method ...... 34.3Deity the next higher empirical quality than mind . . 345Extension of the conception of deity .... 347Deity not spirit . . . . -349Theories of God as a spirit ... -jr OGod as universe possessing deity . . . ^r zPersonification of this conception : (a) finite god . -354(b) Infinite God .... 356God s infinitude. We are finitely infinite ; God infinitely infinite 358God as actual ..... ^5jGod and other infinites. Unqualified infinites actual ; but not

qualified infinites . . . ,^ 2Finite gods and infinite God . . -5*How can a variable God be the whole universe ? Blending of

finite gods and infinite deity . . . -55The world-soul o368Comparison with the notion of an Absolute Spirit . 369

CHAPTER IIDEITY AND THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT

The religious sentiment and its object .The nature of its object. Not a mere imagination . . 3?5How a future quality can affect us 37


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CONTENTS xiiiPAGE

Assurance of God and of foreign minds.... 380Religious criteria of the conception of God. (i) God greater

than man ; (2) universal ; (3) different in quality fromman ; (4) responsive to man, and worthy of man s trust . 382Theism for religion and speculation. Its strength, and weakness 388Pantheism . 39 2Is the present conception theistic or pantheistic ? Transcend

ence and immanence of God . . . 394Reflective notions of religion. Is God creative ? God s father

hood. God s supposed timelessness : its difficulties fortheism ; and for pantheism . . 39^

CHAPTER IIIDEITY AND VALUE

The approach to deity . . . . 4 2Religion and conduct. Religion not an outgrowth from morality 404Deity and goodness. Deity not a value but a quality . . 408The communal element in religion . .- . .411Deity on the side of goodness. Comparison with life . .412Faith in the conservation of value. Religion as faith in deity . 416Conservation of evil . . . . -4*9The problem of evil .... . 420Immortality .... 4 2 3Deity and feeling. Difference of God and finites in respect of

feeling. Summary . . . 42 5A brief index.... .428INDEX -43


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BOOK IIITHE ORDER AND PROBLEMS OFEMPIRICAL EXISTENCE

VOL. II


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CHAPTER ITHE CLUE TO QUALITY

A. MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASISEMPIRICAL things are complexes of space-time with their introduc-qualities ; and it is now my duty to attempt to show how tory>the different orders of empirical existence are related toeach other, and in particular to explain more precisely thenature of qualities which hitherto have merely beendescribed as being correlative with their underlyingmotions, the exact nature of this relation having beenleft over for further consideration. To do this is thesecond and perhaps the more difficult of the two problemsassigned to metaphysics in the Introduction. The firstwas to describe the fundamental or a priori elements ofexperience. The second was to explain what empiricalexistence is and to indicate those relations among empiricalexistences which arise out of the a priori features of allexistence, if any such can be discovered. In makingthis attempt I am met by a particular difficulty. Myprincipal object is to ask whether minds do not fall intotheir appropriate place in the scale of empirical existence,and to establish that they do. It would be most convincing if minds were first mentioned in their place atthe end of the scale. But this procedure would compelme to use conceptions which would remain difficult untiltheir application to minds was reached. Moreover, thenature of mind and its relation to body is a simpler problemin itself than the relation of lower qualities of existenceto their inferior basis ; and for myself it has afforded theclue to the interpretation of the lower levels of existence.


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4 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK. mI shall therefore adopt a method of exposition (not ofdemonstration) which partakes of compromise, and shallpreface the inquiry with

two problems as to mind, thesolution of which can be used as a clue and a means ofsimplification. The one problem is the relation of mindto the living organism with which, or with a part of which,it is correlated. The other is the relation of minds toone another. I shall then be able to state a hypothesisas to Space-Time and the kinds of empirical existence,matter, life, mind, to name the most obvious distinctions,

which arise within the one Space-Time.identity of Mind is at once the case which most urgently forceswiThks on our attent i n tne problem of quality and at the sameneural time offers the readiest means for its solution. For ourprocess. mind is experienced by us as a set of connected processeswhich have the character of being mental, possessing the

quality of&m l

mentality, or as I shall most frequently say,the character of consciousness. Whether there is anydepartment of mind, which, remaining mind, may be saidto be unconscious, and in what sense this is true, is aquestion I shall defer for the present. Any one whowishes can substitute for the quality of consciousness thequality of being mind, and can, if he pleases, continueto think of mentality as something less specified thanconsciousness. A mind, then, is for immediate experiencea thing or organisation of processes with this distinctiveproperty of being mind, and, however much interruptedit may be, it is normally linked up by memory in itsvarious forms. Under consciousness I include withoutfurther ado those vague and indistinct mental processeson the extreme margin of consciousness which are sometimes described as subconscious, such as, in general, thetone of the organic sensations when we are occupied withexternal events. Such then is mind as we experience it.But we experience also our bodies, and, moreover, in theorganic and motor sensations, such as hunger and breathing and the like, we experience our bodies as alive, whilethey are also experienced by touch and sight, etc., as beingphysical things of the order of external things. And, as


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CH.I.A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 5we have seen in a previous chapter, experience leads uson to connect our mental processes with our body, andin particular with our central nervous system, and morespecifically still with a certain part of our brain, and tolocalise our mental processes in the same places andtimes l as certain neural processes. We thus becomeaware, partly by experience, partly by reflection, that aprocess with the distinctive quality of mind or consciousness is in the same place and time with a neural process,that is, with a highly differentiated and complex processof our living body. We are forced, therefore, to gobeyond the mere correlation of the mental with theseneural processes and to identify them. There is but oneprocess which, being of a specific complexity, has thequality of consciousness ; the term complexity beingused to include not merely complexity in structure orconstitution of the various motions engaged, but alsointensity, and above all unimpeded outlet, that is, connection with the other processes or structures with whichthe process in question is organised. For failure inintensity may mean failure of an otherwise sufficientlycomplex process to be conscious, and so may any causewhich disconnects it from the rest of the neural processeswhich in their connection give us mind. Correlation istherefore an inadequate and misleading word to describethe relation of the mental to the corresponding neuralprocess, and is only used provisionally so long as the twoare separated from one another. In truth, according toour conception, they are not two but one. That whichas experienced from the inside or enjoyed is a consciousprocess, is as experienced from the outside or contemplated a neural one. When we speak of them separatelyit is that we consider the .same process first in respect ofthe character which allies it with simpler vital processes,and second in respect of the new quality which emergesat this higher stage of vital complexity. It has then tobe accepted as an empirical fact that a neural process ofa certain level of development possesses the quality ofconsciousness and is thereby a mental process ; and,

1 For the qualifications as to position in Time see vol. i. pp. 130 ff.


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6 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . malternately, a mental process is also a vital one of acertain order.

Conscious- Now it is not the character of being vital that gives theness some- mental process its individuality, but its new quality ofthing new .. r . T J . \ cin life. mentality or consciousness. Let us take as examples orvitality such operations as digestion or breathing orsecretion. There is no reason that I know for notreckoning with them physiological reflex action or anyneural process not attended with consciousness or mind.But while mental process is also neural, it is not merelyneural, and therefore also not merely vital. For, thatmind should emerge, there is required a constellation ofneural or other vital conditions not found in vital actionswhich are not mental. To use the word which Mill hasmade familiar, mind requires, as a fact of experience, acollocation of conditions which constitutes somethingnew. What that collocation is, might be very difficultfor any one but a physiologist to say, and perhaps notpossible completely for him. I take it that in the mainwhat determines the difference of the psychical from themerely physiological process is its locality in the nervoussystem, implying as this does the special structure of theliving nervous elements in that locality. It may stillbe open for discussion at what level in the brain-structureconsciousness is found, whether it may attend processesin some of the higher ganglia or whether it belongs exclusively to the cerebral cortex, or whether, again, it is notdifferent if it belongs to a lower and a higher level in thecortex itself. But assuming that the conception of localisation of mental functions in specific regions of the brainis physiologically correct, 1 we may safely regard localityof the mental process as what chiefly makes it mentalas distinct from merely neural, or what distinguishes thedifferent sorts of mental processes from one another.This is, however, a subsidiary matter for our purposes.

i Always of course with the proviso alluded to before (Bk. I. ch. iii.vol. i. p. 1 08), that the localisation of functions in a part of the braindoes not mean that only that part of the brain is concerned in subservingthe function, but only that it is the part principally so concerned.


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CH.I.A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 7What counts is, that without the specific physiological orvital constellation there is no mind. All less complexvital constellations remain purely vital. Thus not allvital processes are mental. There is not, or not necessarily,to each neurosis a corresponding psychosis. The equivalent proposition is, that while all psychoses are neuroses,the psychoses imply the emergence of a new feature, thatof mind. It would follow that mental process may beexpressible completely in physiological terms but is notmerely physiological but also mental. Its resolution intophysiological

terms may be infinitely difficult, and evenif it can be performed it remains that the statement ofthese conditions only means mental action because we arealready acquainted with the fact of their mentality. Toput the matter in different terms : suppose we regardthe description of mind as a chapter of physiology ; itwould still be the physiology of mental action ; we shouldstill be attending to this kind of physiological constellationbecause it is the basis of mind, and should be directed toit from psychology. Nor, as we shall see later, could anyphysiological knowledge of the physiological constellationimplied in a mental action enable us to predict that itwould have the mental quality.Mental process is therefore something new, a freshcreation, which, despite the possibility of resolving it intophysiological terms, means the presence of so specific aphysiological constitution as to separate it from simplervital processes. I do not mean, to take a particularand interesting case, that the foresight of ends asdistinguished from mere vital purposiveness, is not alsovital. Every idea of an end to be gained, every thoughtof a universal, or of a combination to be made executiveby some invention, I shall assume to be also aphysiological process. I mean that such processesthough they may be reduced to the class of vital processesare so distinct from the remainder of the class that theyhold a privileged position in it. Precisely in the sameway the king is a man and belongs to the same class withhis subjects. But he is not one of his subjects. AbtVogler in Browning s poem declares of the musician


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8 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK. m" that out of three sounds he frames not a fourth soundbut a star." Out of certain physiological conditionsnature has framed a new quality mind, which is therefore not itself physiological though it lives and movesand has its being in physiological conditions. Henceit is that there can be and is an independent scienceof psychology, and that the translation of mental processesinto their physiological counterparts follows the lead ofthe more primary description of mind. Mind is thusat once new and old. No physiological constellationexplains for us why it should be mind. But at the sametime, being thus new, mind is through its physiologicalcharacter continuous with the neural processes which arenot mental. It is not something distinct and broken offfrom them, but it has its roots or foundations in all therest of the nervous system. It is in this sense that mindand mental process are vital but not merely vital.

Hence it follows that we are entitled summarilyness not an ^o dismiss the conception that mind is but an inertaccompaniment of neural process, a kind of aura whichsurrounds that process but plays no effective part of itsown : the doctrine that mind is an epiphenomenon ofnervous process, which nervous process would continueto work equally well if mind were absent. The doctrineis not simply to be rejected because it supposes something to exist in nature which has nothing to do, nopurpose to serve, a species of noblesse which depends onthe work of its inferiors, but is kept for show and mightas well, and undoubtedly would in time be abolished. Itis to be rejected because it is false to empirical facts.The mental state is the epiphenomenon of the neuralprocess. But of what neural process ? Of its ownneural process. But that process possesses the mentalcharacter, and there is no evidence to show that it wouldpossess its specific neural character if it were not alsomental. On the contrary, we find that neural processeswhich are not mental are not of the same neural orderas those which are. A neural process^does not ceaseto be mental and remain in all respects the same neural


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 9process as before. Even if it remains in the same place,its connection with the rest of the brain is in some waydisturbed, and it cannot proceed freely on its course.The neural process which carries thought becomeschanged into a different one when it ceases to carrythought. All the available evidence of fact leads to theconclusion that the mental element is essential to theneural process which it is said to accompany by way ofembellishment, and is not accidental to it, nor it in turnindifferent to the mental feature. Epiphenomenalism isa mere fallacy of observation. 1

It is otherwise with the other well-known doctrines of NO parallel-the relation of body and mind. The statement which has ism fi . , . . neural andbeen given above is by no means new in principle nor mentalfor that matter in its particular form. It is a species of Proce$8e -the identity doctrine of mind and body, maintaining thatthere are not two processes, one neural, the other mental,but one. We shall do well to deal shortly with these otherdoctrines, not in order to treat the subject with thoroughness but to defend it sufficiently for our objects againstthe rival conceptions, or at least to exhibit the contrastbetween it and these conceptions.The mental process and its neural process are oneand the same existence, not two existences. As mental,it is in my language enjoyed by the experient ; as neuralit is contemplated by an outsider or may be contemplatedin thought by the experient himself. There can thereforebe no parallelism between the series of mental and theseries of neural or physiological events, such as is postulatedby the strict theory of so-called psychophysical parallelism.That theory was devised to give expression to thecomplete disparity of -the merely physiological and themental, and the reason for it disappears so soon as it is

1 Mr. Bosanquet has an admirable sentence (Value and Destiny of theIndividual, London, 1913, p. 3) summing up the results of his previoustreatment of the subject (Lect. v.) in his preceding volume. "It seemsto me that the fertile point of view lies in taking some neuroses not allas only complete in themselves by passing into a degree of psychosis."See also the rest of the paragraph, which is too long to quote, where it ishowever taken for granted that the activity of mind is non-spatial.


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io EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mrecognised that what corresponds to the mental is notmerely physiological but the bearer of a new quality.It solved or evaded the problem by regarding the mentalseries as entirely independent of the neural and yet inprecise correspondence therewith. The difficulties ofestablishing such precise correspondence in detail may beneglected here, and they are probably not insuperable.But it is evident (as Mr. Ward convincingly pointedout 1 ) that an exact correspondence of two completelydisconnected series, which do not influence each other, isno more than a restatement of the problem. The onlysolution it offers is that the problem must be leftunsolved. It could therefore at most be accepted forpsychological purposes as a compendious statement ofthe fact that every psychosis has its correspondingneurosis. There still remains the metaphysical questionwhether the mind whose processes are mental is not abeing which interacts with the brain, or whether, as Ihave urged, the mind is not itself identical with thetotality of certain neural processes as they are enjoyed.But even as a psychological convenience, the theoryis without justification and superfluous, and moreoverfalse in what it suggests. Psychology is concerned witha parallelism between the mental series and another seriesof a different order, the series of physical objects ofwhich the mental processes are aware. One of the drawbacks of the order of exposition I am adopting is that Imust take for granted what will only be fully clearhereafter (though it has been formulated provisionally inthe Introduction), that the object of the mind in anymental process is something non-mental, which is contemplated, while the mental process is enjoyed. To eachnon-mental object (and there is no mental process whichis without its non-mental object, even if it be only asensum which is the object of sensing, even if it be onlythe internal condition of the percipient s body as inorganic sensation) there corresponds a mental processwhich has the quality of conscious awareness. As the

1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, Pt. iii. Lect. xi. (vol. ii. ist ed.,London, 1899).


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 1 1object varies, so does the neural process or the mentalprocess vary. But there is no parallelism of the neuraland the mental series of which psychology should takeaccount. They are one. Psychology considers the seriesfrom the point of view of the experient or enjoyer ;physiology from the point of view of the onlooker, or, ifof the experient himself, not in his character of experiencingthe mental process but of reflecting on its basis in neuralprocess.

I can only account for the admission of a metaphysicalmiracle as a convenient psychological fiction by supposingthat mental processes were believed to have not merelythe quality of consciousness, but other qualities disguisedunder the name of c content which varied with the object.If the sensory object blue or the image of a table is insome way contained in the apprehension of it, doubtlessthere is an unbridged chasm between the neural processwhich clearly has no such content and the mental processwhich has. No one has indeed imagined that a mentalprocess was itself blue or tabular. Yet these processesare supposed to be qualified correspondingly, or at leastto have before them presentations or ideas which are notthemselves merely external or a selection from what isexternal. The lingering tradition of representationismprovides a mental process (hence called a mental state)with a mental object. But once we recognise that mentalprocesses have no character, beyond the quality of beingmental, other than such as all processes present, intensityor locality or velocity and the like, that is to say, empiricalforms of categorial characters, all reason is removed forsupposing the mental process to be a different existentfrom the neural one. That neural process differs withevery difference in the object which stimulates it toactivity, or upon which it is directed. The neurosis ofgreen occurs for instance in a different place from that ofsweet. The neuroses all possess the vital quality but aredifferent configurations of categorial characters. In likemanner the psychoses present, corresponding to thequalities of the object, differences in the process-featuresof the psychosis ; but there is nothing to indicate the


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12 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE *K . mdifference of quality of the object but these process-features. The separation of the mental process from theneural one is therefore superfluous,, for it is the sameprocess-features which are in the one case enjoyed andin the other contemplated. Ultimately this separationdepends upon failing to recognise the distinctness of themental process from its non-mental object. It is thereforenot only superfluous but founded in error.

Causality If we do not regard the mind as the connected totalitybetween of i ts mental processes and therefore identical with thetTrahi/ 11 totality of the physiological processes of which they are the

presence in enjoyment, the only alternative is some formof animism ; which conceives the mind as an independententity which acts upon, or is acted upon by, the brain, oroperates through it as the instrument of mind. On ourview it still remains true that mind and brain interact ifthe phrase is properly interpreted. Just as we continueto speak of sunrise and sunset, though it is the earth thatrevolves, so we may continue to say under a certain provisothat the mind, as in an act of will, acts upon the braindirectly and produces indirectly movements of the limbs ;or that a stimulus excites the mind through the brain andsets going a train of thought. The proviso under whichsuch language is permissible is that no brain process shallbe understood to cause its corresponding mental processand no mental process its corresponding brain process.Let large letters denote the psychical and small ones theneural series. What we have then in fact is a series, A#,B^, Cc y etc., where some of the small letters may have nocorresponding large letter at all. Now A does not causea but is identical with it ; but A being also a may causethe next member of the series , and if b is equivalent toB, A causes also B. Strictly speaking, the effect of A isB and of #, b. But in so far as A does not exist withouta, A also causes b. And where some of the steps in thecausal chain as in willing are purely neural, A causesthem because it is itself a neural process a. In likemanner no sensory neural process a causes the corresponding sensing A, for it actually is that process ; but in


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 13so far as it is identical with A it may be said to cause thenext psychical event B. In this way we may legitimatelysay that my determination to strike a man causes theblow of my fist ; or that a piece of yellow makes methink of an orange tree in a garden on the Palatine Hill.Just because mind is also vital it can act on my body, andbecause some neural results of stimulation are also mental,my brain may act upon my mind. There is thereforecausality between the members of the mental series andbetween those of the physical series, and because of theidentity of the mental with its physical correspondentthere is causality in the sense defined between membersof the two series.

Needless to say, it is not such interaction of mind Animism,with brain which is implied in the notion of animism.The mind is there distinct from the neural series. Butthe reasons which have been thought more recently tocompel the adoption of animism have, more particularlyin the impressive statement of Mr. McDougall,1 beencoloured by antagonism to the notion of psychophysicalparallelism. The argument has also assumed, or seemedto assume, the alternative to animism to be the so-calledassociationist conception of mind, according to whichmind consists of a number of separate events correspondingto separate objects linked together by associative connections. There are sensations or ideas grouped togetherinto wholes by contiguity or similarity. To thiscorrespond on the neural side certain central excitementswhich are connected by association -fibres. This crudepsychology, obsolescent in this country since the articlec Psychology * of the ninth edition of the EncyclopaediaBritannicay may fairly be regarded now as obsolete.Mental processes are not grouped into wholes byassociation but are distinguishable processes within amental continuum. The agglutinative conception of mindis replaced by the organic one. Mind has its structureand constitution as an animal body has. Moreover, aswe have seen, the life of mind is essentially one of

1 Body and Mind, London, 1911, chs. xix.-xxii.


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1 4 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK. mtransition, and substantive processes of mind like perceptions or images are but the more stable processescorresponding to things in the object world which standout in the stream, while the transitive ones are the vaguer,but still definite processes, which correspond to therelations among the objects. Now, when the notion ofpsychophysical parallelism is rejected in its natural formand the assumptions of associationism are dismissed, thearguments in favour of animism lose half their persuasiveness. It will be as well to substantiate this propositionby indicating

the considerations which on. our hypothesisof identity modify these arguments. I am able to beshorter on this subject because much of what I have tosay has been already said by Mr. Lloyd Morgan in theconcluding chapter of his work on Instinct and ExperiencedThe argument is that mind has certain specific characters to which there is or even can be no neural counterpart. It is not enough to say that there is no mechanicalcounterpart, for the neural structure is not mechanicalbut physiological and has life. Mind is, according to ourinterpretation of the facts, an emergent 2 from life, andlife an emergent from a lower physico-chemical level ofexistence. It may well be that, as some think, life itselfimplies some independent entity and is indeed only mindin a lower form. But this is a different question, whichdoes not concern us yet. If life is mind, and is a non-physical entity, arguments derived from the consciousfeatures of mind are at best only corroborative, and it isan inconvenience in these discussions that the two setsof arguments are sometimes combined. Accordingly Imay neglect such considerations as the selectiveness ofmind which it shares with all vital structures. Theseconsiderations really obscure the issue. For even if lifeis an entity of a different order from existences on the

1 Instinct and Experience, London, 1912.2 I use the word emergent after the example of Mr. Lloyd Morgan.It serves to mark the novelty which mind possesses, while mind stillremains equivalent to a certain neural constellation. Consequently, itcontrasts with the notion that mind is a mere resultant of somethingdower. The word is used by G. H. Lewes (Problems of Life and Mind,vol. ii. p. 412), as Mr. Lloyd Morgan reminds me.


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CH.I.A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 15purely physical level, it would still be a question whethermind is not so distinct from life as to claim to be a yethigher order of existence. Let us then confine ourselvesat present to mind in its character of a conscious being.The important question is whether it must be conceivedas discontinuous with the neural structure or (if thephrase be preferred) the neural mechanism.Meaning, it is said, has no neural counterpart, but (0 Thethe use of meaning is the very life-blood of mind. Now "Ogmmcnit is important here to distinguish two senses of meaning, meaning.because the argument for animism has been used bydifferent writers in the two senses. I may mean in thefirst place an object, as when I point with my finger toa person and say, I mean you. Meaning here signifiesreference to an object, and in this sense every consciousprocess means or refers to an object other than the mentalprocess itself. All mental action implies the relation ofa subject to an object ; and it makes no difference whetherthe object is a perceived one present to the senses ; or anideal one like a purpose consciously entertained, such asgoing to London as entertained in idea or in thought ; oreven an imaginary object such as ^/ i. What neural (oras it is sometimes irrelevantly asked what mechanical)equivalent can there be for this unique relation ? Thissense of meaning corresponds to what the logicians callthe meaning of a word in extension. On the other hand,meaning may signify what the logician calls intension ; aword is used with a meaning ; a flower may mean for mea person who is fond of it ; " there s pansies, that s forthoughts " ; and in general our minds may have a sensoryobject before them, but what we mean by it is a thoughtwhich has no sensory embodiment. In the words, " whenI say religion, I mean the religion of the Church ofEngland as by law established," these two senses of theword meaning seem to be combined, but on the whole itis mainly in the second sense that the word is used.Now meaning in extension raises a quite differentproblem from meaning in intension ; and that problem isnot the question of the relation of mind to its allegedneural basis. It is the question whether the relation of


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1 6 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mthe conscious subject to an object which transcends it isunique, or whether it is not, as I shall maintain, foundwherever two finites are compresent with each other. Itis the problem of what is involved in the knowledge ofwhat is not-mental. To be conscious of an object, tomean it, or to refer to it, may turn out in the end to benothing but the fact that, to take a particular case, a tableexcites in my mind a conscious process of perceiving it.Accordingly in this sense of meaning, meaning does notbelong here but to a later stage of our inquiry. Nor doI think that it would have seemed relevant were not theneural structure taken as alleged to be mechanical. Forif it is a vital structure there is surely nothing very farfetched in thinking that the stomata of leaves mean something beyond themselves, the air, to which they areadapted. I may then neglect meaning in the extensivesense for the present. (See later, pp. 89 ff.)The other sense of meaning is undoubtedly relevant,and it offers real difficulty. For meaning is a consciouscondition of mind. When I use a word, the meaning isin my mind (and of course besides this refers to somethingnot in my mind). What then is meaning ? Any part ofa complex whole means for me the rest of the complex.A word, for instance, has been intimately connected withthe characters of the things it names, and it means thosecharacters. That is what it is to use a word with a meaning. My perception of the word means my thought ofwhat the word stands for. The sight of the orange meansfor me the feel of it ; the sight of the marble meatis itscoldness. The knight on the chess-board means themoves which I may make with that piece. The symbol+/ i means its mathematical interpretation. Now whatis there in meaning so described which prevents- us frombelieving that the conscious meaning corresponds to or,as I should say, is identical with a certain neural process ?Doubtless if we imagine that our mind is made up ofsensations connected together by mere indifferent lines ofassociation, the solution is impossible. But if mental lifeis mental processes arranged in various complicatedpatterns, why should not a word set going in my brain,


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CH.I.A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 17and also in my mind, that pattern of process which wecall the meaning ? I have answered the question inanticipation when I pointed to the existence of imagelessthought, customs of mind which may also be customs inthe neural structure, not mere neural statical dispositions,but those neural exercises of a habit which are identicalwith the consciousness of a thought without its necessaryembodiment in sense. When the exercise of the habit ismore specific and detailed we may have the meaning turninto an illustration or concrete embodiment of the meaning, as when the word horse not only makes me thinkof horse but of the particular foal whose affection Iattach to myself in the country by the offer of sugar.And when the marble looks cold the very essence of thecondition of my mind is that the sight process is qualifiedby the ideal touch process, and the transition from theone to the other is in my mind. Even bare associationof the orange with Sicily is more than the fact that Ithink of Sicily when I see an orange. Orange and Sicilyare woven into a complex, of comparatively loose textureindeed as compared with the relation of cold to white inthe marble, but still a texture in which the transition fromthe orange to Sicily is felt as a transition, and not as amere juxtaposition. When I use a word like government/ a whole complicated neuro-psychical pattern is setgoing in my mind and brain, which is transitive andelusive, but none the less conscious, and only calledtransitive because it is wanting in definite detail. I maygo on to fill out this transitive outline with the picturesof the coalition ministry. But it is still the elusivecomplex which stands tout as the main occupation of mymind. The figures of the ministers are the fringes of it,not it the fringe of them. Thus mental connections towhich correspond neural connections are as much conscious as what they connect, and meaning remains a unitarywhole, while it still possesses its neural counterpart.If meaning is thus neural as well as mental, it followsthat a very slight change in an object, or stimulus, mayproduce an overwhelming difference in the mentalresponse if that change is charged with meaning. The

VOL. II C


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1 8 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mfamous telegram argument for animism loses thereforeall its force. A telegram c our son is dead may find therecipient sympathetic but calm. Alter the word c ourto your, a trifling change in the stimulus, and therecipient may be overcome with grief. On the other hand,change all the words into French, a large change in thestimulus, and the effect on the recipient is the same aswhen the telegram was in English. The facts presentno difficulty in view of the constitution of the recipient smind. The little change of a letter makes an enormouschange in the meaning of the telegram. But the wordsmean the same in French as in English. No conclusionin favour of a mind independent of the neural process canbe drawn unless we are prepared to say that a sparkshould physically produce the same effect when it falls ona sheet of iron as when it falls upon a mass of gunpowder,or that a red ball will not cause the same bruise when ithits my body as if it were painted white.

(2) The Very different and far weightier are the considerationsfrrfmment drawn fr m tne phenomena of so-called fusion, that is to

fusion. say where two stimuli which would singly produce theircorresponding sensations produce, when acting together,a sensation different from either. It is thought thatwhere this occurs there must somewhere in the neuralmechanism be compounding of the physical effects : thatthere can be no compounding of mental states. 1 But insome cases at any rate there is said to be no such physicalarrangement forthcoming. The subject is a technical one,and I cannot hope, nor am I fully able, to discuss it as itdeserves. I desire only to remove a prejudice. It willbe best to take a single case, that of so-called binocularfusion. Let the two eyes look at a disc or spot of light,the one eye through a blue the other through a red glass.Sometimes we see a disc of purple, but sometimes we seealternately either blue alone or red alone, in virtue of retinalcompetition. The possibility of this competition is takento mean that the two stimuli are conveyed to different

1 The words of W. James (Psychology, vol. i. p. 158) are self-compounding of mental facts is inadmissible.


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CH.I.A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 19places in the brain and do not compound their effectsphysically. And yet in spite of this we can see purpleon occasion. There is thus an action of the mind in thesensation of purple which has no correspondent in thebrain. There is unity in the consciousness without unityin the cerebral neural structure which carries the separatesensations. Many other such facts are described by Mr.McDougall in his chapter on the unity of consciousness, in particular those of { binocular flicker. l Mr.Sherrington sums up his account of his experiments onthis

subjectin the

striking sentence :" Pure conjunctionin time without necessarily cerebral conjunction in spacelies at the root of the solution of the problem of the unityof mind." 2Now I confess that if a mental state is also neural in

the s*ense I have assumed, it is difficult to understandhow the mental states corresponding to the two stimulican affect each other if there is not physical connectionbetween them somewhere. But in the first place inhibition between them, as in competition, seems to requiresome communication between the neural processes whichthe stimuli set up. In the next place, though there maybe no connection between the sensory centres of thetwo eyes yet the efferent process from each eye isdetermined from both, as is indicated by the motorreactions of the two eyes. 8 Mr. McDougall adds that1 I quote Mr. McDougalTs account of these phenomena or some ofthem, and his inference from them. " If the retina is stimulated intermittently, the rate of succession of the stimuli may be increased until thesubject ceases to perceive any intermittence or flicker of the sensation.This rate of succession is known as flicker-point ; it varies with theintensity of the stimulating light ; but we may take for illustration a casein which flicker-point is reached when the stimulus is repeated twentytimes a second. Now if each retina is stimulated intermittently twentytimes a second, but in such a way that the stimuli fall alternately on thetwo retinae, the flicker-point is not changed ; whereas, if the fibres fromcorresponding points converge to a common centre, flicker-point should bereached when the stimulus falls ten times a second on each retina; forthen the centre would still be stimulated twenty times a second " (p. 292).My concern is not with this inference itself but with the further inferenceto which it leads of the necessity of an intervening soul.2 C. S. Sherrington, The Integrathe Action of the Nervous System(London, 1911), p. 384. 3 Sherrington, loc. cit. pp. 384 ff.


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20 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mthe sensations are localised in the same external place andconnects the " identical motor tendencies " of corresponding points

with Lotze s doctrine that "localsignature of the visual sensation is bound up with, oris a function of, the motor tendency excited by stimulation of that point." 1 Whatever value may attach toLotze s doctrine, it is at any rate of the greatest importance to note that the sensations in question belong to( are referred to or c projected to, are the ordinary, veryquestionable, phrases) the same external place. Now aslong as there is physical connection somewhere, it is notnecessary that the connection should be sensory orcerebral and be a conscious one as it is in the associativeconnections which were mentioned above. The significance of this will be apparent presently when we cometo speak of the unity of consciousness.Even then, it will be asked, how in the absence ofcomposition of the two processes can there be a fusion ofthe two colours into a new colour purple ? Must thisnot at least be attributed to the mind apart from itscerebral instrument ? The question seems to presumethe same misconception (or at least the same contradictionof my conception) which, as I have suggested, leads to thenotion of a complete separation, of mere parallelism, ofthe psychical and the neural series. The assumptionseems to be that the two mental processes, sensing blueand red, have blue and red for their * content or arequalified by those colours ; and in that case it is impossible to understand how the mental sensation of purplewith its different content could arise in the absence ofsome new neural process resulting from the separateneural processes of blue and red. No wonder the fusionis then attributed to the mind itself. But if mentalprocess is without quality or content save the qualityof consciousness and corresponds to its object blue, orred, or what not, in virtue of its locality or the otherspatio-temporal characters mentioned before, a differentanswer is possible and intelligible without difficulty.

1 W. McDougall, Brairt, vol. xxxiii., " On the Relations betweenCorresponding Points of the Two Retinae" (p. 380).


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CH. I. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 21Granted the union somewhere of the neural processes ofblue and red, even if the union be only at a commonefferent path, we should say that these neural arrangements were the neural arrangements, carrying consciousness, which are correlated with the object purple, andthat under these circumstances we were conscious ofpurple. There is no common sensory centre, let usadmit, for the different excitements of the correspondingpoints in the two eyes. This is the arrangement, neuralor mental, for seeing purple, when the purple is seen byboth eyes in the same place. 1 There is another neuralarrangement, in that case, for seeing purple when both redand blue stimulate the one eye alone. Yet there is nooccasion to postulate an interfering soul. The alternatives are not between having a common centre for thetwo eyes, and assuming something which combines thetwo sensations into a different one. Both alternativespresuppose subtly that the quality of sensations belongsto the mind and a different one if not produced byexternal action in a brain centre must be manufacturedby the mind. But there is a third alternative.2 If wedistinguish the sensing from the sensum, and hold thatthe sensum is in the external thing, then all our business is to note the difference in the neural machineryof response (carrying with it the quality not of thesensum but of consciousness) in the binocular instance. The brain centres being through the binoculararrangement affected neurally in the manner appropriateto purple, the mind sees purple. The " specificsynergy," to use a phrase of Prof. C. Stumpf, is suppliedneurally, though not by direct sensory connection, andthe mind sees the object to which that specific synergyis^ the appropriately corresponding neural arrangement.What would need explanation is not so much why the

1 There is of course no purple thing present. But neither is therewhen a disc of red and blue sectors is revolved before the single eye.For the presence of the object when the appropriate nervous arrangement is given, see later, ch. iv. A, p. 85.2 This alternative has been suggested in the Introduction, and remainsto be justified. (See later, chs. iv. v.)


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22 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCEmind sees purple under such conditions, but rather whyunder certain other conditions it sees only either one orother of the component colours. From this point ofview there seems to me to be, in a sense not perhapsthe same as his, a profound importance in the sentenceI have quoted from Mr. Sherrington above. Twosimultaneous processes in the mind, not necessarily connected at the conscious level, may form a single act ofconsciousness with an object different from that of eitherof the two mental processes taken singly.

The case of binocular flicker is a different one fromthe seeing of purple. The physical object is an intermittent illumination. The question is when the mindfails to detect the intermittence ; and it appears that ingeneral the result is the same whether the stimulationis binocular or monocular. From Mr. Sherrington sexperiments it appears that there is a difference whenthe rate of intermittence is different in the two sets ofstimulations ; but here the objective difference of thesensa affects the sensibility for detection of intermittence.In these experiments also the sensations belong to thesame place, and this is intimately connected with thecommon issue of the reaction from the visual centres.

unity of This leads us directly to the problem of the unity ofconscious- . . . J . r . . . ~ , ,ness . consciousness : how there can be such unity if the neuralcounterparts of the mental processes are not, as it is fairlyclear is not always the case, united by connecting processesat the level of consciousness. This is one oftwo problemsupon which our statement of the facts may perhaps throw

light. The other problem is that of rupture of theunity of consciousness in spite of the existence of neuralpaths at the conscious level. If, as I have suggested,mental process is also neural there is no discontinuity(I mean disconnection) between those neural processesand processes occurring at lower levels of the nervoussystem or even of the organism taken as a whole. Aconscious neural process may consequently be replaced(I purposely use a vague word to cover all cases) by alower neural process which is not attended by conscious-


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 23ness. Nor is it enough to urge that possibly there maybe discontinuity in the neural structure itself, for at thebottom of this neural structure there lies, as at the bottomof all finite existences, the indefeasible continuity of itsspace-time ; and the problem is but deferred to an earlierstage in the history of things.Let us consider first the unity of consciousness. Thecase of fusion just discussed is enough to show that theremay be unity of mind though the component processesare not connected at the conscious level. A still moreobvious case is the unity of two experiences which do notfuse and are entirely disparate, such as a vision of treesand the touch of the chair on which I sit. These aredisconnected experiences, but they are felt to belong tothe one mind. Yet their nervous counterparts, thoughunited by no definite neural connection at the consciouslevel, so long as they are not noticed to occur together, arepart of one neural structure and are physically not disconnected at some level or other. Though these areunited in time they are also connected somewhere inthe neural space. Similarly there are gaps in time as thatof dreamless sleep, where there is no consciousness inthe ordinary interpretation of that word, 1 but wherethrough some form of memory the interrupted history ofour minds is united across the void. Our memory doesnot fill up this void but unites, to borrow the phrase oncemore, the broken edges of our mental life on the twosides of the gap. Thus the problem of mental unityassumes a different character. It is not how there canbe mental unity without complete physical unification bylines of conscious connection, but how there can be unityin enjoyment when enjoyments are discontinuous thoughthe neural structure as a whole is continuous. There isenough and to spare somewhere in the neural structure,to provide for everything in the mental life. The puzzlearises from the fact that while all psychoses are neurosesnot all neuroses are psychoses. Hume, as I have so oftenpointed out, used the fact that the intermediate stages of

1 If there is no really dreamless sleep, and no forgetting, the questiondisappears.


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24 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . ma volition are not conscious but purely neural to controvert the notion that causality is a mental experience. Wehave, in other words, to account not so much for theapparent absence of neural connections as for the presenceof mental unity though there are neural connections, butnot direct mental ones. The fact of mental unity isbeyond dispute. Our minds are normally unitary, andno matter how disconnected our experiences may be theyare not experienced as merely juxtaposed to make a unity,but as differentiations of that unity. This is the initialand central fact of our mental life expressed by the somewhat loose phrase that the mind is sensibly or to experiencecontinuous.Now it is just because the neural structure is (atleast relatively) continuous, so that all its parts arephysically connected, that there can be unity betweendivided processes of consciousness, so as to make thembelong to one mind. In other words, because consciousprocesses are parts of a larger whole which is not all of itconscious, in spite of the absence of conscious connectionsthere is still connection. 1 This would be sufficient forour purposes, for it turns the flank of the contrary pleathat for want of evidence of conscious connection wemust assume an independent mind. Still the problemremains of how to understand the fact of experiencedmental unity. Unity of substance, we have seen, meansbelonging to one contour of space-time. The unity ofmind should be the unity of one enjoyed space-time.Yet though the mind is aware of its past stages asconnected with the present ones, and though at anymoment its various experiences belong to the oneenjoyed space of the mind, there are gaps in time andgaps in space as it enjoys them, and we know, moreover, that there are such gaps. There are not gaps,

1 We have here a particular case of the general question of how asubstance may have different affections which are not themselves directlycausally connected. Their connection may lie lower down in the intrinsically simultaneous structure of the thing. They appear consequently to bemerely juxtaposed, but they are in the end connected. (See Bk. II. ch.yi. A, vol. i. pp. 276 ff., and Bk. I. ch. iv. vol. i. pp. 135 ff., on mentaljuxtaposition.)


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 25as we have seen, in the physical basis taken as part ofa larger neural structure. How then are we aware ofthese gaps in our enjoyment, and so enjoy our mentalunity ?The answer cannot be given till we come to learnhow Space and Time themselves are apprehended.Various experiences palliate the difficulty but do notremove it. Sometimes we can by memory fill up theintervening time, going over the events between now andan hour ago. We cannot always do so, and never forthe interval filled by dreamless sleep. Nor if we could,would the intervals of our memories be completely filled.From the reports of others we learn (as Leibniz observes)that we have continued to exist in sleep and can thinkof ourselves as existing in the interval, because we inturn have observed others to live in sleep, while fromtheir reports they have not been conscious of the interval.Such experiences supplement but do not provide thedirect consciousness we have of a mental unity containinggaps which we enjoy, though these gaps in our mentalspace and time are unfilled by mental events. In theexternal world two events of different date and place areobserved as connected by a stretch of time or space however much foreshortened. These conditions are notpresented in enjoyment. We must leave the problemfor the present at this point, to resume it later. 1 It isenough to have shown what it really is, and that it offersno support to animism but rather, however difficult ofsolution, it in fact admits no solution at all unless mindis identical with some physical counterpart and is connected by some physical connections which need notnecessarily be themselves mental ones, carrying themental quality.

The second of these problems, that of divided Dividedconsciousness and of the unconscious, presents great Con8cio "s-j rr i 11- i ne88 an "difficulties to tne psychologist and requires expert the un-knowledge of special cases for adequate discussion. Allthat I can hope to do here, or need to do, is to indicate on1 Below, ch. vi. pp. 1 50 f.

conscious.


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26 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mwhat lines a solution might be sought in accordance withthe view of identity between the conscious process and itsneural correlate ; with the additional principle that suchneural counterparts of mental processes are parts of alarger neural structure. The question of divided personality is more manageable than that of the unconscious.Whether the personalities alternate or coexist, it wouldseem that the normal personality, that is the totalconsciousness, is c dissociated ; and it is not difficult tosuppose that normal lines of connection between processeswhich are normally continuous, are for some reasonbarred or broken. In this way groups of mental processes with their neural basis are formed which have nocomplete connection with one another ; though they mayand do in certain cases overlap, each for instance usingthe common speech apparatus. They are comparable tothose systematised groups of mental processes whichconstitute interests, when in persons of normal conditionthese interests are exercised almost in independence of eachother, the week-day mind and the Sunday mind whichin many persons seem to have so little to do with eachother. Suppose the separation of these interests tobecome absolute ; each interest would then constitute aseparate personality of a limited kind. So in the bodypolitic there are groups which almost ignore each other,and have different standards of feeling and conduct. Suchseparate personalities are called by a happy term c co-conscious/ for in their case there is no good evidence todoubt that the split-off group really possesses a consciousness of its own, and the one person may treat the othervery much as one normal person treats another withwhom he has no such bodily alliance. That theseco-conscious personalities mean the blocking of normalphysical paths of communication (generally no doubt atthe conscious level, as where there is actual loss ofmemory for tracts of a life), but possibly also at lowerlevels, is indicated by the process of restoration, wherethat occurs, of the original unity. Such restoration mayassume a much more consciously deliberate shape than itprobably possesses. Thus in the famous case of Miss


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 27Beauchamp and her demon Sally, 1 the ingenious physicianpersuades the demon to abdicate in favour of the rightfulpossessor of the body. This act of resignation on thepart of the demon, who is by no means a good demon,but selfish and somewhat malignant, probably is only apictorial representation of the fact that the blocked linesof association belonging to the original personality arebecoming permeable once more. 2Now where the original unity breaks up into twopersons, A and B, and where A, as sometimes occurs, doesnot happen to be aware of B as a foreign person, A isunconscious of B, but inquiry shows that B is itself -aconsciousness. A s unconscious turns out to possess aconsciousness of its own. But it by no means followsthat we may extend this precedent and assume, where-ever what is unconscious can under certain conditionsemerge into consciousness, that therefore the unconsciouscondition was all the while mental. We are here dealingnot necessarily with pathological minds, but with thecommonest facts of the normal mind. Thus incidentscompletely forgotten may at some time swim into memory,but must we assume that these processes were all thewhile preserved, not indeed as conscious but as anunconscious department of the mental ? Dreams, as isnow well known, may be an expression of tendencies inthe dreamer s mind which cannot be expressed overtly,but which subsequent analysis of the person s mind showsto have been there somehow preserved and seekingexpression in the person. Evidence of this sort hasbecome so abundant and has been marshalled with somuch skill by Dr. Freud that to many it would seemnatural to disregard the scientific scruples of those whoin the face of such facts still question whether a truly

1 Dr. Morton Prince s famous case, in The Dissociation of aPersonality (New York, 1906).2 Divided personality then seems to be perfectly explicable on theidentity statement. On the other hand, it is difficult to see a reason why,for certain pathological causes, there should be two independent soulscontrolling parts of one organism, and certainly why in the case of a curethe two souls should become one. How does animism conceive thesplitting of a soul or the fusion of two souls ?


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28 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCEunconscious state is ever mental, is ever, that is to say,more than a neural condition which may under appropriatecircumstances lead to a conscious condition, and becausethis is so, may justly be called psycho-physical withoutbeing psychical. The other view leads to the conceptionof a larger mind of which the conscious mental states arebut the appearance, somewhat in the fashion of a thing-in-itself, embodied no doubt in the neural structure, outof whose mysterious depths mental conditions emergeinto the light of day. One may be very sensible of theenormous value for pure psychology (for I am notconcerned with the therapeutic side of the matter) of Mr.Freud s discoveries without necessarily pledging oneselfto belief in the existence of an unconscious mind. 1On the contrary, with the identity interpretation ofthe relation of mind and neurosis, a mental process mayleave its traces in a neural form which is purely physiological. A memory may remain latent as a physiologicaltrace or disposition, awaiting the touch of an appropriatestimulation to take on the full vividness and complexityof a conscious memory. At what level an experience ispreserved it may not be easy to say. Possibly at thehighest level ; but possibly also a conscious process maybe registered in a lower level of the vital structure whichsubserves the mind. On the view that mental processesare also vital and therefore connected with the rest ofthe vital nervous structure, this proposition presents nodifficulty. Thus we may have neural dispositions atlower levels than the conscious level, which may at anytime be completed neurally and so call into play theaction of the higher level. They would thus form apermanent undercurrent of the mental life, but wouldremain purely physiological till called upon to enter intothe psychical neural constellation. For this reason theymay be termed psycho-physical to indicate their essentialcontinuity with what is psychical, but there is some riskthat the expression may be misunderstood to imply thepresence of a psychical factor. I prefer to speak of

1 See for Mr. Freud s hypothesis the last chapter of Traumdeutung(Leipzig and Vienna, 1909, ed. 2), esp. p. 380.


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CH. i. A MIND AND ITS NEURAL BASIS 29physiological dispositions, which are in themselves notpsychical but may emerge into consciousness. Thus itwould seem better to distinguish what are strictly mentaldispositions, that is conscious plans, from dispositionssecondarily acquired, automatic habits, which may remainentirely below the level of consciousness. With thisexplanation we can understand how a mental, that is aneural process at a certain level, may either become solacking in intensity or so much disconnected with otherprocesses as no longer to carry with it consciousness ormay be replaced by and registered in a subjacent partof the structure ; and at the same time how owing totheir continuity with the mental level such purelyphysiological conditions affect the course of the mentallife and on occasion enter into it. Just so, at an evenextremer remove from the mental life, the state of thenutrition, though it may not be psychically perceptible,may affect the working of the mind. Instead then ofthe mythological or at least hypothetical larger mind ofwhich the conscious mind is only a part or an appearance,we should have a very palpable and unhypothetical neuralsystem (itself a part of the whole organism) of which theworkings of a particular part correspond to and in factare consciousness, and any part of which may affect consciousness or may register the traces of past experiences.

Hence, to take an instance or two from a field whosedetails are matter for the specialist, it does not followthat because analysis after the event discloses the presenceof a feeling in a dreamer s mind which disguised itselfin the " manifest content " of the dream, that that feelingwas present in a mental form. The physiological tendencymay have been enough, for example the stirring of someorganic process contained within an emotional condition.In psycho-analysis the inhibition is removed whichprevented the tendency from coming to the surface inits natural form. It may well happen that ideas, forinstance of decorum, set going by the physiologicalstirring of a tendency reputed immodest, may give adifferent turn to the tendency. From this point of viewthe machinery of the " censorship " exercised over the


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30 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . munconscious wish may be only a mythological or pictorialway of representing something very real which is goingon in some part of the neural structure, but does notimply that all of it is mental. In the same way innegative hallucinations where a patient is told not tosee cards with odd numbers of pips, though it is evidenthe must distinguish odd cards from even ones in orderto notice only the even ones, it does not follow that hesees the card with odd pips and then suppresses theperception ; the visual stimulus may be suppressed orinhibited by his instructions before it reaches the mentallevel of development.

It is by no means asserted that, where there isc unconsciousness which can be seen to be consciousunder certain conditions, it is really purely physiological. On the contrary, it may be co-conscious. Iam only pleading that we must choose between theconscious (which includes subconsciousness in the sensethat word sometimes and perhaps most convenientlybears of what is in consciousness but indistinctly separable from the mass of mental experience) and what isnot mental at all but purely physiological though itremains continuous with the mental and may affect themental. The truly unconscious is not mental at all,though continuous with it ; if it is mental it is co-conscious. It is only for the expert to say when there isco-cdnsciousness and when there is not. Accordingly,on the statement here adopted I find myself in agreement with a passage of Dr. Morton Prince, 1 which Iwill conclude this subject by quoting : " We can say atonce that considering the complexity and multiformityof psycho-physiological phenomena, there would seemto be no a priori reason why all subconscious phenomenamust be the same in respect of being either co-consciousor unconscious ; some may be the one and some theother. It is plainly a matter of interpretation of the factsand there still exists some difference of opinion." Byunconscious processes the writer means processes whichare wholly unconscious, that is, are purely physiological.1 The Unconscious (New York, 1914), p. 161.


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CH. i. B OTHER MINDS 31

B. THE APPREHENSION OF OTHER MINDSAnother topic which 1 discuss here, out of its proper Acquired

place, but for convenience in exposition, is how we come "^y butto recognise each other as conscious subjects. In a direct ex-previous chapter I was at pains to show that our belief in Penence -the intimate connection of mind with brain was foundedon direct experience ; though that experience was helpedout by reflection, as all our experience is ; the issue ofsuch reflection upon experienced data, some of themenjoyed, some contemplated, has been to identify themental process with a certain constellation of physiologicalprocesses. I shall now try to indicate what the experienceis on the strength of which we believe in other mindsthan our own. For without some direct experience ofother minds such recognition does not occur. Theexistence of other minds is commonly regarded as aninference by analogy from the outward behaviour of otherpersons bodies. Their gestures, actions, and speech invarious circumstances resemble our own in those circumstances, and we regard them, it is said, as proceeding froma consciousness like our own. Now it is true that whenwe already have the notion of other minds, we interpretoutward behaviour on the analogy of our own experience,and can thus sympathetically enter into their minds in allmanners of refined and subtle interpretation. But in thefirst place the doctrine in question cannot apply from thenature of the case to unreflective animals, such as dogs,who certainly appear in some of their behaviour torecognise other dogs as of the same kind as themselves.And in the next place it is flatly at variance with thehistory of our minds. It implies that we begin with aknowledge of ourselves and construe foreign selves inthat likeness. Now it is almost a commonplace that thereverse is rather the case, that our reflective consciousnessof ourselves arises in and through our consciousness of


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32 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCEothers. We are led, not of course to the enjoyment ofourselves but to noticing ourselves, through intercoursewith others : the knowledge of ourselves and that ofothers grow up together. Our own individuality standsout for us against a background of other persons.Were we alone in a non - conscious world, we shouldenjoy ourselves and feel success and disappointment, butwe should hardly experience ourselves as individualpersons. But what is more important, mere inference byanalogy cannot account for our original recognition ofother minds. For the idea of a foreign consciousness,unless directly supplied by some experience to that effect,is something to which we have no clue in ourselves.We enjoy our own consciousness and our own consciousness only, and we do not contemplate it, but only ourbodies. The idea of a consciousness not our ownbelonging to the body of some one else would be a sheerinvention on our part. How should we invent such aconception of something totally new, if foreign consciousness were not in some manner revealed to us as such ? lFor it is safe to assert that we never invent in that sense,but only discover, though we may combine the materialswe already know in all sorts of new combinations. Wehave then to search for the experience which assures usnot inferentially but directly of other minds.

That experience is a very simple and familiar one,tne experience of sociality, and has a double aspect. Ourfellow human beings excite in us the social or gregariousinstinct, and to feel socially towards another being is tobe assured that it is something like ourselves. We donot first apprehend that another being is a mind andthen respond to him, whether positively as in affectionor negatively as in aversion ; but in our tenderness ordislike we are aware of him as like ourselves. Just asthe emotion of fear or the instinct to run away from

1 Compare A. E. Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics (London, 1903),p. 205, for a clear statement of how inadequate the notion of inference byanalogy is to account for our having the idea of a foreign self. Bk. III.ch. ii. 3 of his book gives his version of the case.


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CH. i. B OTHER MINDS 33certain things discovers them to be dangerous, thecognitive apprehension being given to us only in so faras we practise a certain response, so in seeking thecompany, or avoiding it, of our fellows we are aware ofthem as like ourselves. But while without the socialinstinct we should not be led to this apprehension, we donot experience the satisfaction of the instinct of sociality tillwe have the experience that the creature towards whichwe act socially reciprocates our action, either by co-operation or rivalry. The emotion of sociality is a double-sided one ; it is a response on our part to the otherbeing, confirmed by a response on his part to us. Thedouble experience is necessary to sociality ; it takes twopersons to make friends or two persons to make aquarrel. Without the instinctive response we shouldseek nothing from the other ; without the co-operationwe should not be aware of him in the fullest sense asour fellow. 1

Instances upon this merely instinctive level are theexperiences of parental or filial affection, or sexual love,competition in pursuit of prey, or jealousy. We do notmerely feel ourselves performing certain actions towardsanother but we want him, and in turn we find himplaying his part in the joint experience in which weare both concerned. Without this reciprocation, ourinstinctive action would not have its peculiar flavour.Our social feeling towards him is the divination that heis like ourselves ; his reciprocation confirms it and makes

1 The prior importance of the social instinct was omitted in my accountof the matter in Mind, xxii. N.S., 1913, "Collective willing and truth,"2, pp. 17 ff., which therefore was open to the objection that the resistanceof a table to my pressure was a response to my action. The importanceof the other element can be recognised by reflection on the similar problem,which will occupy us later, of how we come to have assurance of the existence of God. There too God stands for something in the Universe whichwe find responding to our religious sentiment or desire (below, pp. 373 ff.).Mr. Laird (Problems of the Se/f, London, 1917, p. 25) appears tomiss my point when he urges that it is because a human hand behaves

differently from a stuffed hand that the doctrine I am contending againstexplains the difference by another consciousness like our own. The ideaof a foreign consciousness would be miraculous if it were not based on adirect experience of it.

VOL. II D


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34 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE B*. mit assurance. Thus we feel tenderly to a child as weshould not feel towards a soft warm cushion (the illustration is from W. James). But we do not feel sociallytowards him, the tenderness has not its distinctive flavour,except for the reciprocation of the child. It is felt moreplainly towards an affectionate than towards a cold child,and felt more and differently towards a child than towardsa puppy. It may be questioned whether we should feeltenderness to a fly in distress if we had not alreadyacquired tenderness in respect of living creatures whichcan reciprocate. There is, to take a different example,all the difference between grasping a hand which returnsthe pressure and grasping an unresponsive piece of fleshin the shape of a hand. It seems to us inhuman anddisappoints our expectation of a return, and we wonderwhether we are not shaking hands with a fish or a statue.To have the warm human experience we require reciprocation. Again, rivalry for the possession of food is adifferent experience from appetite for the food ; itcontains the experience of jealousy or hate. Or again, ifthe rival is inanimate and cannot participate with us.;when for instance a cigar which I am smoking goes outI may be disappointed, but if it is knocked out of mymouth by a person I am angry. When the dog s bonerolls away from him he grasps it more firmly ; but ifanother dog or a man seizes it, he growls. The experienceof another man s trying to get the same thing as yourselfis a different experience from mere obstruction or difficultyin obtaining the object, and is the suggestion that he toowants it. It is of course true that when the experienceof real rivalry has become familiar the obstructinginanimate agent may also be credited with consciousness ;and the dog may be angry if his bone slips or the manif his cigar goes out, or he may, like Sir Walter Scott,say that a letter which he cannot find has been hidden bythe Devil. But he must have experienced rivalry tobegin with. Once more, the feeling of love to theopposite sex is not the same when the love is notreciprocated, and accordingly love is different from mereselfish lust though even the mere animal satisfaction


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CH. I. B OTHER MINDS 35implies too complementary action of the other party. 1A lover may of course feel genuine love when it is notreturned, but his expectation or hope is for reciprocation,and his disappointment implies that the person is capableof returning the emotion though he is not the chosenobject.Thus it is because we are social beings and have thesocial instinct that we become aware of others as likeourselves and the possessors of minds. The animals,like ourselves, are aware of each other as like. But theirconsciousness of the likeness being without reflectionamounts to nothing more than behaving towards each otheras ifthey were what we call alike. Since it is sociality whichgives us this assurance, the consciousness of other mindscomes to us from our relations to one another and we donot learn so directly from animals that they have minds.Now in this experience that other humans excite oursocial desires and in turn satisfy them, which gives usthe assurance that they also are minds like ourselves, itis not their similarity of behaviour to us which describesthe situation into which I and another human enter.Hence the radical mistake of supposing that analogy ofbehaviour assures us of the existence of other minds.In general the part which the two participants in thesocial situation play is not the same but different ; thechild s response to the mother is not the same as themother s caresses. In some cases, as in struggle for foodor fighting for a female, the acts may be in most respectsalike. 2 But the likeness of behaviour is not a necessary

1 Compare as to this the following interesting passage of Shaftesbury,Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit, Bk. II. pt. 2, I, p. 128, ed. 1727 :" The courtesans and even the commonest of women who live by prostitutionknow very well how necessary it is that every one whom they entertainwith their beauty, should believe there are satisfactions reciprocal; andthat pleasures are no less given than received. And were this imaginationto be wholly taken away, there would be hardly any of the grosser sort ofmankind who would not perceive their remaining pleasure to be of slightestimation."

2 The same thing is true in respect of moral judgments. Thegreater part of our practical action is the same, because the conditions arerepeated, but morality recognises that the proper work of each may be


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36 EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE BK . mincident. What is necessary is that the whole situation,of going out on the part of one person, does not existwithout participation of both, and consequently theexperience of either is incomplete without the response,whether it is by way of help or hindrance, of the other.We become aware in this direct experience of somethinglike ourselves.

The grades The primary concerns of life and its appetites, andof such ex- tke s imples t occupations of primitive man or the animalspcncncc. . - r . r . r i 1 r- isupply material for this experience or other minds. Suchrecognition is in the main instinctive, that is, is upon theinstinctive level of life. On the basis of this experiencethe savage or the child or the animal even, may imputepersonality or something like it to inanimate things, thedoll or stocks and stones or the wind and the sun. Thisis an act of projection which is perfectly intelligible whenthe mysterious object, a foreign mind, has been discovered by revelation of it through such experiences ashave been de

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