Problems of Life and Mind. Second series by George Henry Lewes (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

or absence of certain parts. The brain not being a necessary part of the mechanical adjustments in swimming, or pushing aside an irritating object, the brainless frog swims and defends itself in the same way as the normal frog. But no sooner do we pass from the objective interpretation, and introduce the subjective element of Feeling among the series of factors necessary to the product—no sooner do we ask whether the brainless frog feels the irritation against which it struggles, or wills the movements by which it swims—than the question has shifted its ground, and has passed from Physiology to Psychology. The appeal is no longer made to Observation, but to Interpretation. Observation tells us here nothing directly of Feeling. What it does tell us, however, is the identity of the objective phenomena; and Physiology demands that a common term be employed to designate the character common to the varied phenomena. Sensibility is such a term. But most modern physiologists, under the bias of tradition, refuse to extend Sensibility to the spinal cord, in spite of the evidences of the spinal cord possessing that property in common with the brain. They prefer to invoke a new property; they assign spinal action to a Reflex Mechanism which has nothing of the character of Sensibility, because they have identified Sensibility with Consciousness, and have restricted Consciousness to a special group of sensitive phenomena.

73. Nor is it to be denied that on this ground they have a firm basis. Every one could testify to the fact that many processes normally go on without being accompanied by consciousness, in the special meaning of the term. Reflex actions,—such as winking, breathing, swallowing,—notoriously produced by stimulation of sensitive surfaces, take place without our “feeling” them, or being “conscious” of them. Hence it is concluded that the Reflex mechanism suffices without the intervention of Sensibility. I altogether dispute the conclusion; and in a future Problem will endeavor to show that Sensibility is necessary to Reflex Action. But without awaiting that exposition we may at once confront the evidence, by adducing the familiar fact that “unconscious” processes go on in the brain as well as in the spinal cord; and this not simply in the sphere of Volition, but also in the sphere of Thought.110 We act and think “automatically” at times, and are quite “unconscious” of what we are doing, or of the data we are logically grouping. We often think as unconsciously as we breathe; although from time to time we become conscious of both processes. Yet who will assert that these unconscious processes were independent of Sensibility? Who will maintain that because cerebral processes are sometimes unaccompanied by that peculiar state named Consciousness, therefore all its processes are unaccompanied by Feeling? And if here we admit that the Reflex mechanism in the brain is a sensitive mechanism, surely we must equally admit that the similar Reflex mechanism in the spinal cord is sensitive?

74. Let it be understood that Sensibility is the common property of nerve-centres, and physiological interpretations will become clear and consistent. Consciousness, as understood by psychologists, is not a property of tissue, it is a function of the organism, dependent indeed on Sensibility, but not convertible with it. There is a greater distinction between the two than between Sensation, the reaction of a sensory organ, and Perception, the combined result of sensory and cerebral reactions; or than that between Contractility, the property of the muscles, and Flying, the function of a particular group of muscles. It is not possible to have Consciousness without Sensibility; but perfectly possible to have Sensations without Consciousness. This will perhaps seem as inconceivable to the reader as it seemed to Schröder van der Kolk.111

75. Let us illustrate it by the analogy of Pain. There is a vast amount of sensation normally excited which is totally unaccompanied by the feelings classed as painful. The action of the special senses may be exaggerated to an intolerable degree, but the exaggeration never passes into pain: the retina may be blinded with excess of light, and the ear stunned with sound—the optic nerve may be pricked or cut—but no pain results. The systemic sensations also are habitually painless, though they pass into pain in abnormal states. Clearly, then, Pain is not the necessary consequence of Sensibility; and this is true not only of certain sensitive parts, but of all; as is proved in the well-known facts of Analgesia, in which complete insensibility of the skin as regards Pain co-exists with vivid sensibility as regards Touch and Temperature. Hence the majority of physiologists refuse to acknowledge that the struggles and cries of an animal, after removal of the brain, are evidences of pain; maintaining that they are “simply reflex actions.” This is probable; the more so as we know the struggles and cries which tickling will produce, yet no pain accompanies tickling. But if the struggles and cries are not evidence of pain, they are surely evidence of Sensibility.

76. Now for the term Pain in the foregoing paragraph substitute the term Consciousness, and you will perhaps allow that while it may be justifiable to interpret the actions of a brainless animal as due to a mechanism which is unaccompanied by the specially conditioned forms of Sensibility classed under Consciousness—just as it is unaccompanied by the specially conditioned forms of Perception and Emotion—there is no justification for assuming the mechanism not to have been a sensitive mechanism. The wingless bird cannot manifest any Of the phenomena of flight; but we do not therefore deny that its other movements depend on Contractility.

77. Difficult as it must be to keep the physiological question apart from the psychological when treating of Sensibility, we shall never succeed in our analysis unless the two questions are separately treated. The physiologist considers organisms and their actions from their objective side, and tries to detect the mechanism of the observed phenomena. These he has to interpret in terms of Matter and Motion. The psychologist interprets them in terms of Feeling. The actions which we see in others we cannot feel, except as visual sensations; the changes which we feel in ourselves we cannot see in others, except as bodily movements. The reaction of a sensory organ is by the physiologist called a sensation,—borrowing the term from the psychologist; he explains it as due to the stimulus which changes the molecular condition of the organ; and this changed condition, besides being seen to be followed by a muscular movement, is inferred to be accompanied by a change of Feeling. The psychologist has direct knowledge only of the change of Feeling which follows on some other change; he infers that it is originated by the action of some external cause, and infers that a neural process precedes, or accompanies, the feeling. Obviously there are two distinct questions here, involving distinct methods. The physiologist is compelled to complete his objective observations by subjective suggestions; compelled to add Feeling to the terms of Matter and Motion, in spite of the radical diversity of their aspects. The psychologist also is compelled to complete his subjective observations by objective interpretations, linking the internal changes to the external changes. A complete theory must harmonize the two procedures.

78. In a subsequent Problem we shall have to examine the nature of Sensation in its psychological aspect; here we have first to describe its physiological aspect. To the psychologist, a sensation is simply a fact of Consciousness; he has nothing whatever to do with the neural process, which the physiologist considers to be the physical basis of this fact; and he therefore regards the physiologists as talking nonsense when they talk of “unconscious sensations,” the phrase being to him equivalent to “unfelt feelings,” or “invisible light.” It is quite otherwise with the physiologist, who viewing a sensation solely as a neural process, the reaction of a sensory organ, can lawfully speak of unconscious sensations, as the physicist can speak of invisible rays of light,—meaning those rays which are of a different order of undulation from the visible rays, and which may become visible when the susceptibility of the retina is exalted. He knows that there are different modes, and different complexities of neural process; to one class he assigns consciousness, to the other unconsciousness. If he would be severely precise, he would never speak of sensation at all, but only of sensory reaction. But such precision would be pedantic and idle. He wants the connotations of the term sensation, and therefore uses it.

79. The functional activity of a gland is stimulated by a neural process reflected from a centre; by a similar process a muscle is called into action. No one supposes that the neural process is, in the one case secretory, in the other motory: in both it is the same process in the nerve; and our investigation of it would be greatly hampered if we did not disengage it from all the suggestions hovering around the ideas of secretion and muscular action. In like manner we must disengage the neural process of a sensory reaction from all the suggestions hovering around the idea of Consciousness, when that term designates a complex of many reactions. In Problem III. we shall enter more particularly into the distinction between Sensibility and Consciousness; for the present it must suffice to say that great ambiguity exists in the current usage of these terms. Sometimes Consciousness stands as the equivalent of Sensibility; sometimes as a particular mode of Sensibility known as Reflection, Attention, and Thought. The former meaning is an extension of the term similar to that given to the word Rose, which originally meaning Red came to be restricted to a particular red flower; and after other flowers of the same kind were discovered which had yellow and white petals, instead of red, the term rose still adhered even to these. “Yellow Rose” is therefore as great a verbal solecism as unconscious sensation. We have separated the redness from the rose, and can then say that the color is one thing, the flower another. By a similar process of abstraction we separate Consciousness from Sensation, and we can then say that there are sensations without consciousness. In consequence of this, psychologists often maintain that to have a sensation and be conscious of it are two different states. We are said to hear a sound, and yet not to be conscious of hearing it. The sound excites a movement, but it does not excite our consciousness. Now although it is true that there are roses which are not red, it is not true that there are roses which have no color at all. Although it is true that there are sensations which are not of the particular mode of Sensibility which psychologists specially designate as Consciousness, it is not true that there are sensations which are not modes of Sensibility.

80. And what is Sensibility which, on its subjective side, is Sentience? In one sense it may be answered that we do not know. In another sense it is that which we know most clearly and positively: Sentience forms the substance of all knowledge. Being the ultimate of knowledge, every effort must be vain which attempts to explain it by reduction to simpler elements. The human mind, impatient of ultimates, is always striving to pierce beyond the fundamental mysteries; and this impatience leads to the attempts so often made to explain Sensibility by reducing it to terms of Matter and Motion. But inasmuch as a clear analysis of Matter and Motion displays that our knowledge of these is simply a knowledge of modes of Feeling, the reduction of Sentience or Sensibility to Matter and Motion is simply the reduction of Sensibility to some of its modes. This point gained, a clear conception of the advantages of introducing the ideas of Matter and Motion will result. It will then