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

It was undermined by advances in two directions. Psychology began to disclose that our conception of Matter was, to say the least, saturated with Mind, its Atoms confessedly being ideal figments; and that all the terms by which we expressed material qualities were terms which expressed modes of Feeling; so that whatever remained over and above this was the unknown x, which speculation required as a postulate. Idealism, rejecting this postulate, declared that Matter was simply the projection of Mind, and that our Body was the objectivation of our Soul. Physiology began to disclose that all the mental processes were (mathematically speaking) functions of physical processes, i. e. varying with the variations of bodily states; and this was declared enough to banish forever the conception of a Soul, except as a term simply expressing certain functions.

11. Idealism and Materialism are equally destructive of Dualism. The defects of particular idealist and materialist theories we will not here touch upon; they mainly result from defects of Method. Not sufficiently recognizing the primary fact testified by Consciousness, namely, that Experience expresses both physical and mental aspects, and that a Not-Self is everywhere indissolubly interwoven with Self, an objective factor with a subjective factor, the idealist reduces Existence to a mere panorama of mental states, and the Body to a group in this panorama. He is thus incapable of giving a satisfactory explanation of all the objective phenomena which do not follow in the same order as his feelings, which manifest a succession unlike his expectation, and which he cannot class under the order of his mental states hitherto experienced. He conceives that it is the Mind which prescribes the order in Things; whereas experience assures us that the order is described, not prescribed by us: described in terms of Feeling, but determined by the laws of Things, i. e. the genesis of subjective phenomena is determined by the action of the Cosmos on our Sensibility, and the reaction of our Sensibility. He overlooks the evidence that the mental forms or laws of thought which determine the character of particular experiences, were themselves evolved through a continual action and reaction of the Cosmos and the Soul, precisely as the laws of organic action which determine the character of particular functions were evolved through a continual adaptation of the organism to the medium. These immanent laws are declared to be transcendental, antecedent to all such action and reaction.

A similar exclusiveness vitiates the materialist doctrine. Overlooking the primary fact that Feeling is indissolubly interwoven with processes regarded as purely physical because they are considered solely in their objective aspect, the materialist fails to recognize the operation of psychological laws in the determination of physiological results; he hopes to reduce Biology to a problem of Mechanics. But Vitality and Sensibility are coefficients which must render the mechanical problem insoluble, if only on the ground that mechanical principles have reference to quantitative relations, whereas vital relations are qualitative. His error is the obverse of the vitalist’s error. The vitalist imagines that the speciality of organic phenomena proves the existence of a cause which has no community with the forces operating elsewhere; so, turning his back on all the evidence, he attempts to explain organic phenomena without any aid from Physics and Chemistry. The materialist, turning his back on all the evidence of quite special conditions only found at work in living organisms, tries to explain the problem solely by the aid of Physics and Chemistry. It is quite certain that physiological and psychological problems are not to be solved if we disregard the laws of Evolution through Epigenesis. The mental structure is evolved, as the physical structure is evolved. It is quite certain that no such evolution is visible in anorganisms, nor will any one suppose it to be possible in machines. From the biological point of view we must therefore reject both Idealism and Materialism. We applaud the one when it says, “Don’t confuse mental facts by the introduction of physical hypotheses”; and the other when it says, “Don’t darken physical facts with metaphysical mists.” We say to both, “By all means make clear to yourselves which aspect of the phenomena you are dealing with, and express each in its own terms. But in endeavoring to understand a phenomenon you must take into account all its ascertainable conditions. Now these conditions are sometimes only approachable from the objective side; at other times only from the subjective side.”

12. While it is necessary to keep the investigation of a process on its objective side, limited to objective conditions, and to express the result in objective terms, we must remember that this is an artifice; above all, we must remember that even within the objective limits our analyses are only provisional, and must be finally rectified by a restoration of all the elements we have provisionally set aside. Thus rectified, the objective interpretation of vital and mental phenomena has the incomparable advantage of simplifying research, keeping it fixed on physical processes, instead of being perturbed by suggestions of metaphysical processes. And as all physical investigation naturally tends to reduce itself to a mechanical investigation, because Mechanics is the science of motion, and all physical processes are motions, we may be asked, Why should not the mechanical point of view be the rational standing-point of the biologist? Our answer is, Because Mechanics concerns itself with abstract relations, and treats of products without reference to modes of production, i. e. with motions without reference to all the conditions on which they depend. Every physical change, if expressed in physical terms, is a change of position, and is determined by some preceding change of position. It is a movement having a certain velocity and direction, which velocity and direction are determined by the velocity and direction of a force (a pressure or a tension) compounded with the forces of resistance, i. e. counter-pressures. Clearly, the nature of the forces in operation must be taken into account; and it is this which the mechanical view disregards, the biological regards. The mechanical view is fixed on the ascertained adjustment of the parts, so that the working of the organism may be explained as if it were a machine, a movement here liberating a movement there. The biological view includes this adjustment of parts, but takes in also the conditions of molecular change in the parts on which the adjustment dynamically depends. Mechanical actions may be expressed as the enlargement or diminution of the angle of two levers; but chemical actions are not thus expressible; still less vital and mental actions.

13. The organism is on the physical side a mechanism, and so long as the mechanical interpretation of organic phenomena is confined to expressing the mechanical principles involved in the mechanical relations, it is eminently to be applauded. But the organism is something more than a mechanism, even on the physical side; or, since this statement may be misunderstood, let me say, what no one will dispute, that the organism is a mechanism of a very special kind, in many cardinal points unlike all machines. This difference of kind brings with it a difference of causal conditions. In so far as the actions of this mechanism are those of a dependent sequence of material positions, they are actions expressible in mechanical terms; but in so far as these actions are dependent on vital processes, they are not expressible in mechanical terms. Vital facts, especially facts of sensibility, have factors neither discernible in machines nor expressible in mechanical terms. We cannot ignore them, although for analytical purposes we may provisionally set them aside.