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

91. Returning now to Dr. Mesmet’s soldier, and to the conclusion that his dreamlike acts were no more than the actions of one of Vaucanson’s automata, surely we are justified in concluding, first, that these actions were not of the same kind as those of an automaton, since they were those of a living organism; secondly, that they present all the evidence positive and inferential which Sensibility can present in the actions we observe in another, and do not feel in ourselves; and thirdly, if with physiologists we agree that the mechanism of these actions is “worked by molecular changes in the nervous system,” there is some difficulty in understanding how Consciousness, which is said to be caused by such changes, could have been absent—how the cause could operate yet no effect be produced.

92. What automata can be made to perform is surprising enough, but they can never be made to display the fluctuations of sense-guided actions, such as we see in the report of Dr. Mesmet’s soldier:—

“The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had at one time been employed as a singer at a café. In one of his abnormal states he was observed to begin humming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself carefully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel which lay on the bed, as if he were trying to find something. Dr. Mesmet, suspecting that he was seeking his music, made up one of these into a roll and put it into his hand. He appeared satisfied, took up his cane, and went down stairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesmet turned him round, and he walked quite contentedly in the opposite direction. The light of the sun shining through a window happened to fall upon him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage on which he was accustomed to make his appearance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary music, put himself in the attitude of a singer, and sang with perfect execution three songs one after the other. After which he wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank without a grimace a tumbler of strong vinegar-and-water.”

93. Epileptic patients have frequently been observed going through similar dreamlike actions in which only those external stimuli which have a relation to the dream seem to take effect.228 We interpret these as phenomena of disordered mental action, the burden of proof lies on him who says they are phenomena of pure mechanism. A mail-coach does not suddenly cease to be a mail-coach and become a wheelbarrow because the coachman is drunk, or has fallen from the box. The horses, no longer guided by the reins, may dash off the highroad into gardens or ditches; but it is their muscular exertions which still move the coach.

Can any one conceive an automaton acting as the sergeant is described to be in the following passage?—

“Sitting at a table he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began to write a letter to his general, in which he recommended himself for a medal on account of his good conduct and courage. It occurred to Dr. Mesmet to ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned in this act of writing. He therefore interposed a screen between the man’s eyes and his hands; under these circumstances he went on writing for a short time, but the words became illegible, and he finally stopped. On the withdrawal of the screen, he began to write again where he had left off. The substitution of water for ink in the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped, looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it in the water, and began again, with the same effect. On one occasion he began to write upon the topmost of ten superposed sheets of paper. After he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly drawn away. There was a slight expression of surprise, but he continued his letter on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the first. This operation was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet contained nothing but the writer’s signature at the bottom of the page. Nevertheless, when the signature was finished, his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet, and he went through the form of reading over what he had written, a movement of the lips accompanying each word; moreover, with his pen he put in such corrections as were needed.”

94. Dr. Mesmet concludes that “his patient sees some things and not others; that the sense of sight is accessible to all things which are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch, and, on the contrary, is insensible to things which lie outside this relation.” In other words, the sensitive mechanism acts, but acts abnormally. This is precisely what is observed in somnambulists. Yet Professor Huxley, who makes the comparison, appears to regard both states as those in which the organism is reduced to a mere mechanism, because on recovering their normal state the patients are unconscious of what has passed; and because the frog, without its brain, also manifests analogous phenomena. Neither premise warrants the conclusion. I have already touched on the unconsciousness of past actions; let me add the case of Faraday, who was assuredly not an automaton when he prepared and delivered a course of lectures which were nevertheless so entirely obliterated from his memory that the next year he prepared and delivered the same course once more, without a suspicion that it was not a new one. As to the frog, I must leave that case till I come to examine the evidence on which the hypothesis of the purely mechanical nature of spinal action rests.

95. The point never to be left out of sight is that actions which are known to be preceded and accompanied by sensations do not lose their special character of Sentience, as actions of a sentient mechanism, because they are not also preceded and accompanied by that peculiar state which is specially called Consciousness, i. e. attention to the passing changes (comp. p. 403). When we see a man playing the piano, and at the same time talking of something far removed from the music, we say his fingers move unconsciously; but we do not conclude that he is a musical machine—muscular sensations and musical sensations regulate every movement of his fingers; and if he strikes a false note, or if one of the notes jangles, he is instantly conscious of the fact. Either we must admit that his brain is an essential part of the mechanism by which the piano was played, and its function an essential agent in the playing; or else we must admit that the brain and its function were not essential, and therefore the playing would continue if the brain were removed. In the latter case, we should have a musical automaton. That a particular group of sensations, such as musical tones, will set going a particular group of muscular movements, without the intervention of any conscious effort, is not more to be interpreted on purely mechanical principles, than that a particular phrase will cause a story-teller to repeat a familiar anecdote, or an old soldier “to fight his battles o’er again.”

96. Let us now pass to another consideration, namely, whether Consciousness—however interpreted—is legitimately conceived as a factor in the so-called conscious and voluntary actions; or is merely a collateral result of certain organic activities? To answer this, we must first remember that Consciousness is a purely subjective process; although we may believe it to be objectively a neural process, we are nevertheless passing out of the region of Physiology when we speak of Feeling determining Action. Motion may determine Motion; but Feeling can only determine Feeling. Yet we do so speak, and are justified. For thereby we implicitly declare, what Psychology explicitly teaches, namely, that these two widely different aspects, objective and subjective, are but the two faces of one and the same reality. It is thus indifferent whether we say a sensation is a neural process, or a mental process: a molecular change in the nervous system, or a change in Feeling. It is either, and it is both, as I have elsewhere explained.229 There it was argued that the current hypothesis of a neural process causing the mental process—molecular movement being in some mysterious way transformed into sensation—is not only inconceivable, but altogether unnecessary; whereas the hypothesis that the two aspects of the one phenomenon are simply two different expressions, now in terms of Matter and Motion, and now in terms of Consciousness, is in harmony with all the inductive evidence.

97. “It may be assumed,” says Professor Huxley, “that molecular changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness of brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness may conversely cause those molecular changes which give rise to muscular motion? I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims, and goes through his gymnastic performances, quite as well without consciousness, and consequently without volition, as with it; and if a frog in his natural state possesses anything corresponding with what we call volition, there is no reason to think that it is anything but a concomitant of the molecular changes in the brain, which form part of the series involved in the production of motion. The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.” Particular attention is called to the passages in italics. In the first is expressed a view which seems not unlike the one I am advocating, but which is contradicted by the second. Let us consider what is implied.

98. When Consciousness is regarded solely under its subjective aspect there is obviously no place for it among material agencies, regarded as objective. So long as we have the material mechanism in view we have nothing but material changes. This applies to the frog, with or without its brain; to man, supposed to be moved by volition, or supposed to move automatically. The introduction of Consciousness is not the introduction of another agent in the series, but of a new aspect; the neural process drops out of sight, the mental process replaces it. The question whether we have any ground for inferring that in the series there is included the particular neural state which subjectively is a state of Consciousness, must be answered according to the evidence. Well, the evidence shows that the actions do involve the co-operation; and this Professor Huxley expresses when he says that the molecular changes in the brain form part of the series involved in the production of motion. Whether we regard the process objectively as a series of molecular changes, or subjectively as a succession of sentient changes, the sum of which is on the one side a motor impulse, on the other a state of consciousness, we must declare Consciousness to be an agent, in the same sense that we declare one change in the organism to be an agent in some other change. The facts are the same, whether we express them in physiological or in psychological terms. The physiologist, having only the material aspect of the organism in view, says, “A cerebral process initiates a motor process”; the psychologist says, “A sensation determines an action.” Unless