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

the two processes have been linked together by an organic disposition, native or acquired, there will be no such motor process following the cerebral process. A dog standing outside the gate is unable to ring the bell, though having seen another dog ring it, he may wish to do so; but the cerebral process (his wish) is not linked on to the needful motor process—he has not learned to realize the wish; whereas the other dog, having by trial hit upon the right mode of directing his muscles, has registered this experience, and can ring the bell. The organized disposition which enables the dog to do this may truly enough be called a modification of the mechanism; but what we have here to note is that a sensation originally determined the movement, and always determines it.

99. It is the unfortunate ambiguity of the word Consciousness, and the questionable hypothesis of the brain being the sole seat of Sensibility, which darken this investigation. Because animals, after the brain has been removed, are seen to perform certain actions as deftly as before, they are said to perform these without the intervention of Consciousness; when all that is proved by the facts is that these actions are performed without the intervention of the brain. In support of this explanation, examples are cited of unconscious actions performed by human beings. But if we assign Sensibility not to one part of the nervous system exclusively, but to the whole, we can readily understand how the loss of a part will be manifested by very marked changes in the reactions of the whole, and yet not altogether prevent the reactions of the parts remaining intact. An animal must respond somewhat differently with and without a brain. One marked difference is the spontaneity of the actions when the brain is intact, and the loss of much spontaneity when the brain is injured or removed. Cerebral processes prompt and regulate actions, as the pressure of the driver on the reins prompts and regulates the movements of the horses; but the carriage is moved by the horses and not by the driver; and the action is executed by the motor mechanism, whether the incitation arise in a cerebral process or a peripheral stimulation.

100. If we admit that Consciousness is itself an organic process, accompanying the molecular changes as a convex surface accompanies a concave, we must also admit that its fluctuations are adjustments and readjustments of the organic mechanism, and that the actions are the effects of these—their resultants. The loss of the brain must obviously cause a great disturbance in these adjustments. We may call that a loss of Consciousness, if we choose to limit the term to one mode of sentient reaction. But this loss of a mode does not change those reactions which persist so as to convert them into purely mechanical reactions. A troop of soldiers may have lost its directing officer, but will fight with the old weapons and the old intelligence, though not with the same convergence of individual efforts. A frog or a pigeon no more acts as well without a brain as with a brain, than the troop of soldiers fights as well without an officer.

101. Having thus claimed a place for Consciousness in the series of organic processes, let us now see whether it has a place among the active agencies. According to Professor Huxley it is not itself an agent, but only the “collateral product of the working of the machine.” It accompanies actions, it does not direct them. It is an index, not a cause.

Surely it seems more accurate to say that it accompanies and directs the working? It accompanies the working in two senses: first, as the subjective aspect of the objective process; secondly, as the change which produces a subsequent change, that is to say, the movements initiated by a feeling are themselves also felt as they pass; and this feeling enters into the general stream of simultaneous excitations out of which new movements and feelings arise; or to express it physiologically, the sensory impressions determine muscular movements, which in turn react on the nerve-centres, and these reactions blend with the general excitation of reflected and re-reflected processes.230 Since every change in Consciousness is a change in the sentient organism, which objectively is a change in the nervous centres, the working of the mechanism being itself a dependent series of such changes, each movement must have a reflected influence on the general state. This reflected influence may be viewed as a collateral product of the working; but there is no real analogy between it and the whistle of the steam-engine, because this reflected influence demonstrably does intervene in the subsequent movements. The feeling which accompanies or follows a particular movement cannot indeed modify that movement, since that is already set going, or has passed; here there is some analogy to the steam-whistle; but the analogy fails in the subsequent history: no movements whatever of the steam-engine are modified by the whistle which accompanies the working of that engine; yet how the reflected influence modifies the working of the organism! If the hand be passing over a surface, there is, accompanying this movement, a succession of muscular and tactile feelings which may be said to be collateral products. But the feeling which accompanies one muscular contraction is itself the stimulus of the next contraction; if anywhere during the passage the hand comes upon a spot on the surface which is wet or rough, the change in feeling thus produced, although a collateral product of the movement, instantly changes the direction of the hand, suspends or alters the course—that is to say, the collateral product of one movement becomes a directing factor in the succeeding movement. Now this is precisely what no automaton can effect, unless for changes that are prearranged. A steam-engine drives its locomotive over the rails, be they smooth or rough, entire or broken; it whistles as it goes, but no whistling directs and redirects its path.

102. Volition is said to be an “emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.” Here it is necessary to understand in what sense the term cause is employed. I should prefer stating the proposition thus: a volition is a state of the sentient organism, indicative of physical changes which have taken place, and of changes which will take place. Because it is the expression of the first group of changes, it cannot be their origin; but it can be, and is the origin of the second group, which it initiates. The indignation excited by an insult or a blow is not the origin of the emotion or the pain, but it is the origin of the actions which are prompted by this sentient state. In fact no sooner do we admit that the organism is a sentient mechanism, than the conclusion is irresistible that Sensibility is a factor in the working of that mechanism.

103. “Much ingenious argument,” says Professor Huxley, “has at various times been bestowed upon the question: How is it possible to imagine that volition which is a state of consciousness, and as such has not the slightest community of nature with matter and motion, can act upon the moving matter of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do in voluntary acts? But if, as is here suggested, the voluntary acts of brutes—or in other words, the acts which they desire to perform—are as purely mechanical as the rest of their actions, and are simply accompanied by the state of consciousness called volition, the inquiry, so far as they are concerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions do not enter into the chain of causation of their actions at all.... As consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence of molecular motion in the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.” This has been answered in the foregoing pages; nor do I think the reader who has recognized the ambiguity of the term Consciousness, and the desirability of replacing it in this discussion by the less equivocal term Sentience, will need more to be said.

104. The important question whether reflex actions are insentient, and therefore mechanical, will occupy us in the next problem. The question of Automatism which has been argued in the preceding chapters, may, I think, be summarily disposed of by a reference to the irresistible evidence each man carries in his own consciousness that his actions are frequently—even if not always—determined by feelings. He is quite certain that he is not an automaton, and that his feelings are not simply collateral products of his actions, without the power of modifying and originating them. Now this fundamental fact cannot be displaced by any theoretical explanation of its factors. Nor would this fundamental truth be rendered doubtful, even supposing we were to grant to the full all that is adduced as evidence that some actions were the result of purely mechanical processes without sentience at all. I am a conscious organism, even if it be true that I sometimes act unconsciously. I am not a machine, even if it be true that I sometimes act mechanically.