CHAPTER III.

THE RELATION OF BODY AND MIND.

27. THE second question proposed was, In what sense can Feeling be correctly spoken of as an Agent in organic processes? This brings us face to face with a muchdebated topic, the relation of Body and Mind; and demands a theoretic interpretation of that First Notion which expresses universal experience, namely, that what I know as Myself is a Body, in one aspect, and a Soul, in the other. What I call my Body is a persistent aggregate of objective phenomena; and my Soul is a persistent aggregate of subjective phenomena: the one is an individualized group of experiences expressible in terms of Matter and Motion, and therefore designated physical; the other an individualized group of experiences expressible in terms of Feeling, and therefore designated psychical. But, however contrasted, they are both simply embodiments of Experience, that is to say, are Modes of Feeling. All Existence-as known to us- -is the Felt. The laws of our organism compel us, indeed, to postulate an Existent which is extra mentem a Real not Ourselves—but the same laws debar us from any knowledge whatever of what this is, or is like. We know Things absolutely in so far as they exist in relation to us; and that is the only knowledge which can have any possible significance for us.

28. It is impossible for me to doubt that I am a Body, though I may doubt whether what is thus called is any

thing more than a group of feelings. It is impossible for me to doubt that I am a Soul; though I may doubt whether what is thus called is more than a group of bodily functions. In separating what is unquestionable from what is questionable, we separate the fundamental facts of consciousness from the theoretic interpretations of those facts: no theoretic interpretation can efface or alter the facts. Whatever Philosophy may discover, it cannot displace the fact that I know I am a Soul, in every sense in which that phrase represents Experience: I know the Soul in knowing its concretes (feelings), and in knowing it as an abstraction which condenses those concretes in a symbol. The secondary question is, Whether this abstraction represents one Existent, and the abstraction Body another and wholly different Existent, or the two abstractions represent only two different Aspects? this may be debated, and must be answered according to theoretic probabilities.

29. What are the probabilities? We are all agreed that Consciousness is the final arbiter. Its primary deliverance is simply that of a radical distinction. It is silent on the nature of the distinction says nothing as to whether the distinction is one of agents or of aspects. It says, "I am a Soul." With equal clearness it says, "I am a Body." It does not say, "I am two things." Nor does the fact of a radical distinction imply more than a contrast of aspects, such as that of convex and concave. The curve has at every point this contrast of convex and concave, and yet is the identical line throughout. A mental process is at every point contrasted with the physical process assumed to be its correlate; and this contrast demands equivalent expression in the terms of each. The identity underlying the two aspects of the curve is evident to Sense. The identity underlying the mental and physical process is not evident to Sense,

but may be made eminently probable to Speculation, especially when we have explained the grounds of the difference, namely, that they are apprehended through different modes. But although I admit that the conclusion is only one of probability, it is one which greatly transcends the probability of any counter-hypothesis. Let us see how this can be made out.*

30. We start from the position that a broad line of demarcation must be drawn between the mental and the physical aspect of a process, supposing them to be identical in reality. Nothing can be more unlike a logical proposition than the physical process which is its correlate; so that Philosophy has hitherto been forced to forego every attempt at an explanation of how the two can be causally connected: referring the connection to a mystery, or invoking two different agents, spiritual and material, moving on parallel lines, like two clocks regulated to work simultaneously. But having recognized this difference, can we not also discern fundamental resemblances? First and foremost, we note that there is common to both the basis in Feeling: they are both modes of Consciousness. The Mind thinking the logical proposition is not, indeed, in the same state as the Mind picturing the physical process which is the correlate of that logical proposition no more than I, who see you move on being struck, have the same feelings as you who are struck. But the Mind which pictures the logical proposition as a process, and pictures the physical process as a bodily change, is contemplating one and the same event under its subjective and objective aspects; just as when I

* The solution offered in the present chapter was first offered in Problems of Life and Mind, 1875, II. 465, sq. I mention this because since the publication of that volume other writers have expressed the same ideas, sometimes using my language and illustrations: e. g. M. TAINE in the Revue Philosophique, January, 1877, art., Les Vibrations cérébrales et la Pensée.

picture to myself the feelings you experience on being struck I separate the subjective aspect of the blow from its objective aspect. Secondly, between the logical proposition and the physical process there is a community of causal dependence, i. e. the mode of grouping of the constituent elements, whereby this proposition, and not another, is the result of this grouping, and not another. In fact, what in subjective terms is called Logic, in objective terms is Grouping.

the

31. Let us approach the question on a more accessible side. Sensation avowedly lies at the basis of mental manifestations. Now, rightly or wrongly, Sensation is viewed alternately as a purely subjective fact a psychological process—and as a and as a purely objective fact physiological reaction of a sense-organ. It is so conspicuously a physiological process that many writers exclude it from the domain of Mind, assign it to the material organism, and believe that it is explicable on purely mechanical principles. This seems to me eminently disputable; but the point is noticed in proof of the well-marked objective character which the phenomenon assumes. In this aspect a sensation is simply the reaction of a bodily organ. The physiologist describes how a stimulus excites the organ, and declares its reaction. to be the sensation. Thus viewed, and expressed in terms of Matter and Motion, there is absolutely nothing of that subjective quality which characterizes sensation. Yet without this quality the objective process cannot be a sensation. Exclude Feeling, and the excitation of the auditory organ will no more yield the sensation of Sound by its reaction, than the strings and sounding-board of a piano when the keys are struck will yield music to a deaf spectator. Hence the natural inference has been that inside the organism there is a listener: the Soul is said to listen, transforming excitation into sensation. This infer

ence only needs a more systematic interpretation and it will represent the biological theory, which demands something more than the reaction of the sensory organ namely, the reaction of the whole organism through the sensory organ. I mean, that no organ isolated from the organism is capable of a physiological reaction-only of a physico-chemical reaction; and sensation depends on (is) the physiological reaction. When a sense-organ is stimulated, this stimulation is a vital process, and is raised out of the class of physico-chemical processes by virtue of its being the indissoluble part of a complex whole. Interfere with any one of the co-operant conditionswithdraw the circulation, check respiration, disturb secretion and the sense-organ sinks from the physiological to the physical state; it may then be brought into contact with its normal stimuli, but no stimulation (in the vital sense) will take place, there will be no vital reaction.

Condensing all vital processes in the symbol Vitality, we may say Vitality is requisite for every physiological process. A parallelism may be noted on the subjective side all the sentient processes may be condensed in the one symbol Sensibility (Feeling), and we must then say, No psychological process is possible as an isolated fact, but demands the co-operation of others it is a resultant of all the contemporaneous conditions of Sensibility in the organism. In ordinary language this is what is meant by saying that no impression can become a sensation. without the intervention of Consciousness - an ambiguous phrase, because of the ambiguity of the term Consciousness, but the phrase expresses the fact that in Sensation a process in the organism is necessary to the reaction of the organ.

32. Having recognized the distinction between the two processes objective and subjective, physical and mental,