IV THE HUMAN MIND-ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN Ir must be definitely understood that we do not here lightly undertake to fathom the ocean which so many have for ages sought to explore. Our task is only to estimate the most recent and popular assertions in this realm, which have been with such consummate 'modesty' shouted in the popular ear. For the genuine student such an effort is confessedly unnecessary. He cannot but perceive, as he examines the works in question, that they are a perfect tissue of assumptions, dogmatisms, and self-contradictions, made forceful by the unmitigated self-confidence and interwoven sneers. In this sense alone, the proud boast of the translator is true, that 'the work is unanswered because it is unanswerable.' Any one fairly acquainted with the limitations as well as the progress of science, or at all informed in the history of philosophy, will know what to think of the modern teachers and teaching which at the very outset meekly assert that 'most of the psychological literature of the day is so much waste paper.' No little self-restraint is required to suppress the sarcasm of 1 Riddle, p. 34. the ancient sufferer (Job xii. 2), for if it were ever truly applicable, it is surely here. At least such a protest as the following, from one acknowledged to be amongst the first of living physicists, is both true and timely : Those who think that reality is limited to its terrestrial manifestations doubtless have a philosophy of their own, to which they are entitled, and to which, at any rate, they are welcome; but if they set up to teach others that monism signifies a limitation of mind to the potentialities of matter as at present known; if they teach a pantheism which identifies God with nature in this narrow sense; if they hold that mind and what they call matter are so intimately connected that no transcendence is possible; that without the cerebral hemispheres, consciousness and intelligence and emotion and love and art, and all the higher attributes towards which humanity is dimly groping, would cease to be; that the term 'soul' signifies a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion cells; and that the term is limited to the operation of a known evolutionary process, and can be represented as 'the infinite sum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all other vibrations' -to quote Professor Haeckel (Confession of Faith, p. 78)-then such philosophers must be content with an audience of uneducated persons; or if writing as men of science, must hold themselves liable to be opposed by other men of science who are able, at any rate in their own judgement, to take a wider survey of existence, and to perceive possibilities to which the said narrow and overdefinite philosophers were blind. 1 Any scheme or system may be 'unanswerable,' not because it is so true, but because it is so false. And in such case the sincerity of the author no more avails to justify it than the sincere avowal of a man who is colour-blind proves that red is green; or the sincere assurance of one devoid of musical ear demonstrates that harmony is a delusion. Speaking generally --and not contemptuously-the majority of those Sir Oliver Lodge, Hibbert Journal, January, 1905, p. 327. เ who have devoured Haeckel's Riddle in its cheap form, are to be classed amongst the uneducated' for whom boldness of assertion, plausibility of statement, authoritativeness of diction, and persevering reiteration, constitute the most effective method of appeal. There is, therefore, nothing for it but an equally plain and vigorous statement of the other side. We will consider, then, (1) the main contentions of Haeckelian monism in regard to the nature and origin of the human mind; (2) its illustration from The Riddle of the Universe; (3) its confirmation in Wonders of Life; (4) its defence by Mr. McCabe; and (5) a general summary of the present position. I. If we allow the acute translator of Haeckel to express the chief merit' of The Riddle, it lies in its masterly treatment of the question of the evolution of mind. The case for the evolution of mind has been placed on the same experimental base as the theory of the evolution of the body. Distinction has no longer the semblance of reason. From the lowest kingdom of protists to the phenomena of human intelligence, we pass with tolerable ease. The few lacunae in our evidence are insignificant, beside the broad overpowering tendency of their cumulative force. Thus one of the most important contributions to the science or philosophy of human life, with its myriad problems, has been for ever established." A better example of the characteristics of the 'As a specimen of combined modesty and logic, we must not forget Mr. McCabe's assertion (Haeckel's Critics Answered, p. 91) that he knows the Roman Catholic clergy to have had more definite philosophical instruction than their Protestant colleagues,' but that he also knows that tens of thousands of working and lower middle-class readers who so largely purchase sixpenny editions, can read Haeckel more intelligently than the majority of the Catholic clergy.' The intended inference, of course, is that Protestant Christian teachers are the most unintelligent of all. 2 Preface, p. xii. popular advocacy just mentioned it would indeed be difficult to find. The philosophic worth of this special pleading will become manifest as we proceed. Meanwhile, we are bound to ask, What does this 'established case for the evolution of mind' involve? Plainly enough such assertions as these: that consciousness is nothing but a function of the brain; that it emerges directly from unconsciousness; that 'mind' and 'soul' are nothing but collective ideas of the functions of the phronema. Whilst 'sensation' and 'will,' as experienced by human beings, are nothing whatever beyond a higher degree of what-for the convenience of Monism-are to be assumed in the ultimate atoms from which everything has been necessarily derived, Now the mere statement of such a thesis, would seem sufficient for any person of fair education and thoughtful disposition. It is small wonder-with all deference to the combined indignation of the author and his translator-that experts, both on the Continent and in this country, should have expressed with emphasis their disavowal of such teaching in the name of modern science and philosophy. The trenchant protests of Professors Paulsen, Adickes, Schoeler, Dennert, &c., are unfortunately unknown in English. But they are none the less real and effective.1 Thus Professor Paulsen, quite as eminent an expert in philosophy as Professor Haeckel in biology, writes: 'Ich habe mit brennender Scham dieses Buch gelesen, mit Scham über den Stand der allgemeinen Bildung und der philosophischen Bildung unseres Volks. Dass ein solches Buch möglich war, dass es geschrieben, gedrückt, gekauft, gelesen, bewundert, geglaubt werden könnte bei dem Volk, das einen Kant, einen Goethe, einen Schopenhauer besitzt, das ist schmerzlich.'— Philosophia Militans, p. 187. In the booklet, however, which holds up to unmeasured contempt those who in this country have dared to oppose the dogmas from Jena, we are told that— Critics very stupidly or very wilfully represent Haeckel as saying that thought is a movement of the molecules of the brain, just as they say he resolves all things into matter. They ignore the fact that he lays as much, if not more, stress on force than on matter. He holds, of course, that there is fundamentally only one reality, but it is most improper to call that by the name of one of its attributes [extension].1 When we come to consider this เ one reality' we shall find some items of the Monistic philosophy which are still more 'improper.' Meanwhile, let us put this chivalrous protest by the side of the Professor's own utterances. Thus in The Riddle we read, 'In any case the ontogeny of consciousness makes it perfectly clear that it is not an "immaterial entity," but a physiological function of the brain, and that it is, consequently, no exception to the general law of substance.' 2 Hence the sound monistic principle that the human mind is a function of the phronema,'3 and, to make it perfectly clear 'the mind also is merely the collective function of the phronema-the central organ of thought.' Now, seeing that we are elsewhere assured that 'we must reduce all vital phenomena to exclusively physical and chemical processes, to the mechanics of the protoplasm,' we are compelled to ask, If thought is not a 'movement of the molecules of the brain,' 4 Wonders, p. 347. |