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Ordinary reading preferable.

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in my Father's house," He could hardly have said, "Wist ye not that I ought to be in my Father's house?" As, however, He had come to do the work of God on the earth, and as it was his meat and his drink to do the will of his Father, He was under a moral necessity to be engaged in his Father's business. With perfect propriety, therefore, might He say to his parents, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Notwithstanding, then, that the majority of interpreters are in favour of the other rendering, and though a very high authority has recently declared that this "is, as Dr. Field has shown, the almost certainly true rendering of Ev TOîS TOÛ Tатρós μoυ,"1 I venture to assert that something may still be πατρός said for the other rendering, and probably my readers may join with me in regretting that in the Revised Version there has not been retained the rendering which has hitherto appeared in all the English Versions from the time of Wiclif downwards.

W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER.

ART. VIII.-Some Difficulties of Modern Materialism.2

ABOUT half a generation ago the leaders of advanced thought appeared in the philosophical and theological wilderness, announcing that the kingdom of science was at hand. Of course the way had to be prepared for the new kingdom by uprooting old views, and the aforesaid leaders were very efficient in this work. Armed with a logic variously described as rigorous, unsparing, relentless, etc., they pushed in all directions as effectually as the beast of Daniel's vision. They pointed out the incoherences of received views so clearly as to make it plain that no honest man with the least ability could retain them longer. So well was this work done, that the bystander could hardly help thinking that nothing but

The Dean of Peterborough, in the Contemporary for July 1881. The work of Dr. Field, to which the Dean refers, is a treatise on this verse replete with learning, and marked by that exact scholarship and perspicuous argumentation which characterises all Dr. Field's writings. Though differing from Dr. Field as to the meaning of the passage, the author of this paper has been much indebted to Dr. Field's essay in the preparation of it.

From the Princeton Review.

VOL. XXXI.-NO. CXIX.

H

mental dishonesty would explain the tenacity with which apparently intelligent persons clung to old beliefs. Indeed the prophets of the new era did not fail to hint with great plainness that the old views derived not a little support from unworthy motives. But this necessity of incessantly attacking and exploding old views has been a disadvantage to the new. The advanced thinkers have been so absorbed in attack and negation, as to give little attention to unfolding their own solution of the perennial problems of thought and life. As yet the new philosophy has not attained to proper self-knowledge, though it can hardly be said to be lacking in self-consciousness; but it only vaguely perceives its own implications. One resulting evil is, that advanced thought does not succeed much better with logic than the unprogressive thought of the past. It is indeed logical enough in dealing with other systems; but it clings to the old theological method of instinct, compromise, and half-way measures in general, in adjusting itself to thought and life. This is doubtless due to its militant history. It cannot be that the brave men who have put to flight so many armies of theological and illogical aliens in the name of logic are in the least afraid to follow logic whithersoever it may lead. They have simply had too much on their hands to attend to it. this self-knowledge is a defect nevertheless. The chief demand upon advanced thinkers at present is that they leave the theologians for a time, and set their own house in the true order of logic. To help on this good work we propose to discuss the nature and difficulties of modern materialism, especially in its bearing on the problem of knowledge. By materialism we mean any doctrine which makes mind the product or result of organisation.

But the lack of

But the simple statement that mind is the product of organisation does not give a clear conception of materialism. Indeed the materialists themselves have hardly cleared up their own thought on this point. The difficulty is not merely to know how mind can be a product, but in what sense mind is a product. Of course it is not held that the elements create a substantial mind, but only that mind is the sum of mental states which are produced by organisation. But the sense of this production is unclear. For a time the formula

Is Mind a product?

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among materialists was, that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. This view regarded thought as a thing, and further overlooked the fact, that the secretory organs either separate from the blood what is already in it or make the products from materials contained in the blood. This view, then, would imply, either that thoughts pre-exist in the blood or that they are made out of blood, In either case, a very sharp eye would enable us to see them. This view of course was speedily abandoned, and the immateriality of thought was insisted upon. Most advanced thinkers would feel insulted if such gross notions were attributed to them; and one of the leaders has stigmatised them as "the materialism of the savage." Unfortunately they have succeeded better in telling what they do not believe than in telling what they do. Sundry nerve-centres are said to have the function of producing consciousness, just as other nerve-centres have other functions; but still the sense of this production is left. unclear. As long as thought was viewed as material, there was no absurdity in viewing it as a brain-product. The brain produces nothing, but merely modifies existing matter.

If, then, thought be a material combination, it is easy to understand how it may be produced by the brain. There is no unlikeness between the antecedent and the consequent. The difficulty with this view is that it is nonsense, not that it is unintelligible. But when thought is viewed as immaterial, it is hard to understand the sense in which it is a product of material activities. The difficulty with this view is that it is unintelligible, and it may also be nonsense. The trouble here arises from the laws of energy and continuity. The conservation of energy demands that no energy shall be lost; and as nerves consume energy in performing their functions, thought must represent a certain amount of energy consumed in its production. If physical energy is spent in producing thought as thought, it must lay aside all its distinctive features and disappear in the mental realm. But in that case either physical energy would be lost or mental energy would be as real as physical energy. The physical realm would be in

interaction with the mental realm, and thought, feeling, and volition would count in the course of events as well as the physical forces. It would even be possible in that case to

view the mental side of matter as basal, and the physical side as appearance. Of course the materialist will not accept this view. For him the physical series is the abiding and independent fact. As such it is controlled only by the laws of force and motion. The thought-series is effect only, and never cause. But in order to make it effect only we must deny that physical energy is ever expended in producing thought as thought. It must be spent only in producing those physical states which have thoughts for their inner face; and these thoughts, as thoughts, must be powerless. They can affect the physical series not as thoughts, but only as having physical states for their outer face. Any other conception would bring us into collision with the conservation of energy; for under this law there can be no effect which is not reciprocally a cause.

These considerations have gradually led the more logical materialists to the following view: The physical series is selfcontained and independent. It suffers no loss and no irruption. Both energy and continuity are absolutely conserved. Each physical antecedent is entirely exhausted in its physical consequent; and, conversely, each physical consequent is fully explained by its physical antecedent. All physical movements are physically determined. The mental series is not properly caused by the physical series, but attends it. If the latter caused the former in the sense of expending energy upon it, either the continuity of the physical series would be broken, and energy would be lost, or thoughts would be as real as things. But the thought-series cannot be independent of the physical series, for that is contrary to the hypothesis. There is only one course left. We must view the mental series as the subjective shadow which attends the physical series. When, then, the physical series is of a certain kind and intensity, it has a mental side; but the reality, the energy, the ground of movement, are entirely in the physical series. Physical energy is never spent in producing thought as thought, but in producing physical combinations which have a thought-face. Conversely, thoughts count for nothing as thoughts, but only as represented in the physical series by physical states. Memory, reflection, and reasoning are only the mental side of changes in the brain. Mental movement of every sort is due not to any self-determination of reason, but

Mental conditions, symbols of organic changes.

117 to the nervous mechanism. A change of ideas means that the corresponding physical states have been displaced by others. This view has been elaborated at greatest length by Mr. Spencer in his Principles of Psychology. He aims to show

how all mental phenomena are but the inner side of molecular motion in the brain, or of what he calls nascent motor excitations. But the view is best expressed in the following quotations from Professor Huxley's lecture "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata: "

"It may be assumed, then, that molecular changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness in brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness may, conversely, cause those molecular changes which give rise to muscular motions? I see no such evidence.

"It is quite true that to the best of my judgment the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us as in them are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of any change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act."

It is easy to see how the materialist comes to this view. He must maintain the continuity and independence of the physical series. Hence he cannot allow that physical energy ever becomes anything else. Again, he cannot allow that the mental series has any energy or principle of movement in itself without making it as real as the physical series. Hence he is shut up to the view that the mental series is only a powerless attendant upon the physical series. But while it is easy to see how we come to this view, it is doubtful if its implications are fully understood even by the advanced thinkers themselves. If we observe the myriad movements of a great city, we are apt in uncritical moments to fancy that thought and purpose enter into them as originating and controlling. But now we know better. There is no ground for believing that any mental state can affect any physical state. The movements, then, are purely automatic; and though we may believe that they are accompanied by thought and purpose, the thought is not the source of the movement, but only a sign

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