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.

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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

that the movement is going on. In strictness there is very little ground for admitting the co-existence of thought with these movements; and it is very difficult also to tell for whom thought exists as a sign that nervous movements are going on. We may be tempted to say that the sign exists for the mind; but the mind is the sign. In strictness there are no advanced thinkers, but only advanced thoughts and feelings. The socalled thinker is but the sum of the advanced states. Again, we may suppose an advanced thinker preparing and delivering a lecture in support of the doctrine in question. Even the thinker himself, owing to the contagion of old views, would be likely to fancy that his thought and purpose count for something in the outcome. But this is plainly a mistake. Το begin with, there is no advanced thinker; and if there were, he could only be a passive spectator of his mental states. The writing and reading of a lecture is purely a matter of physical movement; and we know at last that no mental state can affect any physical state. The preparation of the lecture may be attended by thought, though that is doubtful; but it certainly takes place without any intervention of thought. The thought, if present, is only the sign to nobody in particular that the nerves are doing the work; and if the nerves remained unchanged, they would do the work just as well if thought were entirely absent. On this point we have not the slightest doubt; and the doctrine enables us to understand many of the homilies from this quarter. It has long been a puzzle to the critical. mind how any rational being could produce some things which have appeared among the clumps of advanced thoughts. But now we see that reason has nothing to do with their production; and the wonder rather becomes that the nerves should do so well.

But even yet we have no clear conception of the relation of the thought-series to the thing-series. Taken in earnest the theory in question reduces to pure magic. In physics, under the law of conservation and correlation, there is no effect which does not in turn become a cause; and as by hypothesis thought as thought is never causal, it is never properly an effect. If we could look into a living brain, we should see the molecules in movement in various ways. This is the physical side and series. But some of these movements and combinations are said to

Motion-physical and psycho-physical.

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have a subjective face. This is the mental side and series. This mental side, however, would not appear as such in the physical series. We should see, then, various combinations and movements of molecules. The movements may be conceived as spiral, elliptical, rectilinear, oscillatory, etc. When given groups of molecules are moving in one form, as an ellipse, they have no inner face; but when they are moving in some other form, say a spiral, they are attended by thoughts. No physical energy is drawn off to produce them; they are simply there. The spiral movement confines itself strictly to being a spiral movement, just as the elliptical movement confines itself to being an elliptical movement. Why, then, should the spiral movement be attended by thoughts while the elliptical movement is not? There is no answer except to say that it is the fact. There is no difficulty in understanding the generation of the spiral movement; but whence comes this new series? We get no hint of it by studying the spiral movement. The thought-series as such is simply and purely magic. There is no ground for it in the physical series; and there is no mental subject to generate it as the result of its interaction with the physical series. Thoughts appear and disappear without any assignable reason whatever. It does not help us to assume a hidden mind-face to matter which is manifested only under certain conditions, say upon occasion of a spiral movement among the molecules; for it is plain that to be manifested at the proper time the mind-face must be acted upon by the physical face. Otherwise the mental manifestation might occur at any time, and in any form whatever. There must be something in the elliptical movement which represses mental manifestation; and there must be something in the spiral movement which elicits it. But this puts the origin of thought back of the spiral movement and in the hidden nature of matter. There is, then, a double movement in matter-a physical and a thought movement. But this leaves it doubtful whether matter as thinking, or matter as moving, is the true reality, or whether there may be something deeper than both. Either alternative is fatal to the assumed self-sufficiency of the physical series. Many materialists are inclined at this point to take refuge in the notion that the reality is deeper than both the physical and the mental series, but in so doing they fall into all the difficulties of Spinozism.