THE WORLD AS AN EJECT.
In the Introduction to this essay I have sought to show that there are, for the purposes of practical discussion, but three theories of the World of Being. There is, first, the theory of Materialism, which supposes matter in motion to be the ultimate or self-existing Reality, and, therefore, the cause of mind. Next, there is the theory of Spiritualism, which supposes mind to be the ultimate Reality, and, therefore, the cause of matter in motion. Lastly, there is the theory of Monism which supposes matter in motion to be substantially identical with mind, and, therefore, that as between mind and matter in motion there is no causal relation either way. In the foregoing chapters I have considered these three theories, and argued that of them the last-mentioned is the only one which satisfies all the facts of feeling on the one hand, and of observation on the other. The theory of Monism alone is able to explain, without inherent contradiction, the phenomena both of the subjective and objective spheres.
It is my present purpose to extend the considerations already presented. Assuming the theory of Monism, I desire to ascertain the result to which it will lead when applied to the question whether we ought to regard the external world as of a character mental or non-mental. As observed in my Rede Lecture (supra, p. [33]), this question has already been considered by the late Professor Clifford, who decided that on the monistic theory the probability pointed towards the external world being of a character non-mental; that, although the whole universe is composed of 'mind-stuff,' the universe as a whole is mindless. This decision I then briefly criticized; it is now my object to contemplate the matter somewhat more in detail.
I will assume, on account of reasons previously given, that when we speak of matter in motion we do not at all know what it is that moves, nor do we know at all what it is that we mean by motion. Therefore if, as unknown quantities, we call matter a and motion b, all we are entitled to affirm is that a + b = z, where z is a known quantity, or mind. Obversely stated, we may say that the known quantity z is capable of being resolved into the unknown a + b. But, inasmuch as both a and b are unknown, we may simplify matters by regarding their sum as a single unknown quantity x, which we take to be substantially identical with its obverse aspect known as z.
Here, then, are our data. The theory of Monism teaches that what we perceive as matter in motion, x, is the obverse of what we know as mind, z. What, then, do we know of z? In the first place, we well know that this is the only entity with which we are acquainted, so to speak, at first hand; all our knowledge of x (which is the only other knowledge we possess) is possible only in so far as we are able to translate it into terms of z. In the next place, we know that z is itself an entity of the most enormous complexity. Standing as a symbol of the whole range of individual subjectivity, it may be said to constitute for each individual the symbol of his own personality—or the sum total of his conscious life. Now each individual knows by direct knowledge that his conscious life is, as I have said, of enormous complexity, and that numberless ingredients of feeling, thought, and volition are therein combined in numberless ways. Therefore the symbol z may be considered as the sum of innumerable constituent parts, grouped inter se in numberless systems of more or less complexity.
From these considerations we arrive at the following conclusions. The theory of Monism teaches that all z is x; but it does not, therefore, necessarily teach that all x is z. Nevertheless, it does teach that if all x is not z, this must be because x is z, plus something more than z, as a little thought will be sufficient to show. Thus, the four annexed diagrams exhaust the logical possibilities of any case, where the question is as to the inclusion or exclusion of one quantity by another. In Fig. 1 the two quantities are coincident; in Fig 2 the one is wholly included by the other; in Fig. 3 it is partially included; and in Fig. 4 wholly excluded. Now in the present case, and upon the data supplied, the logical possibilities are exhausted by Figs. 1 and 2. For, upon these data, Figs. 3 and 4 obviously represent logical impossibilities; no part of Mind can, according to these data, stand outside the limits of Matter and Motion. Therefore, if the Ego is not coincident with the Non-ego (or if all x is not z, as in Fig. 1), this can only be because the Ego is less extensive than the Non-ego (or because x is z plus something more than z, as in Fig. 2).
Of these two logical possibilities Idealism, in its most extreme form, may adopt the first. For Idealism in this form may hold that apart from the Ego there is no external world; that outside of z there is no x; that the only esse is the percipi. But, as very few persons nowadays are prepared to go the length of seriously maintaining that in actual fact there is no external world save in so far as this is perceived by the individual mind, I need not wait to consider this possibility. We are thus practically shut up to a consideration of the possibility marked 2.
The theory of Monism, then, teaches that x is z plus something more than z; and therefore it becomes a matter of great moment to consider the probable nature of the overplus. For it obviously does not follow that because x is greater than z in a logical sense, therefore x must be greater than z in a psychological sense. Save upon the theory of Idealism (with which Monism is not specially concerned) the amount (whatever it may be) wherein x is greater than z, may not present any psychological signification at all. We may find that the surface of our globe is considerably larger than that of the dry land, and yet it may not follow that the mental-life to be met with in the sea is psychologically superior to that which occurs on dry land. If, therefore, we represent by comparative shading degrees of psychological excellence, it is evident that the theory of Monism must entertain the three possibilities indicated diagrammatically in Figs. 5, 6, and 7. It makes no difference what the comparative areas of x and z may be, or whether x be uniformly shaded throughout its extent. All we have so far to notice is that the fact of logical inclusion does not necessarily carry with it the implication of psychological superiority.
Next we must notice that besides our own subjectivities, we have cognizance of being surrounded by many other inferred subjectivities more or less like in kind (i. e. other human minds); and also yet many other inferred subjectivities more or less unlike, but all inferior (i. e. the minds of lower animals, young children, and idiots). Following Clifford, I will call these inferred subjectivities by the name of ejects, and assign to them the symbol y. Thus, in the following discussion, x = the objective world, y = the ejective world, and z = subjective world. Now, the theory of Monism supposes that x, y, and z are all alike in kind, but present no definite teaching as to how far they may differ in degree. We may, however, at once allow that between the psychological value of z and that of y there is a wide difference of degree; and also that, while the value of z is a fixed quantity, that of y varies greatly in the different parts of the area y. Our scheme, therefore, will now adopt this form—
But the important question remains how we ought to shade x. According to Clifford, this ought scarcely to be shaded at all, while according to theologians (and theists generally) it ought to be shaded so much more deeply than either y or z, that the joint representation in one diagram would only be possible by choosing for the shading of x a colour different from that employed for y and z, and assigning to that colour a representative value higher than that assigned to the other in the ratio of one to infinity. It will be my object to estimate the relative probability of these rival estimates of the psychological value of x.
Starting from z as our centre, we know that this is an isolated system of subjectivity, and hence we infer that all y is composed of analogous systems, resembling one another as to their isolation, and differing only in their degrees of psychological value. Now this, translated into terms of x (or into terms of objectivity) means that z is an isolated system of matter in motion, and that the same has to be said of all the constituent parts of y. In other words, both subjectivity and ejectivity are only known under the condition of being isolated from objectivity; which, obversely considered, means that the matter in motion here concerned is temporarily separated off from the rest of the objective world, in such wise that it forms a distinct system of its own. If any part of the objective world rudely forces its way within the machinery of that system, it is at the risk of disarranging the machinery and stopping its work—as is the case when a bullet enters the brain. Such converse as the brain normally holds with the external world, is held through the appointed channels of the senses, whereby appropriate causation is supplied to keep the otherwise isolated system at work. We know, from physiological evidence, that when such external causation is withheld, the isolated system ceases to work; therefore, the isolation, although complete under one point of view, under another point of view is incomplete. It is complete only in the sense in which the isolation of a machine is complete—i. e. it is in itself a working system, yet its working is ultimately dependent upon causation supplied from without in certain appropriate ways. This truth is likewise testified to on the obverse aspect of psychology. For analysis shows that all our mental processes (however complex they may be internally) are ultimately dependent on impressions of the external world gained through the senses. Whether regarded objectively or subjectively, therefore, we find that it is the business of the isolated system to elaborate, by its internal processes, the raw materials which are supplied to it from without. Seeing, then, that the isolation of the system is thus only partial, we may best apply to it the term circumscribed. Such partial isolation or circumscription of matter in motion—so that it shall in itself constitute a little working microcosm—appears to be the first condition to the being of a subjective personality. Why, then, does not the working of a machine present a subjective side?
Our answer to this question is to be found in the following considerations. We are going upon the hypothesis that all mind is matter in motion, and that all matter in motion is mind—or, as Clifford phrased it, that all the external world is composed of mind-stuff. No matter how lightly we may shade x, we are assuming that it must be shaded, and not left perfectly white. Now, both mind and matter in motion admit of degrees: first as to quantity, next as to velocity, and lastly as to complexity. But the degrees of matter in motion are found, in point of observable fact, not to correspond with those of mind, save in the last particular of complexity, where there is unquestionably an evident correspondence. Therefore it is that a machine, although conforming to the prime condition of subjectivity in being a circumscribed system of matter in motion, nevertheless does not attain to subjectivity: the x does not rise to z because the internal processes of x are not sufficiently intricate, or their intricacy is not of the appropriate kind. From which it follows that although, as I have said, all matter in motion is mind, merely as matter in motion (or irrespective of the kinds and degrees of both) it may not necessarily be mind in the elaborated form of consciousness: it may only be the raw material of mind—or, as Clifford called it, mind-stuff. Thus, although all conscious volition is matter in motion, it does not follow that all matter in motion is conscious volition. Which serves to restate the question as to how far it is probable, or improbable, that all matter in motion is conscious volition—i.e. how deeply we ought to shade x.
Well, the first thing to be considered in answering this question is that, according to the theory of Monism, we know that it is within the range of possibility for matter in motion to reach a level of intricacy which shall yield conscious volition, and even self-conscious thought of an extremely high order of development. Therefore, the only question is as to whether it is possible, or in any way probable, that matter in motion as occurring in x resembles, in point of intricacy, matter in motion as occurring in z. Professor Clifford perceived that this is the core of the question, and staked the whole answer to it on an extremely simple issue. He said that unless we can show in the disposition of heavenly bodies some morphological resemblance to the structure of a human brain, we are precluded from rationally entertaining any probability that self-conscious volition belongs to the universe. Obviously, this way of presenting the case is so grossly illogical that even the exigencies of popular exposition cannot be held to justify the presentation. For aught that we can know to the contrary, not merely the highly specialized structure of the human brain, but even that of nervous matter in general, may only be one of a thousand possible ways in which the material and dynamical conditions required for the apparition of self-consciousness can be secured. To imagine that the human brain of necessity exhausts these possibilities is in the last degree absurd. Therefore, we may suggest the following presentation of Clifford's case as one that is less obviously inadequate:—if any resemblance to the material and dynamical conditions of the microcosm can be detected in the macrocosm, we should have good reason to ascribe to the latter those attributes of subjectivity which we know as belonging to the former; but if no such resemblance can be traced, we shall have some reason to suppose that these attributes do not belong to the universe. Even this, however, I should regard as much too wide a statement of the case. To take the particular conditions under which alone subjectivity is known to occur upon a single planet as exhausting the possibilities of its occurrence elsewhere, is too flagrant a use of the method of simple enumeration to admit of a moment's countenance. Even the knowledge that we have of the two great conditions under which terrestrial subjectivities occur—circumscription and complexity—is only empirical. It may well be that elsewhere (or apart from the conditions imposed by nervous tissue) subjectivity is possible irrespective both of circumscription and of complexity. Therefore, properly or logically regarded, the great use of the one exhibition of subjectivity furnished to human experience, is the proof thus furnished that subjectivity is possible under some conditions; and the utmost which on the grounds of such proof human experience is entitled to argue is, that probably, if subjectivity is possible elsewhere, its possibility is given by those conditions of circumscription and complexity in the material and dynamical relations concerned, which we find to be the invariable and quantitative concomitants of subjectivity within experience. But this is a widely different thing from saying that the only kind of such circumscription and complexity—or the only disposition of these relations—which can present a subjective side is that which is found in the structures and functions of a nervous system.
Now, if we fix our attention merely on this matter of complexity, and refuse to be led astray by obviously false analogies of a more special kind, I think there can be no question that the macrocosm does furnish amply sufficient opportunity, as it were, for the presence of subjectivity, even if it be assumed that subjectivity can only be yielded by an order of complexity analogous to that of a nervous system. For, considering the material and dynamical system of the universe as a whole, it is obvious that the complexity presented is greater than that of any of its parts. Not only is it true that all these parts are included in the whole, and that even the visible sidereal system alone presents movements of enormous intricacy[9], but we find, for instance, that even within the limits of this small planet there is presented to actual observation a peculiar form of circumscribed complex, fully comparable with that of the individual brain, and yet external to each individual brain. For the so-called 'social organism,' although composed of innumerable individual personalities, is, with regard to each of its constituent units, a part of the objective world—just as the human brain would be, were each of its constituent cells of a construction sufficiently complex to yield a separate personality.
If to this it be objected that, as a matter of fact, the social organism does not possess a self-conscious personality, I will give a twofold answer. In the first place, Who told the objector that it has not? For aught that any one of its constituent personalities can prove to the contrary, this social organism may possess self-conscious personality of the most vivid character: its constituent human minds may be born into it and die out of it as do the constituent cells of the human body: it may feel the throes of war and famine, rejoice in the comforts of peace and plenty: it may appreciate the growth of civilization as its passage from childhood to maturity. If this at first sight appears a grotesque supposition, we must remember that it would appear equally so to ascribe such possibilities to the individual brain, were it not for the irrelevant accident of this particular form of complex standing in such relation to our own subjectivity that we are able to verify the fact of its ejectivity. Thus, for aught that we can tell to the contrary, Comte may have been even more justified than his followers suppose, in teaching the personification of Humanity.
But, in the next place, if the social organism is not endowed with personality, this may be for either one of two reasons. All the conditions required for attaining so high a level of psychical perfection may not be here present; or else the level of psychical perfection may be higher than that which we know as personality. This latter alternative will be considered in another relation by-and-by, so I will not dwell upon it now. But with reference to all these possible contingencies, I may observe that we are not without clear indications of the great fact that the high order of complexity which has been reached by the social organism is accompanied by evidence of something which we may least dimly define as resembling subjectivity. In numberless ways, which I need not wait to enumerate, we perceive that society exhibits the phenomena both of thought and conduct. And these phenomena cannot always be explained by regarding them as the sum of the thoughts and actions of its constituent individuals—or, at least, they can only be so regarded by conceding that the thoughts and actions of the constituent individuals, when thus summated, yield a different product from that which would be obtained by a merely arithmetical computation of the constituent parts: the composite product differs from its component elements, as H2O differs from 2H + O. The general truth of this remark will, I believe, be appreciated by all historians. Seeing that ideas are often, as it is said, 'in the air' before they are condensed in the mind of individual genius, we habitually speak of the 'Zeit-geist' as the product of a kind of collective psychology, which is something other than the mere sum of all the individual minds of a generation. That is to say, we regard society as an eject, and the more that a man studies the thought and conduct of society, the more does he become convinced that we are right in so regarding it. Of course this eject is manifestly unlike that which we form of another individual mind: it is much more general, vague, and so far unlike the pattern of our own subjectivity that even to ascribe to it the important attribute of personality is felt, as we have just seen, to approach the grotesque. Still, in this vague and general way we do ascribe to society ejective existence: we habitually think of the whole world of human thought and feeling as a psychological complex, which is other than, and more than, a mere shorthand enumeration of all the thoughts and feelings of all individual human beings.
The ejective existence thus ascribed to society serves as a stepping-stone to the yet more vague and general ascription of such existence to the Cosmos. At first, indeed, or during the earliest stages of culture, the ascription of ejective existence to the external world is neither vague nor general: on the contrary, it is most distinct and specific. Beginning in the rudest forms of animism, where every natural process admits of being immediately attributed to the volitional agency of an unseen spirit, anthropomorphism sets out upon its long course of development, which proceeds pari passu with the development of abstract thought. Man, as it has been truly said, universally makes God in his own image; and it is difficult to see how the case could be otherwise. Universally the eject must assume the pattern of the subject, and it is only in the proportion that this pattern presents the features of abstract thinking that the image which it throws becomes less and less man-like. Hence, as Mr. Fiske has shown in detail, so soon as anthropomorphism has assumed its highest state of development, it begins to be replaced by a continuous growth of 'deanthropomorphism,' which, passing through polytheism into monotheism, eventually ends in a progressive 'purification' of theism—by which is meant a progressive metamorphosis of the theistic conception, tending to remove from Deity the attributes of Humanity. The last of these attributes to disappear is that of personality, and when this final ecdysis has been performed, the eject which remains is so unlike its original subject, that, as we shall immediately find, it is extremely difficult to trace any points of resemblance between them.
Now it is with this perfect, or imago condition of the world-eject, that we have to do. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in what I consider the profoundest reaches of his philosophic thought, has well shown, on the one hand, how impossible it is to attribute to Deity any of the specific attributes of mind as known to ourselves subjectively; and, on the other hand, how it is possible to conceive 'symbolically' that the universe may be instinct with a 'quasi-psychical' principle, as greatly transcending personality as personality transcends mechanical motion[10]. Accepting, then, the world-eject in this its highest conceivable stage of evolution, I desire to contemplate it under the light of the monistic theory.
We have seen that, whether we look upon the subjective or objective face of personality, we find that personality arises from limitation—or, as I have previously termed it, circumscription. Now, we have no evidence, nor are we able to conceive, of the external world as limited; consequently we are not able to conceive, of the world-eject as personal. But, inasmuch as personality arises only from limitation, the conclusion that the world-eject is impersonal does not tend to show that it is of lower psychical value than conscious personality: on the contrary, it tends to show that it is probably of higher psychical value. True, we are not able to conceive actually of mind as impersonal; but we can see that this merely arises from our only experience of mind being given under conditions of personality; and, as just observed, it is possible to conceive symbolically that there may be a form of mind as greatly transcending personality as personality transcends mechanical motion.
Now, although we cannot conceive of such a mind actually, we may most probably make the nearest approach to conceiving of it truly, by provisionally ascribing to it the highest attributes of mind as known to ourselves, or the attributes which belong to human personality. Just as a thinking insect would derive a better, or more true, conception of human personality by considering it ejectively than by considering it objectively (or by considering the mind-processes as distinguished from the brain-processes), so, if there is a form of mind immeasurably superior to our own, we may probably gain a more faithful—howsoever still inadequate—conception of it by contemplating its operations ejectively than by doing so objectively. I will, therefore, speak of the world-eject as presenting conscious volition, on the understanding that if x does not present either consciousness or volition, this must be—according to the fundamental assumption of psychism on which we are now proceeding—because x presents attributes at least as much higher than consciousness or volition as these are higher than mechanical motion. For when we consider the utmost that our conscious volition is able to accomplish in the way of contrivance—how limited its knowledge, how short its duration, how restricted its range, and how imperfect its adaptations—we can only conclude that if the ultimate constitution of all things is pyschical, the philosophy of the Cosmos becomes a 'philosophy of the Unconscious' only because it is a philosophy of the Superconscious.
Now, if once we feel ourselves able to transcend the preliminary—and doubtless very considerable—difficulty of symbolically conceiving the world-eject as super-conscious, and (because not limited) also super-personal, I think there can be no question that the world-object furnishes overwhelming proof of psychism. I candidly confess that I am not myself able to overcome the preliminary difficulty in question. By discharging the elements of personality and conscious volition from the world-eject, I appear to be discharging from my conception of mind all that most distinctively belongs to that conception; and thus I seem to be brought back again to the point from which we started: the world-eject appears to have again resolved itself into the unknown quantity x. But here we must distinguish between actual conception and symbolical conception. Although it is unquestionably true that I can form no actual conception of Mind save as an eject of personality and conscious volition, it is a question whether I am not able to form a symbolical conception of Mind as thus extended. For I know that consciousness, implying as it does continual change in serial order of circumscribed mental processes, is not (symbolically considered) the highest conceivable exhibition of Mind; and just as a mathematician is able to deal symbolically with space of n dimensions, while only able really to conceive of space as limited to three dimensions, so I feel that I ought not to limit the abstract possibilities of mental being by what I may term the accidental conditions of my own being.
I need scarcely wait to show why it appears to me that if this position is granted, the world-object furnishes, as I have said, overwhelming proof of psychism; for this proof has been ably presented by many other writers. There is first the antecedent improbability that the human mind should be the highest manifestation of subjectivity in this universe of infinite objectivity. There is next the fact that throughout this universe of infinite objectivity—so far, at least, as human observation can extend—there is unquestionable evidence of some one integrating principle, whereby all its many and complex parts are correlated with one another in such wise that the result is universal order. And if we take any part of the whole system—such as that of organic nature on this planet—to examine in more detail, we find that it appears to be instinct with contrivance. So to speak, wherever we tap organic nature, it seems to flow with purpose; and, as we shall presently see, upon the monistic theory the evidence of purpose is here in no way attenuated by a full acceptance of any of the 'mechanical' explanations furnished by science. Now, these large and important facts of observation unquestionably point, as just observed, to some one integrating principle as pervading the Cosmos; and, if so, we can scarcely be wrong in supposing that among all our conceptions it must hold nearest kinship to that which is our highest conception of an integrating cause—viz., the conception of psychism. Assuredly no human mind could either have devised or maintained the working of even a fragment of Nature; and, therefore, it seems but reasonable to conclude that the integrating principle of the whole—the Spirit, as it were, of the Universe—must be something which, while as I have said holding nearest kinship with our highest conception of disposing power, must yet be immeasurably superior to the psychism of man. The world-eject thus becomes invested with a psychical value as greatly transcending in magnitude that of the human mind, as the material frame of the universe transcends in its magnitude the material frame of the human body. Therefore, without in any way straining the theory of Monism, we may provisionally shade x more deeply than z, and this in some immeasurable degree.
One other matter remains to be considered with reference to this world-eject as sanctioned by Monism. It leaves us free to regard all natural causation as a direct exhibition of psychism. The prejudice against anything approaching a theistic interpretation of the Universe nowadays arises chiefly from the advance of physical science having practically revealed the ubiquity of natural causes. It is felt that when a complete explanation of any given phenomenon has been furnished in terms of these causes, there is no need to go further; the phenomenon has been rendered intelligible on its mechanical side, and therefore it is felt that we have no reason to suppose that it presents a mental side—any supplementary causation of a mental kind being regarded as superfluous. Even writers who expressly repudiate this reasoning prove themselves to be habitually under its influence; for we constantly find that such writers, after conceding the mechanical explanations as far as these have been proved, take their stand upon the more intricate phenomena of Nature where, as yet, the mechanical explanations are not forthcoming. Whether it be at the origin of life, the origin of sentiency, of instinct, of rationality, of morality, or of religion, these writers habitually argue that here, at least, the purely mechanical interpretations fail; and that here, consequently, there is still room left for a psychical interpretation. Of course the pleading for theism thus supplied is seen by others to be of an extremely feeble quality; for while, on the one hand, it rests only upon ignorance of natural causation (as distinguished from any knowledge of super-natural causation), on the other hand, abundant historical analogies are available to show that it is only a question of time when pleading of this kind will become more and more restricted in its subject-matter, till eventually it be altogether silenced. But the pleading which Monism is here able to supply can never be silenced.
For, according to Monism, all matter in motion is mind; and, therefore, matter in motion is merely the objective revelation, to us and for us, of that which in its subjective aspect—or in its ultimate reality—is mind. Just as the operations of my friend's mind can only be revealed to me through the mechanical operations of his body, so it may very well be that the operations of the Supreme Mind (supposing such to exist) can only be revealed to me through the mechanical operations of Nature. The only difference between the two cases is that while I am able, in the case of my friend's mind, to elicit responses of mechanical movement having a definite and intended relation to the operations of my own mind, similarly expressed to him; such is not the case with Nature. With the friend-eject I am able to converse; but not so with the world-eject[11]. This great difference, however, although obviously depriving me of any such direct corroboration of psychism in the world-eject as that which I thus derive of psychism in the friend-eject, ought not to be regarded by me as amounting, in the smallest degree, to disproof of psychism in the world-eject. The fact that I am not able to converse with the world-eject is merely a negative fact, and should not be allowed to tell against any probability (otherwise derived) in favour of psychism as belonging to that eject. There may be a thousand very good reasons why I should be precluded from such converse—some of which, indeed, I can myself very clearly perceive.
The importance of Monism in thus enabling us rationally to contemplate all processes of physical causation as possibly immediate exhibitions of psychism, is difficult to overrate. For it entirely discharges all distinction between the mechanical and the mental; so that if physical science were sufficiently advanced to yield a full natural explanation of all the phenomena within human experience, mankind would be in a position to gain as complete a knowledge as is theoretically possible of the psychological character of the world-eject. Already we are able to perceive the immense significance of being able to regard any sequence of natural causation as the merely phenomenal aspect of the ontological reality—the merely outward manifestation of an inward meaning. Thus, for example, I am listening to a sonata of Beethoven's played by Madame Schumann. Helmholtz tells me all that he knows about the physics and physiology of the process, both beyond and within my brain. But I feel that, even if Helmholtz were able to tell me very much more than he can, so long as he is dealing with these objective explanations, he is at work only upon the outer skin of the whole matter. The great reality is the mind of Beethoven communicating to my mind through the complex intervention of three different brains with their neuro-muscular systems, and an endless variety of aërial vibrations proceeding from a pianoforte. The method of communication has nothing more to do with the reality communicated than have the paper and ink of this essay to do with the ideas which they serve to convey. In each case a vehicle of symbols is necessary in order that one mind should communicate with another; but in both cases this is a vehicle of symbols, and nothing more. Everywhere, therefore, the reality may be psychical, and the physical symbolic; everywhere matter in motion may be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Take again the case of morality and religion. Because science, by its theory of evolution, appears to be in a fair way of explaining the genesis of these things by natural causes, theists are taking alarm; it is felt by them that if morality can be fully explained by utility, and religion by superstition, the reality of both is destroyed. But Monism teaches that such a view is entirely erroneous. For, according to Monism, the natural causation of morality and religion has nothing whatever to do with the ultimate truth of either. The natural causation is merely a record of physical processes, serving to manifest the psychical processes. Nor can it make any difference, as regards the ultimate veracity of the moral and religious feelings, that they have been developed slowly by natural causes; that they were at first grossly selfish on the one hand, and hideously superstitious on the other; that they afterwards went through a long series of changes, none of which therefore can have fully corresponded with external truth; or that even now they may be both extremely far from any such correspondence. All that such considerations go to prove is, that it belongs to the natural method of mental evolution in man that with advancing culture his ejective interpretations of Nature should more and more nearly approximate the truth. The world-eject must necessarily vary with the character of the human subject; but this does not prove that the ejective interpretation has throughout been wrong in method: it only proves that such interpretation has been imperfect—and necessarily imperfect—in application.
Such, then, I conceive to be one of the most important consequences of the monistic theory. Namely, that by regarding physical causation as everywhere but the objective or phenomenal aspect of an ejective or ontological reality, it furnishes a logical basis for a theory of things which is at the same time natural and spiritual. On the objective aspect, the explanations furnished by reason are of necessity physical, while, on the ejective aspect, such explanations are of necessity metaphysical—or rather, let us say, hyper-physical. But these two orders of explanation are different only because their modes of interpreting the same events are different. The objective explanation which was given (as we supposed) by Helmholtz of the effects produced on the human brain by hearing a sonata, was no doubt perfectly sound within its own category; but the ejective explanation of these same effects which is given by a musician is equally sound within its category. And similarly, if instead of the man-object we contemplate the world-object physical causation becomes but the phenomenal aspect of psychical causation; the invariability of its sequence becomes but the expression of intentional order; the iron rigidity of natural law becomes the sensuous manifestation of an unalterable consistency as belonging to the Supreme Volition.
My object in this paper has been to show that the views of the late Professor Clifford concerning the influence of Monism on Theism are unsound. I am in full agreement with him in believing that Monism is destined to become the generally accepted theory of things, seeing that it is the only theory of things which can receive the sanction of science on the one hand and of feeling on the other. But I disagree with him in holding that this theory is fraught with implications of an anti-theistic kind. In my opinion this theory leaves the question of Theism very much where it was before. That is to say, while not furnishing any independent proof of Theism, it likewise fails to furnish any independent disproof. The reason why in Clifford's hands this theory appeared to furnish independent disproof, was because he persisted in regarding the world only as an object: he did not entertain the possibility that the world might also be regarded as an eject. Yet, that the world, under the theory of Monism, is at least as susceptible of an ejective as it is of an objective interpretation, I trust that I have now been able to show. And this is all that I have endeavoured to show. As a matter of methodical reasoning it appears to me that Monism alone can only lead to Agnosticism. That is to say, it leaves a clear field of choice as between Theism and Atheism; and, therefore, to a carefully reasoning Monist, there are three alternatives open. He may remain a Monist, and nothing more; in which case he is an agnostic. He may entertain what appears to him independent evidence in favour of Theism, and thus he may become a theist. Or he may entertain what appears to him independent evidence in favour of Atheism, and thus he may become an atheist. But, in any case, so far as his Monism can carry him, he is left perfectly free either to regard the world as an object alone, or to regard the world as also an eject[12].