A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

by Cora May Williams

But how much of the action we term automatic, instinctive, or organic, reflex or "merely functional," can be positively asserted to have no admixture of consciousness? If we examine our own action closely we shall often find that we were, in fact, conscious of much that seems, at first glance, purely automatic. It may appear to us, for instance, that reflection on the notes of a musical composition which we have known for a long time "by heart" hinders rather than helps us, even causing us sometimes to fail completely in our performance. But if we examine our condition at the time of such a failure, do we not usually find that, when we began to think about what we were playing, we were suddenly seized with a fear of failing and that the fear confused us? Or do we not find, at least, that withdrawal of our attention from the music by conversation that requires any concentration of thought is as likely to confuse us as too great attention to it? A friend of mine one day related to me the following experience: Having a felon upon his finger, he submitted to a surgical operation, for which the operator preferred to administer an anæsthetic. When he awoke to consciousness again, he was pleased to find the painful operation completely finished and the hand newly dressed. Asked whether he had experienced any pain, he answered, "Not a twinge," whereat the surgeon remarked that he had screamed and groaned during the operation. To this he replied that his action must have been merely reflex. An hour or so later, however, as he was at work, a sudden recollection of the whole operation came to him. Persons undergoing dental operations under the influence of laughing-gas often scream and make convulsive movements as if in pain, though they declare, afterwards, in like manner, that they have felt nothing; but may not this be due, as in the case just cited, to a mere lapse of memory? Why, indeed, should the patient scream if not in pain? Again, there is a poison—curarine, the Indian arrow poison—which has power to deprive its victim of all motion, while leaving him, as has been ascertained in cases in which it has been used as a medicine, a consciousness that is more or less dimmed. May not the seeming dimness, however, be due to the incomplete function of memory when turned to events that transpired under its influence? And may not the action of so-called anæsthetics of all sorts involve simply a paralysis of action similar to that caused by the Indian arrow poison, together with a more complete lapse of memory than that ensuing upon the latter? To answer that anæsthetics affect the brain, and that therefore consciousness is not possible, is begging the question, for it is by just such experiments and experience of the apparent mental effects of anæsthetics in connection with peculiar brain conditions that theories of non-sensibility under these conditions have been arrived at. States of somnambulism generally used to be classed as outside the sphere of memory and were therefore sometimes called unconscious; but recent experiments in hypnotism have shown that similar states to these may be remembered or not remembered according to the individual case, and that persons who, when awakened, ordinarily recall nothing of that which has passed in the hypnotic state may be made to recall all the events of that state if commanded to do so before awakening. Pflüger has attempted to demonstrate, by many experiments, that consciousness is not confined to the brain but is also connected with the spinal cord;[121] why, however, draw a line at the spinal cord? Is not nerve substance the same with that from which the spinal cord and the brain develop, are not all nerve cells primarily mere modifications of cells of the outer skin?

Of unconsciousness in ourselves we can have no more an immediate and direct knowledge than of unconsciousness outside ourselves, since, in order to be immediately known, it would have to be present in consciousness; and a conscious unconsciousness is a self-contradiction. We can only witness to a failure of memory at certain points (which failure has already been shown to be untrustworthy as evidence) or to movements of our body to which we can supply no corresponding conscious states as premeditation. But our inability to testify to such is merely negative. A great deal has been made, in one way and another, of the fact that there are links in premeditated action which do not come into consciousness, there being no knowledge, for instance, of the processes in nerve and muscle between the movement of the arm in writing and the premeditation of such movement. As a fact, however, none of the physiological processes which accompany the psychical are present to our consciousness except as given through the senses or through nerve-transmission similar to that of sense-perception. The conscious elements of any present state of thought do not include the changes in brain-matter concomitant with them. But the question may be raised, as Haeckel raises it,—though perhaps somewhat differently,—in his essay on Soul-cells and Cell-souls, as to whether the brain-cells themselves are not endowed with consciousness; and any answer in the negative is, evidently, an assumption, of which we can give no proof. Indeed, the question may be asked, and has been asked, whether the remarkable white blood corpuscles which traverse our body, and are so similar to certain lower forms of life, are not to be regarded as distinct beings, or whether, in fact, all the cells whose combined life and movement make up our own are not endowed with distinct being and consciousness. Again an answer in the negative is evidently a mere assumption. And why stop, in this case, exactly with the cells of animal life; why not apply our question to those of plant life also? Why not, indeed, suppose all forms to be endowed with consciousness, all harmonious motion to be accompanied by pleasure, all dissolution and conflict by pain? From analogy we may conclude something, but from mere non-analogy nothing. Our experience may entitle us to the assertion that all beings possessing a nervous system are endowed with consciousness, but we cannot conclude, therefore, that all beings not possessing a nervous system are not endowed with consciousness. We have associated consciousness with acts peculiar to man, and hence inferred its presence in similar movements of animals similarly constructed. But if we could examine the physiological accompaniments of our own thought and feeling and their issue in action, if we could look on at all the details, the chemical and mechanical changes of the physiological processes, what hint should we find in these more than in any other physical processes, from which to infer consciousness? They are not the less rigidly in accordance with natural law than any other. But our observation of all other processes than those of our own organism is a mere extraneous one, like this we have imagined of the processes of our own body; if there were consciousness in other forms we could not enter into it; and how can we prove extraneously its non-existence? Our own "stability" of function and the stability of all life-motion has been developed in a perfectly similar manner to that by which the stability of the heavenly bodies has been developed, the physical side of the process being just as fully a matter of action and reaction, and our action towards ends the slowly progressive result of this course of action and reaction, just as is the case with the harmonious movements of the systems of the heavens. It would, moreover, be perfectly easy to formulate a purely physical and mechanical explanation of our action, as Carneri does of the action of ants and other species,—to explain the plucking of a rose, for instance, as mere reaction upon the sense of smell and sight, or as the mere mechanical action of cell-matter.

But, again, on the other hand: If it is true that the nervous system is developed from cells of the outer covering of the body, it is, nevertheless, not true that those primary cells are the nervous system, any more than it is true that the lowest forms of life, from which man has developed, are human beings. Rudimentary eyes exist in some animals in the form of mere pigment spots, but we do not suppose these pigment spots to endow the animal with sight as we understand it. Sight is not a function of all forms of life, neither is hearing, and these powers have developed out of forms of animal life in which they did not exist; why then is it necessary to suppose consciousness to be a property of all forms of life because we know it to appear in some higher developments of life? Why may it not arise, as do sight and hearing, by gradual evolution, as a function of special organisms? Have we any direct knowledge of consciousness except in connection with certain normal conditions of our own brain? And, this being said, have we any means left by which we can prove the existence of consciousness, except in connection with a brain similar to our own?

What grounds have we for assuming the existence of consciousness where the analogy of our own organization does not furnish us with an argument? If we argue from the analogy of our own experience to the existence of consciousness in animals whose organization is similar to our own, and then, following down the scale of life, find no pause or gap at which to draw an exact line, we must not the less forget that with the diminishing analogy the force of our inference diminishes in like degree. Or where is the logical necessity of inferring that consciousness must exist in the inorganic either because the organic originally developed from the inorganic, or because it suffers continually a renewal by nourishment, which is, in effect, as much a development from the inorganic as the supposed primal one? The pigment spot from which the eye arises is not the eye, simple protoplasm is not the organized human being; whence does the physical organization arise? Are we to suppose it, too, as preëxistent, "in a weaker form," or in any form, in the inorganic? Whence have we any grounds for assuming that that which we know only in connection with a certain peculiar organization exists elsewhere? Are we to suppose the color blue to be present in certain chemical elements because their chemical compound is blue? Or how is it that even isomeric compounds may exhibit different qualities? Shall we regard the color as not essentially connected with the chemical constitution of the supposed compound? As a matter of fact, color is one of the chemist's means of recognition. Or shall we "explain" the color by the length of light-waves or the construction of the eye, correcting, thus, one part of our experience by another, and assuming one as fundamental and essential, the other as non-essential? We "explain" sound as wave-movement in some outer medium and in the ear, correcting, thus, the hearing by sight or touch; does this mean that that part of our experience given us through the eye or hand alone is truth, and to be relied on and recognized as such, while the experience given us through the other senses is non-essential and not to be accepted or relied on? But if the eye gives us the truth, then why do we, in the case of color, correct it again by another phase of our experience? How are we to decide which is essential, the wave-movement that is (or may be made) perceptible to our eye, or the sound heard by our ear, the color directly seen or the length of the light-wave concluded from experiment? As a matter of fact, we emphasize one or the other according to the end we have in view in our experiment. Is it the length of the wave which causes the color, or the color which causes the particular wave-length? If we analyze brain-action as chemical action, do we prove thereby that the consciousness concomitant with this peculiar chemical action under these peculiar conditions must exist elsewhere under other conditions? Are the characteristics of one chemical compound the same as those of another because both compounds are matter and motion? If we prove that the brain contains cells similar to cells in other parts of the nervous system, that the whole nervous system arises, in the first instance, from epithelium cells, that the whole animal is descended from some primal protoplasmic cell, and that the cells of plants are similar, in many ways, to those of animals, do we thereby prove that consciousness exists except as coördinate with the peculiar cells and arrangements of cells in the brain? We have no precedent from which to argue, since consciousness is to us a unique feature of the universe; we know it immediately only as existent in ourselves, and in order to obtain any precedent must be guilty of assuming it in order to prove it.

The dilemma seems, thus, as we analyse and inquire into it more closely, to increase rather than decrease in significance. How is any solution to be arrived at?

If we return to the beginning of our considerations on this point, we shall find that, in coming at the question from either side, we have made an assumption. Our first premises were as follows: Assuming that consciousness is the cause of movement by which man attempts to arrive at his ends, what reason have we for supposing consciousness to exist outside man? and, on the other hand: Assuming mechanical action and reaction to be the cause of movement in inorganic nature, what reason have we for assuming this to be the cause of action in organic existence? Let us examine these assumptions more closely.

We may return to the theory of the gradual development of stable out of unstable conditions as stated in different ways by Zöllner, Fechner, and Du Prel. As has been shown, the principle applies to organic as well as to inorganic nature, and is only a broader principle including that of the Survival of the Fittest. There is a physical side to all psychical functions, and everywhere our investigation shows us the physical following unchanging laws. The development of the Stable from the Unstable explains to us the evolution of function in the direction of the preservation of the organic forms of which it is the function, as well as the evolution of harmonious movement in the heavenly bodies. The explanation of the natural and necessary elimination of the inharmonious covers the whole ground, and seems to assign a cause for every form of preservative action, for the harmonious conduct which preserves the state or the family as a collection of individuals, as well as for the harmony of function that preserves the individual. As long as reason can change no smallest detail in the workings of the laws of nature, as long as it can never render any motion other than the exact resultant of the forces represented in it, what room remains for reason as a cause? Ought we not rather, though from a much broader and therefore more convincing, in fact from the broadest and hence most convincing view of the matter, to regard consciousness, as do many physiologists on narrower grounds, as the mere accompaniment of material processes?

But this brings us again to a consideration of the concept of cause. What do we mean by cause? Above, we spoke of the "cause of motion"; do we designate by this term those factors of preceding motion which, continued, produce it as composite resultant? If so, why not substitute for the term "cause of motion," "component factors of motion"? But is this, in fact, all we meant by cause? Was there not, in our mind, as we made use of the term, a vague half-conception of some additional force beyond those so exactly summed up in the resultant, which, in some indefinable manner, guided the process? As has been sufficiently demonstrated, no such additional force can be shown to exist, or be logically assumed in theory, except in some transcendental sense; nature gives us only perfect equivalence of forces. A cause of motion except as the mere sum of its preceding components is, therefore, a natural impossibility. Hence the reason or consciousness cannot be assumed to be such a cause. But if consciousness cannot be regarded as such a cause additional to the component factors of motion, neither can anything outside consciousness be regarded as such a cause. Natural laws are often treated as if they constituted a cause; but they are not entities which control nature: they are merely forms by which we express nature's constancy, uniformity. Neither is constancy or uniformity a controlling entity: it is simply a generalization, if a universal one, whether we regard it as a priori or as a posteriori. It appears, then, that we have no greater reason for regarding the constancy of nature or natural law as cause than we have for asserting reason to be such.

In this connection the question may be in order, as to why the student of the natural sciences, who is in the habit of proclaiming, so loudly, the necessity or at least the constancy of everything in nature, should yet elect to assign to consciousness the character of the non-essential, that is the accidental. Action and reaction are, according to him, essential inherent properties of brain matter as such, but consciousness is merely a dependent. But who shall decide what part or form of force, what factors of the universe are accidental and what essential? If our assertion of constancy in natural phenomena means anything at all, it means that nothing is accidental, but that all factors of phenomena are essential. Is the bell the less silver to my eye because it appeals to my ear with sound, or the ball the less round to touch because my field of vision is flat? Even if we suppose forms of matter, and organic forms, to exist without consciousness, can we therefore assert consciousness to be any the less essential, any the less inherent in the nature of things, any the less existent and actual, where it appears? If so, what physiological function can we call inherent and essential, since these all also arise with evolution? Heat may exist without light, but is light therefore less essential than heat, where it arises? The very constancy which psychical phenomena exhibit would show their essential character as factors of the universe. Perhaps it is the attempt of the spiritualist to assign to consciousness something more than such a character which has led his adversary into the opposite error of asserting it to be something less; but the two extremes of doctrine are quite equally far from that scientific method which holds to given phenomena. Materialism is as much metaphysics as Spiritualism is; and the materialist who condemns metaphysics condemns himself. Consciousness belongs to the Actual; and the Materialism which assigns it a place subordinate to that of other actual phenomena is as much dogmatism as is any theory which subordinates the other phases of the Actual to it. The fact that consciousness bears constant relation to certain physiological phenomena is no ground for pronouncing it the effect and the physiological phenomena the cause, it the dependent and the physiological phenomena the independent factors; the relations of all forms of force to each other are constant. Heat is constant in its accompaniment of light; and yet who shall say the one is dependent, the other independent, the one cause, the other merely effect?

We have only to regard the theories of specialists in order to discover how easily habitual occupation with one particular side, form, factor, or phase of phenomena inclines one to regard that side as the only essential one, and all others as non-essential, dependent upon it, mere effect of which it is the cause. The physicist tends to interpret everything by mechanical action and reaction; the chemist lays more particular stress on the chemical properties of organic as of inorganic matter; the physiologist emphasizes cellular structure and combination, and makes much of brain cells, the spinal cord, the nervus sympathicus, and the special sense-organs; the biologist often regards the attraction and repulsion involved in the so-called sensibility of all forms of living matter as the cause of all life phenomena; the anatomist calls attention to the arrangement of organs with respect to each other, the mechanical adjustment of parts for function, the size and shape of bones as caused by weight and the angle of its incidence, etc., etc.; while the psychologist on the other hand refers everything to mental causality. For complete science, however, we need the aid of every special science,—of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiology, Anatomy, Psychology, and all the other branches which can contribute to any side of our knowledge of nature. The desire within us for unity is strong, the impulse to simplify by referring everything to a single principle almost irresistible; and in so far as we do this through a conviction of the oneness of the universe as consisting of interdependent parts we are in a certain sense justified; but until we can grasp this unity in its totality, our one-sided reductions must remain false in so far as they make claim to include the whole of truth. It may be most useful to choose out that side or phase of phenomena for any particular investigation which is most accessible to such investigation; where the links of the psychical fail, it may be necessary to scientific completeness or clearness to complete the chain with the aid of the physical, but it should be borne in mind that this is a device of reason for convenience' sake. It may be possible to imagine two worlds, one in which the physical evolution alone takes place and all phenomena peculiar to organic function arise through the action and reaction of organic matter;[122] but the question is not what we can imagine but what is: we can imagine many things which do not exist and are impossible to nature. The human reason has also found it possible to conceive of spirit unconnected with body.