The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism: A Symphony

by D. M. Strong

Determinism is morally safe, because man cannot escape from the feeling that he possesses free-will, which, nevertheless, is an illusion, in the sense that "illusions are ideas that have not originated from the data of experience."

In Light (April 18th, 1898) there is quoted the following, as part of a discourse on "The Evolution of Mind," delivered by Professor Jordan: "The plant searches for food by a movement of the feeding parts alone.... The tender tip is the plant's brain. If locomotion were in question, the plant would need to be differently constructed. It would demand the mechanism of the animal. The nerve, brain, and muscle of the plant are all represented by the tender growing cells of the moving tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 'thinks' of them, and in so doing the cells that are touched and 'think' are turned towards the source of the stimulus. The function of the brain, therefore, in some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in the tree for a special sensorium."

A comment in Light on this discourse runs as follows: "In higher organisms the mind becomes more and more localized, until in the higher animals it has a special organ—the brain, which, however, is shut up in darkness and 'has no knowledge except such as comes to it from the sense-organs through the ingoing or sensory nerves.' Being filled with these impressions, some of which are actual sensations, while others are memories of past sensations, the brain must make a choice among them by fixation of attention, if it is to act properly. To find data for such a choice is the function of the intellect. This, Dr. Jordan tells us, is the difference between mind and mere instinct, or inherited habits. Mind chooses, instinct cannot, for it is but an automatic mind-process inherited from generation to generation."

It must be remembered, however, that this faculty of choosing, said to be possessed by the brain and acquired by a process of development, is not free, but conditioned. The terminal organs of the afferent nerves also may be said to possess this faculty of choice, yet limited by their qualities and the nature of the external influences to which they are submitted.

The admission of a faculty of choice does not involve the idea of absolute freedom, nor need it disturb the Buddhist conception that there exists nothing behind the organism in the shape of an ego-entity, or soul, which chooses or remembers, and that there is no hidden agent which prompts the conveyance of impressions.

If we admit this faculty of choice to be possessed by the brain and terminal organs of the afferent and efferent nerves, it simply involves the concession that the stored-up memories in the brain, and the habits acquired by the muscular organism, as results of past external influences, act in the manner of choice; and in this sense only, it would seem, can the notion of "freedom" be scientifically and logically entertained.

If the faculty of choice, in this restricted sense, as the possession of a pluricellular organism such as man, is accepted in confirmation of the existence of "freedom," then we must accord the possession of "freedom" to the simplest form of life. The cellule composed only of protoplasm and a nucleus possesses the very same faculty.

M. Alfred Binet tells us of the highly-developed psychical functions of the spermatozoid; how it searches out the locality of the ovule situated at a distance; how, with a sense of direction, it traverses the whole length of the intervening space, overcoming all obstacles—which are many—in its path, to attain the desired object; and he maintains that such actions cannot be explained by simple irritability, nor by chemical affinity. The brain may possess this faculty, and the power to carry into effect the choice, as qualities of its mechanism; but there is no discrete entity behind the brain as agent.

"Is it quite certain that, when consciousness seems to affirm that 'I can choose so and so,' it means more than 'it is possible such and such a choice will take place in my mind'? If it does not mean more than this, its affirmation is not against Determinism" (Mind, April, 1898, p. 191). Even if the faculty of choice is granted, it is limited in the sense that choice does not always produce the effect chosen.