But passing over this difficulty which the theory of conscious automatism seems bound to encounter in its collision with the theory of natural selection, the most insuperable of all its difficulties arises from the bare fact, which it cannot explain, that conscious intelligence exists, and exists in the most intimate relation with one peculiar kind of material structure. For automatists must concede that the evidence of causation in the region of mind is at least as cogent as it is in the region of matter, seeing that the whole science of psychology is only rendered possible as a science by the fundamental fact of observation that mental antecedents determine mental consequents. Therefore, if we call a physical sequence A, B, C, and a mental sequence a, b, c automatists have to explain, not merely why there should be such a thing as a mental sequence at all, but also why the sequence a, b, c should always proceed, link for link, with the sequence A, B, C. It clearly is no answer to say that the sequence A, B, C implies the successive activity of certain definite nerve-centres A', B', C' which have for their subjective effects the sequence a, b, c so that whenever the sequence A, B, C occurs the sequence a, b, c must likewise occur. This is no answer, because it merely restates the hypothesis of automatism, and begs the whole question to be discussed. What methodical reason demands as an answer is simply why the sequence A, B, C even though we freely grant it due to the successive activity of certain definite nerve-centres, should be attended by the sequence a, b, c. Reason perceives clearly enough that the sequence a, b, c belongs to a wholly different category from the sequence A, B, C the one being immediately known as a process taking place in a something which is without extension or physical properties of any kind, and the other taking place in a something which when, translated by the previous something, we recognize as having extension and the other antithetical properties which we class together as physical. There would of course be no difficulty if the sequence A, B, C continued through any amount of complexity in the same conceivable category of being; so that there would be nothing actually inconceivable in cerebral sequence—changes running through D, E, F, &c., to an extent sufficient to cause unconscious automatism of any degree of complexity. But that which does require explanation from automatists is why automatism should have become associated with consciousness, and this so intimately that every change in the sequence A, B, C, &c., is accompanied by a particular and corresponding change in the sequence a, b, c, &c. Thus, to take a definite illustration, if on seeing the sun I think of a paper on solar physics, and from this pass to thinking of Mr. Norman Lockyer, and from this to speculating on the probability of certain supposed elements being really compounds, there is here a definite causal connexion in the sequence of my thoughts. But it is the last extravagance of absurdity to tell me that the accompanying causal sequences going on in my brain happen to have exactly corresponded to the sequences which were taking place in the mind, the two trains of sequences being each definite and coherent in themselves, and yet each proceeding link for link in lines parallel with the other. Without some theory of pre-established harmony—which, of course, it is no part of automatism to entertain—it would, on the doctrine of chances alone, be impossible to suppose that the causal sequences in the brain always happen to be just those which, by running link for link with another set of causal sequences taking place in the mind, enable both the series to be definite and coherent in themselves. Therefore, before reason can allow the theory of automatism to pass, it must be told how this wonderful fact of parallelism is to be explained. There must be some connexion between the intrinsically coherent series A, B, C and the no less intrinsically coherent sequence a, b, c, which may be taken as an explanation why they coincide each to each. What is this connexion? We do not know; but we have now seen that, whatever it is, it cannot be an ordinary causal connexion—first, because the doctrine of the conservation of energy makes it incumbent on us to believe that the procession of physical cause and effect is complete within the region of brain—a closed circle, as it were, from which no energy can, without argumentative suicide, be supposed to escape into the region of mind; and next, because, even were this difficulty disregarded, it is unaccountable that the causative influence (whatever it is supposed to be), which passes over from the region of physics into that of psychics, should be such as to render the psychical series coherent in itself, when on the physical side the series must be determined by purely physical conditions, having no reference whatsoever to psychical requirements.
Thus it is argumentatively impossible for Materialism to elude the necessity of explaining the kind of connexion which it supposes to subsist between neurosis and psychosis; and forasmuch as the above considerations clearly show this connexion cannot be accepted as one of ordinary causality without some answer being given to the questions which reason has to ask, Materialism must be ruled out of court if she fails to respond to the demand. But it is no less clearly impossible that she can respond to the demand, and therefore at the bar of Philosophy Materialism must be pronounced, for this as well as for the reasons previously cited, conspicuously inadequate to account for the facts.
CHAPTER III.
MONISM.
We have seen, then, that both the alternative theories of Spiritualism and Materialism are found, when carefully examined, to be so beset with difficulties of a necessary and fundamental kind, that it is impossible to entertain either without closing our eyes to certain contradictions which they severally and inherently present. We may, indeed, go even further than this, and affirm that to suppose mind the cause of motion or motion the cause of mind is equally to suppose that which in its very nature as a supposition is neither true nor untrue, but nonsensical. For, as Prof. Clifford has said in his essay on Body and Mind,—
'It may be conceived that, at the same time with every exercise of volition, there is a disturbance of the physical laws; but this disturbance, being perceptible to me, would be a physical fact accompanying the volition, and could not be volition itself, which is not perceptible to me. Whether there is such a disturbance of the physical laws or no is a question of fact to which we have the best of reasons for giving a negative answer; but the assertion that another man's volition, a feeling in his consciousness which I cannot perceive, is part of the train of physical facts which I may perceive,—this is neither true nor untrue, but nonsense; it is a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will not go together[8].'
And seeing that the correlatives are in each case the same, it is similarly 'nonsense' to assert the converse proposition: or, in other words, it is equally nonsense to speak of mental action causing cerebral action, or of cerebral action causing mental action—nonsense of the same kind as it would be to speak of the Pickwick Papers causing a storm at sea, or the eruption of a volcano causing the forty-seventh proposition in the first book of Euclid.
We see, then, that two of the three possible theories of things contain the elements of their own destruction: when carefully analyzed, both these theories are found to present inherent contradictions. On this account the third, or only alternative theory, comes to us with a large antecedent presumption in its favour. For it comes to us, as it were, on a clear field, or with the negative advantage of having no logical rivals to contend with. The other two suggestions having been weighed in the balance and found wanting, we are free to look to the new-comer as quite unopposed. This new-comer must, indeed, be interrogated as carefully as his predecessors, and, like them, must be judged upon his own merits. But as he constitutes our last possible hope of solving the question which he professes himself able to solve, the absolute failure of his predecessors entitles him to a patient hearing. By the method of exclusion his voice is now the only voice that remains to be heard, and unless it can speak to better purpose than the others, we shall have no alternative but to abandon the facts as inexplicable, or to confess that it is necessarily impossible for the human mind ever to arrive at any theory of things.
Before proceeding to state or to examine this third and last of the suggested theories, it is desirable—in order still further to define its status a priori—that I should exhibit the reason why the two other suggestions have necessarily failed. For to my mind it is perfectly obvious that this reason is to be found, and found only, in the fact that they are both dualistic. The inherent, the fatal, and the closely similar difficulties which attach to both the dualistic theories, attach to them merely because they are dualistic. The 'nonsense' of each of them is really identical, and arises only because they both make the same irrational attempt to find more in the effect than they have put into the cause. In other words, both the dualistic theories suppose that the physical chains of causation is complete within itself, and that the mental chain is also complete within itself: yet they both proceed to the contradiction that one of these chains is able to allow some of its causal influence to escape, as it were, in order to constitute the other chain. It makes no difference, in point of logic, whether such an escape is supposed to take place from the physical chain (materialism) or from the mental chain (spiritualism): in either case the fundamental principle of causality is alike impugned—the principle, that is, of there being an equivalency between cause and effect, such that you cannot get more out of your effect than you have put into your cause. Both these dualistic theories, although they take opposite views as to which of the two chains of causation is the cause of the other, nevertheless agree in supposing that there are two chains of causation, and that one of them does act causally upon the other: and it is in this matter of their common consent that they both commit suicide. Every process in the physical sphere must be supposed to have its equations satisfied within that sphere: else the doctrine of the conservation of energy would be contravened, and thus the causation contemplated could no longer be contemplated as physical. Similarly, every process in the mental sphere must be supposed to have its equations satisfied within that sphere: else the causation contemplated could no longer be contemplated as mental: some of the equations must be supposed not to have been satisfied within the mental sphere, but to have been carried over into the physical sphere—thus to have either created or destroyed certain quantities of energy within that sphere, and thus, also, to have introduced elements of endless confusion into the otherwise orderly system of Nature.