Mind and Motion and Monism

by George John Romanes

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.