Mind and Motion and Monism

by George John Romanes

THE WILL IN RELATION TO MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM.

In the foregoing chapters I have considered the theory of Monism, first in contrast with the theories of Materialism and of Spiritualism, and next in relation to the theory of Theism. In this chapter and that which succeeds it I propose to consider Monism in relation to the Will. To do this it is needful to begin by considering the problems which are presented by the Will in relation to the older theories of Materialism on the one hand and of Spiritualism on the other.

Although the phenomena of volition have occupied so large a province of philosophical literature, the fundamental problems which arise in connexion with them are only two in number, and both admit of being stated in extremely simple terms. The historical order in which these two problems have arisen is the inverse of their logical order. For while in logical order the two problems would stand thus—Is the Will an agent? If so, is it a free agent?—in actual discussion it was long taken for granted that the Will is an agent, and hence the only controversy gathered round the question whether the Will is a free agent. Descartes, indeed, seems to have entertained the prior question with regard to animals, and there are passages in the Leviathan which may be taken to imply that Hobbes entertained this question with regard to man. But it was not until recent years that any such question could stand upon a basis of science as distinguished from speculation; the question did not admit of being so much as stated in terms of science until physiology was in a position openly to challenge our right to assume that the Will is an agent. Such a challenge physiology has now given, and even declared that any assumption of volitional agency is, in the presence of adequate physiological knowledge, impossible.

The two problems which I thus state separately are often, and indeed generally, confused together; but for the purpose of clear analysis it is of the first importance that they should be kept apart. In order to show the wide distinction between them, we may best begin with a brief consideration of what it is that the two problems severally involve; and to do this we may best take the problems in what I have called their logical order.

First, then, as regards the question whether the Will is an agent, the rival theories of Materialism and Spiritualism stand to one another in a relation of contradiction. For it is of the essence of Spiritualism to regard the Will as an agent, or as an original cause of bodily movement, and therefore as a true cause in Nature. On the other hand, it is of the essence of Materialism to deny that the Will is an agent. Hitherto, indeed, materialists as a body have not expressly recognized this implication as necessarily belonging to their theory; but that this implication does necessarily belong to their theory—or rather, I should say, really constitutes its most distinctive feature—admits of being easily shown. For the theory that material changes are the causes of mental changes necessarily terminates in the so-called theory of conscious automatism—or the theory that so far as the conditions to bodily action are concerned, consciousness is adventitious, bearing the same ineffectual relation to the activity of the brain as the striking of a clock bears to the time-keeping adjustments of the clock-work. From this conclusion there is no possibility of escape, if once we accept the premises of Materialism; and therefore I say it belongs to the essence of Materialism to deny the agency of Will.

Just as necessarily does it belong to the essence of Monism to affirm the agency of Will. For, according to this theory, while motion is producing nothing but motion, mind-change nothing but mind-change, both are producing both simultaneously; neither could be what it is without the other, for each is to the other a necessary counterpart or supplement, in the absence of which the whole causation (whether regarded from the physical or mental side) would not be complete.

Now, in my opinion the importance of the view thus presented by the theory of Monism is, for all purposes of psychological analysis, inestimable. It is impossible nowadays that such analysis can proceed very far in any direction without confronting the facts presented by physiology: hence it is impossible for such analysis to confine itself exclusively to the spiritual or subjective side of psychology. On the other hand, in so far as such analysis has regard to the material or objective side, it has hitherto appeared to countenance—in however disguised a form—the dogmatic denial of the Will as an agent. Hence the supreme importance to psychology of reconciling the hitherto rival theories of Spiritualism and Materialism in the higher synthesis which is furnished by the theory of Monism. For, obviously, in the absence of any philosophical justification of the Will as an agent, we are without any guarantee that all psychological inquiry is not a vain beating of the air. If, as Materialism necessarily implies, the Will is not a cause in Nature, there would be no reason in Nature for the agency either of feeling or of intelligence. Feeling and intelligence would, therefore, stand as ciphers in the general constitution of things; and any inquiry touching their internal system of causation could have no reference to any scientific inquiry touching causation in general. I am aware that this truth is habitually overlooked by psychologists; but it is none the less a truth of fundamental importance to the whole superstructure of this science. Or, in other words, unless psychologists will expressly consent to rear their science on the basis provided by the philosophical theory of Monism, there is nothing to save it from logical disintegration; apart from this basis, the whole science is, so to speak, built in the air, like an unsubstantial structure of clouds. Psychologists, I repeat, habitually ignore this fact, and constantly speak of feeling and intelligence as true causes of adjustive action; but by so doing they merely beg from this contradictory theory of Spiritualism a flat denial of the fundamental postulate on which they elsewhere proceed—the postulate, namely, that mental changes are determined by cerebral changes. Consider, for example, the following passage from Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology (§ 125), which serves to show in brief compass the logical incoherency which in this matter runs through his whole work:—

'Those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been, other things equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals among races in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, tending ever to bring about perfect adjustment.'

The argument here is that the 'adjustments of feelings to actions,' when once attained, leads in turn to an adjustment of actions to feelings—or, as I have myself stated the argument in my Mental Evolution in Animals, 'the raison d'étre of Pleasure and Pain has been that of furnishing organisms with guides to adjustive action: moreover, as in the case of direct sensation dictating any simple adjustment for the sake of securing an immediate good, so in the case of instinct dictating a more intricate action for the sake of eventually securing a more remote good (whether for self, progeny, or community); and so, likewise, in the case of reason dictating a still more intricate adjustment for the sake of securing a good still more remote—in all cases, that is, where volition is concerned, pleasures and pains are the guides of action.' But thus to affirm that pleasures and pains are the guides of action is merely another way of affirming that the Will is an agent—a cause of bodily movement, and, as such, a cause in Nature. Now, as we have seen, Mr. Spencer not only affirms this—or rather assumes it—but proceeds to render an a priori explanation of the accuracy of the guidance. Yet he nowhere considers the fundamental question—Why should we suppose that the Will is an agent at all? Assuredly the answer given by physiology to this question is a simple denial that we have any justification so to regard the Will: in view of her demonstration of conscious automatism, she can see no reason why there should be any connexion at all between a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain and an objective fact of 'agreement or disagreement with the environment'—nay, one of the most eminent of her priesthood has declared that there is no more connexion between the ambition of a Napoleon and a general commotion of Europe, than there is between the puff of a steam-whistle and the locomotion of a train. And, as I have now repeatedly insisted, on grounds of physiology alone this is the only logical conclusion at which it is possible to arrive. Yet Mr. Spencer, while elsewhere proceeding on the lines of physiology, whenever he encounters the question of the agency of Will, habitually jumps the whole gulf that separates Materialism from Spiritualism. And this wonderful feat of intellectual athletics is likewise performed, so far at least as I am aware, by every other psychologist who has proceeded on the lines of physiology. Indeed, the logical incoherency is not so serious in Mr. Spencer's case as it is in that of many other writers whom I need not wait to name. For Mr. Spencer does not seek to found his system on a basis of avowed Materialism, and, therefore, he may be said to have left this fundamental question of volitional agency in abeyance. But all those writers who have reared their systems of psychology on a basis of avowed Materialism—or, which is the same thing, on a basis of physiology alone—lay themselves open to the charge of grossest inconsistency when they thus assume that the Will is an agent. It is impossible that these writers can both have their cake and eat it. Either they must forego their Materialism, or else they must cease to speak of 'motives determining action,' 'conduct being governed by pleasures and pains,' 'voluntary movements in their last resort being all due to bodily feelings,' 'the highest morality and the lowest vice being alike the result of a pursuit of happiness,' &c. &c. And, so far as I can see, it is only in the way above indicated, or on the theory of Monism, that it is possible, without ignoring the facts of physiology on the one hand or those of psychology on the other, philosophically to save the agency of Will.

From this brief exposition it may be gathered that on the materialistic theory it is impossible that the Will can be, in any sense of the term, an agent; that on the spiritualistic theory the Will is regarded as an agent, but only in the sense of a non-natural or miraculous cause; and, lastly, that on the monistic theory the Will is saved as an agent, or may be properly regarded and as properly denominated a true cause, in the ordinary sense of that term. For this, as well as for other reasons which need not here be specified, I accept in philosophy the theory of Monism; and am thus entitled in psychology to proceed upon the doctrine that the Will is an agent. We have next to consider the ulterior question whether upon this theory the Will may be properly regarded as a free agent.