Mind and Motion and Monism

by George John Romanes

'The student of nature who starts from the axiom of the universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit an eternal existence; if he admits the conservation of energy, he cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy; if he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate, of an eternal series of such phenomena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of the investigation of nature, he will have enough sense to see that, when Spinoza says, "Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem infinitis attributis," the God so conceived is one that only a very great fool would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little Atheistic as it is Materialistic[14].'

Now, if it thus belongs to the essence of our idea of causation that finality must be reached somewhere, I do not know where this is so likely to be reached as at that principle wherein the idea itself takes its rise—viz. Mind. But, if so, the statement that any particular acts of mind are uncaused ceases to present any character of self-evident absurdity.

And the argument need not end here. For Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that our idea of causation, not merely requires a mind for its occurrence, but that in every mind where it does occur it has been directly formed out of experiences of effort in acts of volition. So that whether we analyze the idea of cause as we actually discover it in our own minds, or investigate the history of its genesis, we alike find, as we might have antecedently expected, that it is dependent on our more ultimate idea of mind as mind; the conception of causality is not, as a matter of fact, original or primal, but derivative or secondary. Therefore, if this conception necessarily involves the postulation of a first cause, there can be no doubt that such a cause can only be conceived as of the nature of mind. From which it follows that each individual mind requires to be regarded—if it is regarded at all—as of the nature of a first cause.

From this, however, it does not follow that each individual mind requires to be regarded as wholly independent of all other causes, or as never subject to any causal influence which may be exercised by other minds. Although each mind presents the feature of finality or spontaneity, this does not hinder that it also presents the feature of relation to other minds, which, therefore, are able to act upon it in numberless ways. Now, whether these minds are the minds of other men, of other intelligent beings, or of the whole World-eject, the causal activity which is exerted upon my mind expresses itself in that mind as a consciousness of motives. But although these motives may help to determine my volitions, there is no reason to suppose that they are themselves the volitions, or that without them my mind would cease to be itself a causal agent. On the contrary, if this were supposed, the supposition would amount to destroying the causal agency of my own mind, which, as we have just seen, must either be original or not at all.

The way, therefore, that the matter stands is this. In so far as the microcosm is a circumscribed system of being—a thinking substance, a personality—it is of the nature of a first cause, free to act in any direction as to its thinking and willing, even though its thinking should be irrational as to truth, and its willing impossible as to execution. But in so far as the microcosm enters into relation with the macrocosm, the system of external causation which it encounters determines the character of its volitions. For although these volitions are themselves of the nature of first causes, it is no contradiction to say that they are—at all events in large measure—determined by other and external causes. This is no contradiction because, although they are thus determined, it does not follow that they are thus determined necessarily, and this makes all the difference between the theory of will as bond or free. In any stream of secondary causation each member of the series is understood to determine the next member of necessity; and it is because this notion is imported into psychology that the theory of determinism regards it as axiomatic that, if our volitions are in any way caused at all, they can only be caused by way of necessity; and hence that under the operation of any given set of motives the action of the will can only take place in the direction of the resultant. But any such axiom is valid only within the region of second causes. On the hypothesis that volitions are first causes, the axiom is irrelevant to them; for although it may be true that they are determined by causes from without, it may not be true that they are thus determined of necessity: their intrinsic character as themselves first causes, although not isolating them from any possible contact with other causes, nevertheless does protect them from being necessarily coerced by these causes, and therefore from becoming but the mere effects of them. Such influence, or determination, as is exerted upon the Will by these external causes is exerted only because any individual mind is not itself a macrocosm, but a microcosm in relation to a macrocosm. If it were itself a macrocosm, standing out of relation to all other being, its prime causation would, of course, be wholly uninfluenced by any other causation; its volitions would then be concerned only with the determination of its own thoughts in a constant stream of purely subjective contemplation, such as that which the Hindoo philosophy attributes to God. But as the human mind discovers itself as existing in close and complex relations with an external world of an orderly character, the human mind finds that it is, as before said, expedient to adapt the course of its own causal activity so as to bring it into harmony with the external order. For, although its own causal activity is primal, it by no means follows that on this account it is almighty; hence, even although it be primal, it is nevertheless under the necessity of adopting means in order to secure its ends—or, in other words, of adjusting its volitions (if they are to be practically efficient) to the conditions which are imposed upon its activity by the orderly system of the external world. Which is merely another way of stating the conclusion previously reached—viz. that the only necessity which can be proved to govern our volitions is the necessity which is imposed by our own considerations of reason and morality. Although we find that it is expedient to adapt our own causal activity to that larger system of causal activity by which we are surrounded—seeing that we must do so necessarily if we are to act at all—it by no means follows that we are bound to will what is expedient. In other words, the necessity laid upon us by the system of external causation is a necessity to adopt means for the attainment of ends; not a necessity to will the ends. And although in many cases this distinction may appear to be practically unmeaning—seeing that no man wills what he knows to be impossible of execution, and therefore that to say he is necessarily prevented from doing a certain thing seems practically equivalent to saying that he is necessarily prevented from willing that thing—in all cases where any question of moral responsibility can possibly obtain, the distinction is one of fundamental importance. For, as already shown, any question of moral responsibility can only obtain where two or more lines of action are alike possible, and therefore where no necessity is laid upon the man in respect of carrying out his volitions, in whichever direction they may eventually proceed. Although in any event he is necessarily bound to adopt means in order to secure his ends, the moral quality of his choice has reference only to the ends which he chooses; not at all to the fact that he has to employ means for the purpose of attaining them. And even though his choice be influenced by his physical and social environment—as it must be if it be either rational on the one hand or moral on the other—it does not follow that this influence is of a kind to neutralize or destroy the causal nature of his own volition. For the influence which is thus exerted cannot be exerted necessarily, unless we suppose that the Will is not a first cause, which is the possibility now under consideration. If the Will is a first cause, the influences brought to bear upon it by its relation to other causes—and in virtue of which it is constituted, not only a cause primal, but also a cause rational and moral—these influences differ toto coelo from those which are exercised by any members in a series of secondary causes upon the next succeeding causes. And the difference consists in the absence of necessary or unconditional sequence in the one case, and its presence in the other. However strong the determining influence of a motive may be, if the Will is a first cause, the motive must belong to a different order of causal relation from a motor; for, no matter how strong the determining influence may be, ex hypothesi it can never attain to the strength of necessity; the Will must ever remain free to overcome such influence by an adequate exercise of its own power of spontaneous action, or of supplying de novo an additional access of strength to some other motive. Of course, as a general rule, the Will allows itself to be influenced by motives supplied immediately by its relations with the external world; but this is so only because the thinking substance well knows that it is expedient so to fall in with the general stream of external causation. Hence, as a general rule, it is only in cases where the stream of external causation is drawing the will in different directions that the causal activity of the Will itself is called into play. Or rather, I should say, it is only in such cases that we become conscious of the fact. In the case of every voluntary movement the primal activity of Will must be concerned (and this even in the case of the lower animals); but as the vast majority of such movements are performed by way of response to frequently recurring circumstances, the response which experience has shown to be most expedient is given, as it were, automatically, or without the occurrence of any adverse motive. But in cases where motives are drawing in different directions, we become conscious of an effort of Will in choosing one or other line of conduct, and, according to our present hypothesis, this consciousness of effort is an expression of the work which the Will is doing in the way of spontaneous causation.

Thus, upon the whole, if we identify the principle of causation with the principle of mind—as we are bound to do by the theory of Monism—we thereby draw a great and fundamental distinction between causation as this occurs in the external world, and as it occurs within the limits of our own subjectivity. And the distinction consists in the unconditional nature of a causal sequence in the external world, as against the conditional nature of it in the other case; the condition to the effective operation of a motive—as distinguished from a motor—is the acquiescence of the first cause upon which that motive is operating.

To the foregoing argument it may be objected that by expressly regarding the human mind as a first cause of its own volitions, I imply that that mind can itself have had no cause, which appears to be self-evidently absurd. But here again the absurdity only arises from our inveterate habit of regarding the principle of causation as logically prior to that of mind. If we expressly refuse to do this, there is nothing absurd in supposing the principle of mind wherever it occurs, as itself uncaused. For if, as we are now supposing, this principle is identical with that of causation, to say that any mind is caused would be to say that a cause is the cause of itself, which would be really absurd. Under the present point of view, therefore, it would be a meaningless question to ask for the cause of a human mind, since, ex hypothesi, a human mind is a part of the self-existing substance, although not on this account self-existing as to its individual personality. As argued in a previous chapter, the personality appears to arise on account of circumscription, or the isolation of a constituent part of the World-eject. Therefore, although it may be reasonable to ask for a cause of this circumscription—or of the personality—it is not reasonable to ask for a cause of the substance which is thus circumscribed, or of the quality of spontaneity which that substance exhibits.

I will now state the whole case in another way. When we regard the facts of volition from the stand-point of psychology, the only theory of them which is open to us is, as we have before seen, that of determinism. Moreover, within these limits that theory is perfectly true. Psychology, as such, cannot recognize any principle more ultimate than natural causation, seeing that, like any other of her sisters in the family of sciences, her whole work and duty are confined to the investigation of this principle. But, just as in the case of all the other sciences, when her investigations have been pushed to the point where they encounter the problem of explaining this principle itself, her investigations must necessarily cease; this principle is for all the sciences the ultimate datum, behind which they cannot go without ceasing to be sciences. But it does not follow that because the area of science is limited by that of causation, therefore we are precluded from asking any questions as to the nature of this ultimate datum. Of course any questions which we may thus ask cannot possibly be answered by science; they are questions of philosophy, in the consideration of which science, from her very nature and essential limitation of her office, can have no voice. Now, if on taking up the principle of causation where this is left by science—viz. as the ultimate or unanalyzable datum of experience, upon which all her investigations are founded, and by which they are all limited—philosophy finds any reason to surmise that it is resolvable into the principle of mind, philosophy is thus able to suggest that any distinction between mental processes as determinate or free, is really a meaningless distinction. For, according to this suggestion, the issue is no longer as to whether these processes are caused or uncaused; the very idea of cause has been abolished as one which belongs only to that lower level of inquiry with which science, or sensuous experience, is concerned. Here, no doubt, the question is a thoroughly real one, and, as shown in previous chapters, can only be answered in the way of determinism. But so soon as we ascend to the philosophical theory of Monism, and so transcend the conditions of sensuous experience, the question whether volitions are caused or uncaused becomes, as I have said, a meaningless question, or a question the terms of which are not correctly stated. If it be the case that all causality is of a nature psychical, volition and causation are one and the same thing, differing only in relation to our modes of apprehension. It would therefore be equally meaningless to say that either is the cause of the other—just as it would be equally meaningless to say that neurosis is the cause of psychosis, or that psychosis is the cause of neurosis. Or thus, if volition and causation are one and the same thing, the only reason why they ever appear diverse is because the one is known ontologically, while the other is known phenomenally. Were it possible that the orbit of my own personality could be widened so as to include within my own subjectivity the whole universe of causality, I should find—according to Monism—that all causation would become transformed into volition. Hence, the only reason why there now appears to be so great an antithesis between these two principles, is because the volition which is going on outside of my own consciousness can only be known to me objectively,—or at most ejectively,—on which account the principle of causality appears to me phenomenally as the most ultimate, or most unanalyzable, principle in the phenomenal universe.

Upon the whole, then, I conclude that this is the teaching of Monism. If we view the facts of human volition relatively, or within the four corners of psychological science, there is no escape from the conclusion that they are determined with all the rigour which belongs to natural causation in general. For every sequence of mental changes and every sequence of cerebral changes, although phenomenally so diverse, are taken by this theory to be ontologically identical; and therefore the sequence of mental changes must be determined with the same degree of 'necessity' as is that of the cerebral changes. In short, mental causation is taken to be but the obverse aspect of physical causation, and, as previously remarked, it is impossible that the doctrine of determinism could be taught in a manner more emphatic. But, on the other hand, the theory of Monism is bound to go further than this. From the very fact of its having gone so far as to identify all physical processes with psychical processes, it cannot refuse to take the further and final step of identifying the most ultimate known principle of the one with the most ultimate known principle of the other; it is bound to recognize in natural causation the phenomenal aspect of that which is known ontologically as volition. But if these two principles are thus regarded as identical, it clearly becomes as unmeaning to ask whether the one is the cause of the other, as it would be to ask whether the one wills the other. For, ex hypothesi, the two things being one thing, or but different modes of viewing the same thing, it becomes mere nonsense to speak of either determining the other; they are both but different expressions of the same ultimate fact, namely the fact of Being as Being.

If this result should be deemed unsatisfactory on account of its vagueness, let it be remembered that nothing is gained on the side of clearness by the converse supposition—viz. that priority should be assigned to the principle of causality. For, if we say it is inconceivable that anything should come into existence without a cause—not even excepting the principle of mind itself—then the question immediately arises—If all volition is caused, what is the cause of volition? What caused this cause? And so on till we arrive at the question, What caused the principle of causality? which is absurd. So that whether we regard mind as prior to cause, or cause as prior to mind, or neither as prior to the other, we arrive at precisely the same difficulty. And the difficulty is a hopeless one, because it concerns the ultimate question of Being as Being, or the final mystery of things.