An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

As we begin with man and descend the scale of beings, we seem, in the upper part of the series, to be in no doubt that minds exist. Our only question is as to the precise contents of those minds. Further down we begin to ask ourselves whether anything like mind is revealed at all. That this should be so is to be expected. Our argument for other minds is the argument from analogy, and as we move down the scale our analogy grows more and more remote until it seems to fade out altogether. He who harbors doubts as to whether the plants enjoy some sort of psychic life, may well find those doubts intensified when he turns to study the crystal; and when he contemplates inorganic matter he should admit that the thread of his argument has become so attenuated that he cannot find it at all.

43. THE DOCTRINE OF MIND-STUFF.—Nevertheless, there have been those who have attributed something like consciousness even to inorganic matter. If the doctrine of evolution be true, argues Professor Clifford,[4] "we shall have along the line of the human pedigree a series of imperceptible steps connecting inorganic matter with ourselves. To the later members of that series we must undoubtedly ascribe consciousness, although it must, of course, have been simpler than our own. But where are we to stop? In the case of organisms of a certain complexity, consciousness is inferred. As we go back along the line, the complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason to think that the complexity of consciousness insensibly diminishes also. But if we make a jump, say to the tunicate mollusks, we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness at all. Yet not only is it impossible to point out a place where any sudden break takes place, but it is contrary to all the natural training of our minds to suppose a breach of continuity so great."

We must not, says Clifford, admit any breach of continuity. We must assume that consciousness is a complex of elementary feelings, "or rather of those remoter elements which cannot even be felt, but of which the simplest feeling is built up." We must assume that such elementary facts go along with the action of every organism, however simple; but we must assume also that it is only when the organism has reached a certain complexity of nervous structure that the complex of psychic facts reaches the degree of complication that we call Consciousness.

So much for the assumption of something like mind in the mollusk, where Clifford cannot find direct evidence of mind. But the argument does not stop here: "As the line of ascent is unbroken, and must end at last in inorganic matter, we have no choice but to admit that every motion of matter is simultaneous with some . . . fact or event which might be part of a consciousness."

Of the universal distribution of the elementary constituents of mind Clifford writes as follows: "That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness; but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say, changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other. When matter takes the complex form of a living human brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having intelligence and volition."

This is the famous mind-stuff doctrine. It is not a scientific doctrine, for it rests on wholly unproved assumptions. It is a play of the speculative fancy, and has its source in the author's strong desire to fit mental phenomena into some general evolutionary scheme. As he is a parallelist, and cannot make of physical phenomena and of mental one single series of causes and effects, he must attain his end by making the mental series complete and independent in itself. To do this, he is forced to make several very startling assumptions:—

(1) We have seen that there is evidence that there is consciousness somewhere—it is revealed by certain bodies. Clifford assumes consciousness, or rather its raw material, mind-stuff, to be everywhere. For this assumption we have not a whit of evidence.

(2) To make of the stuff thus attained a satisfactory evolutionary series, he is compelled to assume that mental phenomena are related to each other much as physical phenomena are related to each other. This notion he had from Spinoza, who held that, just as all that takes place in the physical world must be accounted for by a reference to physical causes, so all happenings in the world of ideas must be accounted for by a reference to mental causes, i.e. to ideas. For this assumption there is no more evidence than for the former.

(3) Finally, to bring the mental phenomena we are familiar with, sensations of color, sound, touch, taste, etc., into this evolutionary scheme, he is forced to assume that all such mental phenomena are made up of elements which do not belong to these classes at all, of something that "cannot even be felt." For this assumption there is as little evidence as there is for the other two.

The fact is that the mind-stuff doctrine is a castle in the air. It is too fanciful and arbitrary to take seriously. It is much better to come back to a more sober view of things, and to hold that there is evidence that other minds exist, but no evidence that every material thing is animated. If we cannot fit this into our evolutionary scheme, perhaps it is well to reexamine our evolutionary scheme, and to see whether some misconception may not attach to that.