Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry

by George Ticknor Curtis

Sophereus. I have studied Mr. Spencer's "System of Psychology," but I do not know whether we understand it alike. You say that he has propounded the most satisfactory theory of the origin of mind. Assuming that mind was evolved as an aggregate of powers and capacities, slowly acquired, pari passu with the evolution of the animal organism, be good enough to tell me whether Mr. Spencer does or does not conclude that mind is anything more than an aggregate of powers and capacities of the nervous organization. I am quite aware of the mode in which he meets the charge of materialism; but waiving for the present the question of materialism, I should be glad to know, according to your understanding of his philosophy, what he considers mind to be.

Kosmicos. To answer your question requires an analysis of Spencer's "Principles of Psychology." You have here on your table the third edition of that work, which received his latest corrections and additions.[116] If you look at the preface of this edition, you will see that, as between Realism and Idealism, he enunciates a view which recognizes an element of truth in each, but rejects the rest. By this "Transfigured Realism" he aims to conciliate what is true in Realism with what is true in Idealism; and it is by this conciliation that he answers the partisans of both systems, who will not sacrifice any part of their respective doctrines. It is important for you to remember this in judging of his psychological system. He begins by a description of the structure and functions of the nervous system, and the nature of nervous actions. Without repeating in all its minute details the structure which he describes, it is enough to say that in all animals, from the lowest to the highest, this peculiar part of the organism which we call the nervous system is composed of two tissues which differ considerably from those composing the rest of the organism. In color they are distinguished from one another as gray and white, and in their minute structures as vesicular and fibrous. In the gray tissue, the vesicles or corpuscles contain a soft protein substance, with granules imbedded in it, consisting of fatty matter. The more developed of these nerve-corpuscles give off branching processes, and the terminations of nerve-fibers are distributed among them. The white tissue is composed of minute tubes containing a medullary substance or pulp, viscid like oil. Imbedded in this pulp, which fills the tubes, there lies a delicate fiber or axis-cylinder, which is uniform and continuous instead of having its continuity broken by fat-granules. This central thread is the essential nerve; and the sheath of medullary matter, and its surrounding membranous sheath, are only its accessories. While, therefore, the matter of nerve-fiber has much in common with the matter of nerve-vesicle, in the latter the protein substance contains more water, is mingled with fat-granules, and forms part of an unstable mass; whereas in the former, the nerve-tube, the protein substance, is denser, is distinct from the fatty compounds that surround it, and so presents an arrangement that is relatively stable.

Conceive, then, of this interlaced physical structure extending throughout the whole organism as a kind of circular mechanism, having its periphery at the surface of the body and limbs, ramifying among and into the internal organs, with various nerve-centers distributed through the interior mechanism, and the one great nerve-center in the brain. Conceive of this structure, further, as fed continually by the blood-vessels, which repair its waste of tissue and keep it in proper tone and activity. Then imagine it as first put in operation in some animal in whom it has become developed as we now know it in ourselves, and let that animal stand as the primeval man, who has become, by inherited transmission of gradual accumulations, possessed of this consummate development of nervous organization. You can then observe the method of its action, and can perceive how mind became developed, and what it is.

What I have now given you is only a general description of the structure of the nervous mechanism, and in order to understand its functions, we may take it up, in an individual, at a point of time when it had not experienced a single movement or change from a state of rest, but when it was completely fitted to act. Observe, then, that its action will consist in the origination and accomplishment of motion; or, in other words, in molecular change of the substance composing the nerves, which, for illustration only, may be likened to the conductor through which the molecular disturbance passes which is popularly, but not scientifically, called the electric fluid. At the surface of the body and limbs, the external termini of the nerves are exposed to disturbance by contact with an external object. Along the highly sensitive and minute conductor, the nerve which has by contact with an external object at its outer extremity received a slight shock, there passes through the fluid or semi-fluid substance of the nerve a wave of disturbance, or a succession of such waves. This disturbance reaches the brain, the great nerve-center, where it becomes a feeling. In this way is generated the feeling of contact with an external object, and this is what is commonly called the sense of touch, which is simply a feeling produced in the great nerve-center of the brain. Now, to reverse the process, let us suppose that this feeling, caused by touching an external object, provokes or excites a desire to remove that object, or to get rid of the continuance of the feeling, and to be without the irritation or pain which it is causing. From the central seat of nervous action, the brain, along another nerve, there proceeds a wave, or a series of waves, in the fluid or semi-fluid substance of which the conductor of that nerve is composed, and motion is communicated to some muscle or set of muscles, which need to be put in motion in order to break the contact with the external object. In like manner, all internal organs of the body, the viscera, are supplied with a system of nerves connected with the great nerve-center. If a disturbance arises in one of the viscera, some action that is abnormal, a sensation that is called pain is produced. So, too, in regard to the normal action of the viscera, kept up by involuntary movements—those movements originate in and are transmitted from the nerve-center, by waves in the fluid or semi-fluid substance of which the special nerves are composed, whose office it is to cause the necessary movements in the muscular substance, or the tissue, of the particular organ.

In this way began, in the supposed individual, those simpler states of feeling which pain or irritation produced in the nervous system, and those other involuntary movements which were essential to the normal and unconscious action of the viscera. These varying conditions of the highly sensitive nervous system, which constitute and are rightly denominated feelings, were constantly repeated; and, so far as they are capable of becoming a part of consciousness, that consciousness is a repetition of the same nervous actions many times over. Pass, then, from the feelings called sensations to the feelings called emotions, and it will be found that while both are states of nervous action, the former are peripherally initiated and the latter are centrally initiated. The meaning of this is that a sensation is an effect produced at the nerve-center by the transmission, from the outer terminus of a particular nerve, of the waves in the fluid or semi-fluid substance of the nerve. The strong forms of feeling called sensations are peripherally initiated, and the feelings called emotions are centrally initiated. Now, any feeling of any kind is directly known by each person in no other place than his own consciousness; and the question is, Of what is consciousness composed? In order to afford an answer to this question, Mr. Spencer proceeds to examine the substance of mind, and then passes to a consideration of the composition of mind. These are not the same thing; for, if there be no such thing, properly speaking, as the substance of mind, its composition, or its nature, must be looked for in another way. The expression "substance of mind," if used in any way but that in which we use the x of an algebraic equation, has no meaning. If we undertake to interpret mind in the terms of matter, as crude materialism does, we are at once brought to this result, that we know, and can know, nothing of the ultimate substance of either. We know matter only as forms of certain units; but the ultimate unit, of which the ultimate homogeneous units are probably composed, must remain absolutely unknown. In like manner, if mind consists of homogeneous units of feeling, the ultimate unit, as a substance, must remain unknown. When, therefore, we think of the substance of mind, the simplest form under which we can think of it is nothing but a symbol of something that can never be rendered into thought, just as the concept we form to ourselves of matter is but the symbol of some form of power absolutely and forever unknown to us, as the representation of all objective activities in terms of motion is only a symbolic representation, and not a knowledge of them. Symbols of unknown forms of existence, whether in the case of matter, motion, or mind, are mere representations which do not determine anything about the ultimate substance of either. "Our only course is constantly to recognize our symbols as symbols only, and to rest content with that duality of them which our constitution necessitates. The unknowable as manifested to us within the limits of consciousness in the shape of feeling, being no less inscrutable than the unknowable as manifested beyond the limits of consciousness in other shapes, we approach no nearer to understanding the last by rendering it into the first."[117]

Discarding, then, the expression "substance of mind," excepting as a mere symbol, Mr. Spencer passes to the "composition of mind"; and here we reach his explanation of mind as an evolution traceable through ascending stages of composition, conformably to the laws of evolution in general, so that the composition of mind, as something evolved out of simple elements, does not need or involve a symbolical representation in the terms of matter.

The method of composition, by which the whole fabric of mind is constituted, from the formation of its simplest feelings up to the formation of the complex aggregates of feelings which are its highest developments, can now be sketched. A sensation is formed by the consolidation of successive units of feeling; but the feelings called sensations can not of themselves constitute mind, even when many of different kinds are present together. When, however, each sensation, as it occurs, is linked in association with the faint forms of previous sensations of the same kind, mind is constituted; for, by the consolidation of successive sensations, there is formed a knowledge of the particular sensation as a distinct subject of what we call thought, or the smallest separable portion of thought as distinguished from mere confused sentiency. Thus, as the primitive units of feeling are compounded into sensations, by the same method simple sensations, and the relations among them, are compounded into states of definite consciousness. The next highest stage of mental composition is a repetition of the same process. Take a special object, which produces in us a vivid cluster of related sensations. When these are united with the faint forms of like clusters that have been before produced by such objects, we know the object. Knowledge of it is the assimilation of the combined group of real feelings which it excites, with one or more preceding ideal groups which were once excited by objects of the same kind; and, when the series of ideal groups is large, the knowledge is clear. In the same way, by the connections between each special cluster of related sensations produced by one object, and the special clusters generated by other objects, a wider knowledge is obtained. By assimilating the more or less complex relations exhibited in the actions of things in space and time, with other such complex relations, knowledge of the powers and habits of things is constituted. If we can not so assimilate them, or parts of them, we have no knowledge of their actions. So it is, without definite limit, through those tracts of higher consciousness which are formed of clusters of clusters of feelings held together by extremely involved relations. This law of the composition of mind is, therefore, the assimilation of real feelings and groups of real feelings with the ideal feelings or ideal groups of feelings which objects of the same kind once produced. You can follow out, without my assistance, the correspondence which Mr. Spencer exhibits between the views of mental composition and the general truths respecting nervous structure and nervous functions with which he began the treatment of mind, which consists largely, and in one sense entirely, of feelings. The inferior tracts of consciousness are constituted by feelings; and the feelings are the materials out of which are constituted the superior tracts of consciousness, and thus intellect is evolved by structural combination. "Everywhere feeling is the substance of which, when it is present, intellect is the form. And where intellect is not present, or but little present, mind consists of feelings that are unformed or but little formed."[118] Does not this statement, which in substance is Mr. Spencer's explanation of the formation of mind, explain to you why he denominates it "transfigured realism"?

Sophereus. I have attentively and carefully read Mr. Spencer's book from which you have made this partial analysis of his view of the nature of mind, but whether it is realism "transfigured," or whatever is, I think it must be admitted that its basis is a truly realistic one; for it comes back at last to just what I suggested to you at the beginning of this discussion, that mind, according to his view, is constituted by the action of the nervous system, or, in other words, that mind consists of the phenomena of movements which take place in a physical structure. If this is all that can be predicated of mind, it is not something that can have an independent and continuous existence after the dissolution of the physical structure called the nervous system. That structure is one that is analogous in its action to the other part of the organism by which digestion, or the assimilation of food, is carried on. We might as well suppose that by the action of the digestive system there has been constituted a something which will remain as a digestive function after the organs of digestion have perished, as to suppose that the action of the nervous system has constituted a something which will remain mind, a conscious and independent existence, after the nervous system has been resolved into its original material elements. Indeed, I do not understand Mr. Spencer's philosophy as including, providing for, or leading to, any possible continued existence of the mind after the death of the body. He seems to exclude it altogether. There is a passage at the end of one of his chapters which appears to be a summary of his whole philosophic scheme, and which is one of the dreariest conclusions I have ever met with. "Once more," he says, "we are brought round to the conclusion repeatedly reached by other routes, that behind all manifestations, inner and outer, there is a Power manifested. Here, as before, it has become clear that while the nature of this Power can not be known, while we lack the faculty of forming even the dimmest conception of it, yet its universal presence is the absolute fact without which there can be no relative facts. Every feeling and thought being but transitory, an entire life made up of such feelings and thoughts being also but transitory, nay, the objects amid which life is passed, though less transitory, being severally in course of losing their individualities quickly or slowly; we learn that the one thing permanent is the Unknowable Reality hidden under all these changing shapes."[119]

I will not say that the mournful character of this hopelessness of human destiny is proof of its unsoundness. I have accustomed myself to accept results, whatever may be the gloom in which they involve us, provided they are deductions of sound reasoning; and our wishes or hopes can not change the constitution of the universe or become important evidence for or against any view of what that constitution is. But let me ask, what does this philosopher mean by the transitory character of an entire life made up of transitory feelings and thoughts, occupied throughout their continuance with transitory objects, or objects which are quickly or slowly losing their individualities? What possible room does he leave for the development and discipline of an immortal being, supposing that man is an immortal being, by an entire life passed in feelings, thoughts, and action about objects which, relatively to the individual, may, quickly or slowly, pass away from him? Or, what room does he allow for the effect on such a being of an entire life spent in the pursuit of objects or the enjoyment of pleasures which develop only his baser nature and unfit him for anything else? In any scheme of philosophy which omits to regard this life as a preparatory school for some other life, it seems to me that something is left out which ought to be included, and which ought to be included for the very reason that the evidence which tends to show that mind is not constituted as Mr. Spencer supposes, but that it is an existence of a special character, not generated by the action of a physical structure, but deriving its existence from the direct action of the creating Power, is so strong that, if we leave this conclusion out of the hypothesis, we shall have left out the strongest probabilities of the case. It is no answer to the necessity for including this conclusion to say that there is a power which we can not know, or an Unknowable Reality hidden under all changing manifestations, among which are those of mind. A study of those manifestations leads rightly to some conclusions respecting the Power which underlies all manifestations. It is necessary, therefore, to subject Mr. Spencer's philosophy of mind to the further inquiry, How does he account for the moral sense? How does he explain that part of consciousness which recognizes moral obligations—the recognition of moral law and duty? We may easily dispense with the phrase "substance of the mind," if we wish to avoid a term of matter; but if mind is constituted by the perception of feelings excited in the nervous system, what is it that perceives? Is there a something that is reached by the feelings which constitute sensations in the great nerve-center, which takes cognizance of them, which combines them into portions of consciousness, or is consciousness nothing but a succession of sensations, and if so, what is "thought"? And what is that portion of thought which takes cognizance of moral duty, and which shows man to be capable of recognizing and obeying or breaking a moral law? I have somewhere read a suggestion that the polity which is said to have been given to the Hebrew people on the Mount of Sinai, and which is described as ten statutes written on two tablets of stone, consisted of five laws on one tablet and five on the other; one set of them expressing the relations of the Hebrews to the Deity, and the other being the fundamental laws of the social life which the Hebrews were commanded to lead. This division is not accurate, because the commandments which express the relations of the Hebrews to the Deity are four in number, and the commandments which were to constitute their social law are six. But that there is a line of demarkation between the two kinds of laws is obvious, and how they were written on the tablets, or whether they were written at all, is immaterial. Looking, then, first at the social law, whether there was more or less of the same ethical character in the codes of other ancient peoples, or whether the social law which is said to have been delivered to Moses and by him communicated to his nation stands as an embodiment of morality unequaled by anything that had preceded it, it is certain that it found the Hebrew people capable of the idea of law as a divine command. It is true that the corner-stone of the whole superstructure is to be found in the fact that the several commands which constituted this social code—"Honor thy father and thy mother," "Thou shalt do no murder," "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house," etc.—were addressed to a people to whose representatives the Almighty is supposed to have revealed himself amid "thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud, and all the people that were in the camp [below] trembled." It is also true that the first of these awful annunciations was said to have been, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before [or beside] me."[120] So that the source whence all the following commands proceeded was the one and only God, who is described as having thus revealed himself in fire and cloud and earthquake, and thus to have secured instant and implicit faith in what he spoke. But what he is asserted to have said was addressed to human minds. This is in one aspect the most important fact in the whole Hebrew history. It makes no difference whether Moses performed a piece of jugglery, or whether he actually went within the fire and the cloud, and actually spoke with God and received his commands. The indisputable truth remains that the individual minds of the Hebrew people, whom Moses had led out of Egypt, received and obeyed, as divine commands, an original and unique moral code, because they were so constituted that they could embrace and act upon the idea of law emanating from another than an earthly or a human source. What, then, was this constitution of the human mind, that could thus receive and act upon a divine command; and what is it now? It matters not, in the view in which I ask this question, whether there was any deceit practiced or not, or whether there is any practiced now in respect to the authority giving the command. What is to be accounted for is the capacity of the human mind to embrace and accept the idea of a moral law, be it that of Moses, or of Christ, or of Mohammed.

Kosmicos. I am glad that you put this matter of the ten commandments hypothetically, because otherwise we might have been led aside into an argument about the authenticity of the narrative. I recognize, however, the bearing of the question which you have put, and shall endeavor to answer it. Your question implies that the essential constitution of the human mind has been the same in all ages; that it was the same in this race of nomads, who had been, they and their fathers for ages, serfs of the Egyptian kings, that it is in us. Perhaps this assumption may be allowed; and, at all events, the real question is, How did the idea of a moral law originate, and what is the sense of moral obligation? Like all things else, it is a product of the process of evolution. I shall not argue this by any elaborate reasoning, but will proceed to state the grounds on which it rests. I will first give you what I understand to be Darwin's view of the origin of the habit of thinking and feeling, which we call the moral sense. Primeval man must have existed in a state of barbarism. When he had become developed out of some pre-existing animal, he was a mere savage, distinguishable from his predecessors only by the possession of some superior degree of mental power. Savages, like some other animals, form themselves into tribes or bands. Certain social instincts arise, out of which spring what are regarded as virtues. Individuals of the tribe begin to desire the sympathy and approbation of their fellows. They perceive that certain actions, such as protection of other and weaker individuals against danger, gain for them the sympathy and approbation of the tribe. There are thus formed some ideas of the common advantage to the tribe of certain actions, and of the common disadvantage of the opposite actions. Man is eminently a social animal, and this desire for the sympathy and approbation of his tribe, and this fear of their disapprobation, is so strong that the individual savage is led to perceive that the common good of the tribe is the object at which he must aim to conform. The first social instincts, therefore, are those which perceive the relations between certain kinds of conduct and the common good of the tribe; and out of these relations, with the aid of increasing intellectual powers, is developed the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise," which lies at the foundation of morality. These social instincts, thus leading at last to the great rule of social morality, are developed very slowly. They are at first confined to the benefit of the same tribe, and they have no force in the relations of that tribe to the members of any other. To a savage it is a highly meritorious action to save the life of another member of his own tribe, and if he loses his own life in the effort it is so much the more meritorious. But he does not extend this idea of doing a good action to the members of a different tribe, and, whether his own tribe is or is not at war with the other tribe, he and his own community will think it no harm if he murders a member of that other tribe. But as the approach to civilization goes on—as man advances in intellectual power, and can trace the more remote consequences of his actions, and as he rejects baneful customs and superstitions, he begins to regard more and more not only the welfare but the happiness of his fellow-men. Habit, resulting from beneficial experiences, instruction and example, renders his sympathies more tender and widely diffused, until at last he extends them to men of all races, to the imbecile, maimed, and other useless members of society, and to the inferior animals. Thus the standard of morality rises higher and higher; but its origin is in the social instincts, which spring out of the love of approbation and the fear of disapprobation.[121]