It is thus finally apparent how by means of the law of the conditioned reflex and the all-or-none principle, both concrete and abstract terms serve not only as gestural signs, but also serve to imply and predict human activities. We have shown that every word which has a meaning ipso facto implies action. It matters not whether that action be sudden or violent, or merely one that is carried out on “low gear,” so to speak, by the neuro-muscular mechanisms of the body. Neither does it matter whether that action be precise or groping, specific or diffuse; if the word has a meaning it will be accompanied by an action-tendency, and that tendency will be added to the kinetic potentialities,—the character,—of the individual. For if it is the case that by the law of the conditioned reflex, words get meaning, it is equally to be asserted that by virtue of the all-or-none principle, they keep it. Moreover, Holt to the contrary notwithstanding, it is such demonstrable physiological principles as these, and not the mysterious Freudian categories, which are the keys whereby the secrets of mind will be unlocked.
Having thus dealt with the problem of how the neuro-muscular mechanisms of the body generate and maintain the meanings of words, let us now return to the original question of this chapter, namely, What is the ultimate reason why we employ such pairs of antonyms as “good” and “bad” in our judgments of praise or blame, our expressions of desire or aversion, and in our estimations of merit or defect? Our answer is that the felt opposition and contradiction of antonyms is due to the conflict of motor tendencies, and in support of this theory we cite a well-recognized physiological principle,—the law of reciprocal innervation.
The Physiological Explanation of the Opposition of Antonyms
Every freely moving part of the body, such as the leg, the arm, and the head, is equipped principally with two sets of muscles, called, from their functions, the flexors and the extensors. The flexors are those muscles which for example, upon contracting, draw the legs and the arms toward the body and fold them close to it, and which lower the head upon the chest; while the extensors stretch out the arms and legs, open wide the hands, and raise the head to an erect posture. Other parts of the body are similarly equipped for producing motions of an opposite character in the skeletal system.[4] The eyeballs are lowered by the use of a different muscle than that by which they are elevated; the muscle which depresses the wings of the nose is a direct antagonist of the other muscles which control the movements of this organ, and so on throughout the whole of our movable bodily structures. Moreover, when one such pair of muscles is contracted, the opposed member is normally relaxed, and vice versa; or, as the physiologist would say, the two muscles are reciprocally innervated.[5]
However, it must not be understood that this law refers only to the visible contractions of the muscles which produce the overt behavior of a man, for it equally explains the case where a very small number of nerve and muscle fibers are activated. That is to say, the law of all-or-none and the law of reciprocal innervation can both operate in the face or the hand at the same time. Indeed, we must not neglect to consider that all of the myriad fibers of our largest muscles are never simultaneously contracted; rather is it the rule that these fibers contract in relays,[6] thereby automatically saving us from the fatigue and exhaustion which would otherwise ensue. Moreover, the more intelligent and skilful we become, or, as we sometimes say, the more our head saves our heels, the fewer muscle fibers are required to generate and maintain any specific action-tendency. Consequently, then, the law of reciprocal innervation can be exhibited in the antagonism of extremely small muscular units, such as we have postulated to be involved in certain cases of meaning provided they be anatomically situated in the correct position for producing antagonistic strains. Now the experimental demonstration of the law of dynamogenesis at the hands of Richet, Charcot, etc., revealed that just such slight movements of an opposed character are produced when we merely “think” of up and down, right and left, in and out, and the like. In every case of this sort, some part of the movable, skeletal system performs overtly or covertly the appropriate movement, thereby giving meaning to the word. We may therefore, unless we read all signs incorrectly, safely affirm that whatever be the action-pattern which any abstract term arouses in us, the antonym of that term, if indeed it be its logical and physiological antonym, arouses action-patterns of an opposite character.
Our physiological explanation of the meaning of words and the contradiction of antonyms is now complete. For if, as we have previously shown, even abstract terms acquire and keep their meaning by virtue of the reflex tendencies which they arouse, it is likewise apparent that the basis of logical opposition and contradiction is to be found by an examination of the baldest facts of the physics and physiology of the human body. In brief, then, antonyms are those words whose utterance stimulates us so to react as to illustrate the law of reciprocal innervation. And this, moreover, is the only reason why cheap is the opposite of expensive, true the contradictory of false, and good the antithesis of bad.
Two words more, however, remain to be said. The first of these is, that the number of pairs of antonyms we have in our vocabulary signifies how many different pairs of antagonistic motor tendencies or action-patterns we could, were we fully aroused, overtly manifest. Since thought is either a rehearsal for, or a rumination upon, action, it is essentially a process which employs the same structures of the body as those which are activated in our buying and selling, our giving and taking, our toil and our play. The second word is, that if it be due strictly to our muscular architecture that antonyms occur in human speech, we can now safely affirm that any philosophy or religion which construes the universe as divided between the warring forces of light and darkness, or as everywhere illustrating the bi-polar principles of love and hate, is likewise based upon the law of the reciprocal innervation of antagonistic muscles. Such philosophies are, indeed, profound, since they attempt to inscribe on the firmament the drama of man’s limitations.
With this by way of introduction, we are now prepared to examine the various terms by which we are wont to convey our ideas of ethical value, in order to see just what the words “good,” “bad,” “right,” “wrong,” and the like really mean. And while the difficulties of such a task are admittedly great, yet the presumption is entirely in favor of the methods of mechanistic psychology to give a strictly scientific interpretation to the subject matter of ethics.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] “The Intellectual Significance of the Grasping Reflex,” Jour. of Phil., Vol. XVIII, No. 23, pp. 617-628.