#Projection, an economy of labor.#
The practice of projecting subjective sensations into the outside world is not an act of careless inference, but the inevitable result of a natural law. This natural law is that of the "economy of labor." When a blind man has undergone a successful operation, he will first have the consciousness of vague color-sensations taking place in his eye. Experience will teach him the meaning of these color-sensations and his motions will inform him where to find the corresponding outside facts. His consciousness will more and more be concentrated upon the meaning of the sensations. The less difficulty he has in arriving at their proper interpretation, the more unconscious his sense-activity will become and at length consciousness will be habitually attached to the result of the sensation alone, i. e., to its interpretation.
In the same way, every one who learns to play an instrument will first feel that part only which his hand touches. By and by, however, he will acquire a consciousness of the effects produced by the slightest touch. Constant practice forms in the brain of an expert certain living structures which are correspondent to the action of the instrument and represent it with great accuracy. Whenever these structures are stimulated, the action of the instrument is felt to take place. In this way consciousness is projected into the work performed by the instrument. The touch of the hand has become purely automatic, and the operator now feels the full effects of his manipulation although he is not in direct contact with all the parts of his instrument. The instrument becomes as if alive under his treatment, he feels it as a part of himself; for its action stands en rapport with his brain-activity.
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#The subject-superstition and agnosticism.#
States of consciousness, collectively considered, have been termed "subject," and we have also employed the phrase "subjective world." But we must not forget the fact, that the adoption of the name "subject" is based upon a misconception. Subject means "that which underlies," and the subject was supposed to be that something which formed the basis of all the states of consciousness present in any one special case—in you or in me, or in any person like you and me. The subject was considered as a being that was in possession of sense-impressions, of feelings, of thoughts, of intentions, etc.; and the existence of this subject was proved by Descartes's famous syllogism Cogito ergo sum. The subject was supposed to produce the states of consciousness, while in fact (as we have explained above) it is exactly the opposite. Feelings change into mind, they produce the subject which thinks. The subject is nothing underlying but rather overlying. It is the growth out of and upon feelings. It is the sum of many feelings in a state of organisation.
The fallacy of Descartes's dictum has been pointed out by Kant. The existence of states of consciousness, or the fact cogito, does not prove the existence of something that underlies the states of consciousness. It simply proves the existence of feelings and thoughts. There are certain sense-impressions, there are perceptions, there are ideas. Ideas develop from perceptions, and perceptions develop from sense-impressions. States of consciousness are nothing but the awareness or the feeling that is connected with certain perceptions and ideas.
Descartes's subjectivism is a transitory phase leading from the authoritative objectivism of the middle ages to the critical objectivism of modern times. The authoritative philosophy of the Schoolmen yielded to the arbitrary philosophy of metaphysical subjectivity, commencing as a matter of principle with doubt, instead of commencing with positive data, and establishing anarchy through lack of any objective method of arriving at truth. The reaction against the arbitrary authority of scholasticism was indispensable to further progress. But we must not rest satisfied with its negative result. We cannot commence a business without capital and without making a start. So we cannot begin philosophy with nothing. Knowledge is not possible without positive facts to serve as a basis to stand upon.
The negative features of Descartes's philosophy naturally found their ultimate completion in agnosticism. The assumption of the existence of a subject led to the doctrine, that this subject is unknowable. Moreover, the assumption of something that underlies the acts of thought leads to the assumption of something that underlies objective existence, and thus it begets the theory of things in themselves. This theory involves us in innumerable contradictions and thus it ends ultimately in the proposition that things in themselves are unknowable.
There are few who know the historical meaning of agnosticism; but those who can survey philosophical thought in its evolution, its growth, and decay, know that agnosticism means failure in philosophy. The word is a foreign-sounding name for "knownothingism," denoting a half-concealed confession of bankruptcy. The philosophy of the future, in order to escape from the fatal consequences of agnosticism, has to discard the subject-superstition inherited from Descartes. Descartes was a great thinker, a star of first magnitude in the realm of thought, but it is time that, without returning to the authoritative philosophy of the Schoolmen, we should free ourselves from the errors of his one-sided subjectivism.