Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics / With Some of Their Applications

by William Thomas Thornton

Whoever thus assures himself of the existence of self obtains simultaneously equal assurance of the existence of non-self; for feeling that his conscious self is not boundless, but is confined within limits, he cannot doubt that beyond those limits there must be space, and, receiving continual sensations from without, he perceives that there are, in external space, potentialities of imparting sensations. Thus, I repeat, Descartes in laying down the first principles of his philosophy created an intellectual basis for the external universe. Unfortunately, however, instead of proceeding to place its proper superstructure on the foundation thus laid, he wilfully stepped aside from what he had just pronounced the only firm ground in existence, and undertook to raise a rival edifice on part of the formless void beyond. Deeply struck by the grand discoveries of his illustrious contemporaries, Galileo and Harvey, and thence discovering for himself that the phenomena of remotest worlds and also the involuntary phenomena of our own bodily frames take place in accordance with forces of uniform operation, he leaped suddenly to the conclusion that those forces are purely mechanical. The circulation of the blood, he says, 'is as much the necessary result of the structure of the parts one can see in the heart, and of the heat which one may feel there, and of the nature of the blood which may be experimentally ascertained, as is the motion of a clock the result of the force, situation, and figure of its wheels and of its weight.' Nor, in his view, does the heart, by virtue of its structure and composition, merely cause the blood to circulate. 'It also generates animal spirits,' which, 'ascending like a very subtle fluid, or very pure and vivid flame, into the brain as into a reservoir, pass thence into the nerves, where, according as they more or less enter, or tend to enter, they have the power of altering the figures of the muscles into which the nerves are inserted, and of so causing all the organs and limbs to move.' He puts the case thus: Even as the ordinary movements of a water-clock or of a mill are kept up by the ordinary flow of the water, and even as 'in the grottoes and fountains of royal gardens, the force wherewith the water issues from its reservoirs suffices to move various machines, and even to make them play instruments or pronounce words according to the different disposition of the pipes which lead the water'—even so do pulsation, respiration, digestion, nutrition, and growth, and 'other such actions as are natural and usual in the body,' result naturally from the usual course of the animal spirits. Moreover, even as intruders upon the waterworks aforesaid unconsciously by their mere presence cause special movements to take place, even as, for example, 'if they approach a bathing Diana, they tread on certain planks so arranged as to make her hide among the reeds, and, if they attempt to follow her, see approaching a Neptune who threatens with his trident, or rouse some other monster who vomits water into their faces'—even so do external objects, by their mere presence, act upon the organs of sense; even so do 'the reception of light, sounds, odours, flavours, heat, and such like qualities in the organs of the external senses, the impression of the ideas of these in the intellect, the imagination, and the memory, the internal movements of the appetites and passions, and the external movements which follow so aptly on the presentation of objects to the senses, or on the resuscitation of impressions by the memory,' yea, even so do all these 'functions proceed naturally from the arrangement of the bodily organs, neither more nor less than do the movements of a clock or other automaton from that of its weights and its wheels, without the aid of any other vegetative or sensitive soul or any other principle of motion or of life than the blood and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns continually within the heart, and which differs in no wise from the fire existing in inanimate bodies.'[35]

Quite fairly it may be urged that the writer of passages like these would, if writing in modern language, and with the aid of modern conceptions, have expressed himself much as Professor Huxley does when, declaring that the circulation of the blood and the regular movements of the respiratory, alimentary, and other internal organs are simply 'affairs of mechanism, resulting from the structure and arrangement' of the bodily organs concerned, from 'the contractility of those organs, and from the regulation of that contractility by an automatically acting nervous apparatus;' that muscular contractility and the automatic activity or irritability of the nerves are 'purely the results of molecular mechanism;' and that 'the modes of motion which constitute the physical bases of light, sound, and heat are transmuted by the sensory organs into affections of nervous matter,' which affections become 'a kind of physical ideas constituting a physical memory,' and may be combined in a manner answering to association and imagination, or may give rise to muscular contractions in those reflex actions which are the mechanical representatives of volition.' Quite fairly may a doctrine, capable of being thus translated, be described as leading 'straight to materialism.' Quite justly may its author be claimed by Huxley as joint professor of a materialistic creed. True, Descartes lodges within his human mechanism a chose pensante or rational soul, whose principal seat is in the brain, and who is treated as corresponding to a hydraulic engineer stationed in the centre of waterworks for the purpose of increasing, slackening, or otherwise altering their movements. But this rational soul is a very needless appendage to either the Cartesian or the Huxleian system, wherein, if its post be not a literal sinecure, there is, at any rate, little or nothing for it to do which might not quite as well be done without it. The hydraulic engineer, sitting in his central office, has to wind up the whole machinery from time to time, and to turn now this tap, now that, when he wishes to set this or that particular machine in motion. But, as no one need be told, our chose pensante has nothing to do with the winding up of our digestive, circulatory, or respiratory apparatus; and so far from internally arranging those other internal organs from the mere arrangement of whose parts, according to Descartes, the reception, conversion, and retention of sensations, and the movements, whether internal or external, thereupon consequent, naturally proceed, or from regulating the molecular mechanism, whence, according to Professor Huxley, results the automatic nervous activity which, in his opinion, governs the movements of the limbs not less absolutely than those of the intestines, it, nine times out of ten, neither knows nor suspects that any such organs or mechanism exist. If the functions above attributed to the human frame could be shown really to belong to it, pure, not to say crass, materialism, would require no further proof. Those particular functions undoubtedly take place without the cognisance of that particular sensitive soul which we call ourself, so that if no other sensitive soul take cognisance of them, they must needs be, not simply automatic performances, but performances of an automaton of such marvellous powers as to be quite equal to the performance likewise of whatever human operations are vulgarly classed as mental. Assume, however illogically, that motion is a function of matter, and from that premiss, whether true or false, the conclusion that thought likewise is a function of matter may be quite logically deduced. 'That thought is as much a function of matter as motion is' must needs be conceded to Professor Huxley, who, therefore, if he could show that motion is really such a function, would be fully justified in adding, that 'the distinction between spirit and matter vanishes,' that 'we lose spirit in matter.'

Undeniably, then, of the Cartesian philosophy one moiety is, as Professor Huxley says, materialistic; but from the self-contradictions inseparable from every species of materialism the Cartesian variety is, of course, no more exempt than any other, and it has besides one self-contradiction peculiar to itself. A clock's pendulum vibrates, and its hands move, not simply by reason of the situation and figure of its weight and wheels, but also because some intelligent person, by winding up the clock, has communicated an impulsive force to the weight and wheels. Waterworks perform all sorts of antics, not solely because the pipes are skilfully constructed and arranged with a view to such end, but because also an intelligent engineer has turned running water into the pipes. But the only intelligent agent to whom Descartes allows access to his corporeal machinery is one who not only has no notion how to apply a moving force except to some few portions of the machinery, but with regard to the other portions has most likely no suspicion that they even exist. But how in the absence of some other intelligence, of some other 'vegetative or sensitive soul or principle of motion or of life,' is it possible for the inert and inanimate heart to generate animal spirits?—how is it possible for death thus to give birth to life?—or, if the generative faculty be supposed to be the necessary result of a particular molecular structure, how is it that when the animal spirits become from any cause extinct, they are not immediately regenerated by the same molecular structure? or rather, how is it possible for animal spirits to become extinct as long as the molecular structure of which they are necessary concomitants remains unaltered? In these questions the old insuperable difficulties reappear in new forms, but on these we need not dwell. Apart from anti-materialistic arguments of general applicability, there is a mode of refutation specially adapted to the Cartesian form of materialism, which, besides flatly contradicting itself, contradicts not less flatly a twin system of unimpeachable veracity. Truth cannot be opposed to truth:—a doctrine cannot be true, even though propounded by Descartes and Huxley, if it conflict irreconcileably with doctrines which Descartes and Huxley have unanswerably demonstrated. Now one-half of Cartesian philosophy shows conclusively that amidst the countless infinity of human notions, the one single and solitary certainty of independent and self-evident authority is the existence of thought, and nothing else whatever, therefore, can be entitled to be regarded as absolutely certain which cannot be shown to rest mediately or immediately upon this. One thing which can, by strictest logical process, be shown so to rest, is the existence of a thinking self; and another is the existence of a non-self or external universe; but of this external universe we know scarcely anything beyond the bare fact that it exists. We know that outside the thinking self there are potentialities capable of somehow or other communicating sensations to the thinking self; but of the nature of these potentialities our senses teach us absolutely nothing, and the few particulars that reason is able to discover, are, with one single though very momentous exception, to which we are rapidly approaching, purely negative. We do know to a certain extent what qualities of objects are not. We know that they are not and cannot be in the least like the sensations which we call by the same names. We know that what we call the whiteness and coldness of snow or the hardness and weight of marble, can no more resemble the feelings we receive from looking at or handling snow or marble than the mental exaltation produced within us on hearing one of Bach's fugues is like the organ on which, or the organist by whom, it is played. We know that of the pictures which our senses form for us not one can possibly be a correct likeness. We know that what we fancy we see in matter we do not see; that what we seem to feel we do not feel; that the apparent structure and composition of matter cannot therefore possibly be real. To this conviction we are irresistibly drawn by a chain of idealistic reasoning of which Descartes forged the first link, and every link of which will stand the severest strain. But if this be the teaching of an idealism occupying as its base the only morsel of solid ground to be found in the mental universe, what scrap of footing is there left for an antagonistic materialism purporting to rest on what we can see and feel of a structure and composition which, as we have just satisfied ourselves, we cannot see or feel at all?

As plainly then as one half of Descartes' philosophy is materialistic, so plainly, that half, instead of a necessary outgrowth and exact correlative of the other or idealistic moiety is, on the contrary, the latter's diametrical and implacable opponent. As plainly, therefore, as the one is true, must the other be false, and Cartesian idealism, in so far as its character has been exhibited above, has, I submit, been demonstrated to be true. The greater the pity that it was not brought to maturity by its author. In enumerating its first principles, Descartes, as I must once again observe, was forming a logical basis whereon a comprehensive and consistent conception of an external universe might forthwith have been securely deposited, had he not unluckily, instead of himself proceeding to build on his own foundations, with congruous materials, left them free for others to build upon with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble, as chance might determine. May I, without presumption, hazard a conjecture as to the sort of fabric that might have arisen, if he had steadily prosecuted his original design?

At the stage which we are supposing him to have reached, very little remained to complete the work. Around man, around every individual man, or other conscious intelligence, as its centre, is ranged infinitely extended space, filled with, or, as it were, composed of various kinds of matter, every kind and every separate portion of which is endowed with special qualities capable of communicating corresponding sensations to the central intelligence. So far all that can be predicated of any material object or portion of matter is that it is a collection of qualities; but from hence we may advance boldly to the further negative discovery that it is nothing else; that there is not and cannot be, in addition to those qualities, any substance in or to which the qualities inhere, or are in any way attached.

The absence from matter of any such substance is evidenced by the absurdity involved in the idea of its presence. Suppose the substance to exist: the qualities inherent in it must needs be as completely distinct from itself as pins are from a pincushion; the extension and solidity of an extended, solid substance can no more be identical with the substance than the nominative is identical with the genitive case. The substance, therefore, although deprived of all its qualities will still retain its essence unimpaired, will still be equally a substance, just as a pincushion continues equally a pincushion after its last pin has been abstracted. Conceive, then, all the qualities of matter to be abstracted, and consider what remains—a substance without qualities of any sort. But a substance neither solid, nor fluid, nor yet gaseous; neither coloured nor colourless; neither singular nor plural; without form and void, without even extension—what is it? not something, but nothing; a nonentity or non-existence. The qualities of matter in being removed from the substance have therefore left nothing behind, and, consequently, although carrying with them nothing but themselves, have yet carried with them all the constituents of matter, which is thus seen to be composed exclusively of qualities without a single particle of foreign admixture. And since, moreover, the qualities of matter are clearly not themselves substances, that is to say do not themselves stand under or uphold anything, it follows that their compound, matter, must likewise be purely unsubstantial.

The edifice begun by Descartes has now been raised high and strong enough to have its layer of negations crowned with an affirmation of pre-eminent importance. The qualities of matter, being known only by their effects, are evidently causes: and, being causes, must necessarily be either themselves forces, or, at the least, manifestations of force; and inasmuch as force involves exertion, it cannot be inert; and inasmuch as deadness must be incapable of exertion, all force must be alive; and life without substance cannot be conceived otherwise than as some species of spirit or mind. Such therefore must be matter. Matter can be nothing else than pure spirit of some kind.

And may we not with good reason congratulate ourselves on this result of our investigations? Instead of the vision we were threatened with, of mind losing itself in matter, our eyes are gladdened with that of the converse operation, of the transmutation of matter into mind. And on no account is this metamorphosis to be mistaken for annihilation of matter, whose stolid grossness has vanished, not in order to give place to empty nominalism or to a thin mist of mere mental perceptions existing only in virtue of being perceived, but in order to reappear gloriously etherealised into living energy. By the change that has taken place, corruption has put on incorruption; the natural body has become a quickening spirit; death is swallowed up in victory. Matter reappears converted, not into a perception of percipient mind, but into percipient mind itself; yet although thus presumably percipient of its own existence, it not the less has an existence perfectly independent of perception, either by itself or by any other intelligence.

Under what head the mind, or combination of living forces, thus constituting all matter, ought to be classed, is a question, which the imperfection of human faculties may as well be content to leave unanswered, though to its being supposed to emanate directly from the mind of Omnipresent Deity, one insuperable objection may be mentioned, which should be kept steadily in view. There are few of us who will not shrink with horror from a notion, according to which man, whenever doing as he pleases with any material object, applying it, as likely as not, to some base or criminal purpose, is disposing at his pleasure of a portion of the Divine essence: few who will not greatly prefer to believe that the vital principle which manifests itself in the form of a dunghill or of a poisoned dagger, may be, for the time, as completely individualised and separate from all other life or mind, as every human being perceives his own conscious mind or self to be. At all events, we have now reached a point beyond which it would be rash to rush hastily on. For a while we may be well content to rest where we are. That matter is nothing else but a peculiar manifestation, or avatar, of some species of mind, whatever that species be, is a proposition as demonstrably true as its converse is demonstrably false. Unless it be possible for death to give birth to life, it is impossible for living mind to be the offspring of inanimate matter; but so surely as mind is mind, and that living force alone can act either on mind or aught else, so surely must all matter that imparts sensation to mind, be itself a species of living force and consequently a species of mind.

An unexpected conclusion this, and widely different, I confess, from that to which I was myself looking forward at the outset of the discussion; yet, at the same time, one of which there is the best possible proof in the impossibility of conceiving its contrary. It is besides a conclusion to which not only ought Descartes in consistency to have come, but at which both Locke and Berkeley, though advancing from opposite points of the compass, did very nearly arrive; nay, which the latter did almost touch, and must apparently have grasped, had not his hands been already full of other things. It is, moreover, one from which I do not apprehend that Professor Huxley himself will seriously dissent. Indeed, I almost hope that he may object chiefly to its having been moved by me as an amendment on his original motion, and that he may be disposed to claim it for himself as a portion of genuine Huxleyism. If so, I shall readily recognise the claim so far as to admit that things very similar to many of those said by me above had already been said by Professor Huxley; though, in justice to myself, I must add that their complete opposites had likewise been said by him. But the office which I here proposed to myself was mainly that of an eclectic, who, going over a field which another husbandman has tilled, separates the wheat from the tares, and binds up the former into shapely and easily portable sheaves; and no more satisfactory assurance can be given of my having been usefully employed in such subordinate capacity than that Professor Huxley, who, amongst all his numerous admirers, has not one sincerer than myself, should welcome me as a coadjutor, instead of repelling me as an antagonist.