Part 26
Electricity, by the way, is properly merely a form of energy, and not a fluid. As for the ether which speculative science supposes to exist, I don’t know anything about it. Nobody has discovered anything of the kind. In order to make their theories hold together they have, it seems to me, created the ether. But the ether imagined by them is unthinkable to me. I don’t say I disagree with them, because I don’t pretend to have any theories of that kind, and am not competent to dispute with speculative scientists. All I can say is, my mind is unable to accept the theory. The ether, they say, is as rigid as steel and as soft as butter. I can’t catch on to that idea.
I believe that there are only two things in the universe—matter and energy. Matter I can understand to be intelligent, for man himself I regard as so much matter. Energy I know can take various forms, and manifest itself in various ways. I can understand also that it works not only upon, but through, matter. What this matter is, what this energy is, I do not know.
However, it is possible that it is simply matter and energy, and that any desire to know too much about the whole question should be diagnosed as a disease; such a disease as German doctors are said to have discovered among the students of their universities—the disease of asking questions.
THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE.
Mr. Thomas A. Edison’s article is full of suggestions which invite further discussion. We must here limit ourselves solely to those which touch the problem of Panpsychism and Panbiotism.
Any one who has read Mr. Edison’s article will be struck with the strange coincidence that obtains between his and Professor Haeckel’s views. The famous naturalist considers what he calls panpsychism as the corner-stone of his monism: he says that atoms possess souls; and in a similar way the famous inventor believes in the intelligence of atoms, he declares that atoms are endowed with minds. There is certainly a deep truth in this conception of nature; and yet we cannot accept it in the way it is presented by either Professor Haeckel or Mr. Edison.
With reference to Professor Haeckel’s views we have explained why atoms, the actions of which are not endowed with meaning, have no soul, and also why they cannot feel pleasure and pain. It remains for us to explain why atoms are not in possession of intelligence.
What is intelligence?
That reaction upon a stimulus which takes place in the way it does because of the presence of meaning, is called mental, or intelligent action; and the ability to adjust action to mental representations is intelligence.
Intelligence is a psychical quality, and the psychical process which is preparing to act with intelligence is called deliberation. Deliberation is the successive revival of several soul-structures, either of memories of former experiences, or of rules derived therefrom, or of advice formerly received, including also new combinations of these mental structures, and keeping in view the probable results of the intended action. In a word, deliberation is thought, and thought is an interaction among meaning-freighted feelings.
Among these ideas, which in so far as they can influence action (i. e. purposive motions) are called “motives,” the strongest one will determine the result. Now, any atom of non-organised matter, say an atom of hydrogen, acts (as we said above) with spontaneity. It is in this sense as much alive as is any ever so complex vegetable or animal substance. It is self-acting, and its action reveals the innermost nature of its being just as much as the action of the man shows the character of the man.
There is, however, a great difference between the action of animal beings whose action is regulated by the meanings of their feelings, which in their totality we call the soul, and the actions of inorganic matter, of crystals, minerals, gases, chemical elements, and gravitating masses, all of which we comprise under the name “inanimate nature.” The stone’s fall does not depend upon any representative feeling; it depends solely upon that quality of the stone which we popularly call its weight. Nor has the falling stone any choice whether to fall or not to fall. Under certain circumstances it falls. There is no act of deliberation preceding the fall. Nor has it any choice concerning the direction of its fall. The surrounding conditions, viz., its position with regard to the centre of the earth together with its mass, determine the process. The stone’s action can satisfactorily be explained without attributing to it psychical qualities. The stone possesses no soul; it is void of mentality; and although we believe that everything, organised or unorganised, is endowed with subjectivity (by which we understand the conditions of psychical life, or the potentiality of feeling and consciousness), this subjectivity can only be analogous to the blind impulse of the stone’s mass. If some other, psychical or mental, subjectivity were present, we should say that it apparently does not enter as a factor in the determination of the event. Accordingly such an assumption is gratuitous. There is subjectivity, but there is no intelligence. There is potentiality of feeling, but there is no consciousness. There is present the elementary condition of that something which is going to develop into mind, but there is no mind; there is no meaning-freighted awareness of the surrounding conditions.
Says Mr. Edison:
“The intelligence of man is, I take it, the sum of the intelligences of the atoms of which he is composed.”
The sum total of the intelligences of the atoms in a human body (if, in this connection, for the sake of argument, we grant that atoms are intelligent) would not as yet make up the intelligence of man. Suppose we are contemplating a mosaic picture or inscription. Are such compositions really only the sum of the little stones? Are they not rather a certain peculiar form in which these colored stones are arranged? It is not the sum of the stones that makes the picture, but the form of their composition. The picture is not contained in any single one of them, nor is it the whole number of all the single stones: it originates through their peculiar combination and consists of the form in which they are combined.
Mr. Edison’s explanation of the soul, applied to this example of a mosaic picture, would be as follows: Every little stone is in itself a little mosaic picture. The whole picture of the mosaic is the sum of the little pictures of the stones of which it is composed.
The intelligence of the soul, however, is not even as yet the form in which feeling structures combine; it originates with the representative faculty of the feeling structures. The soul is the organised totality of a set of images and abstract mental symbols representing the qualities, the influences, and the interactions of the different objects of the surrounding world, the thinking subject included.
Says Mr. Edison:
“Every atom has an intelligent power of selection, and is always striving to get into harmonious relation with other atoms.”
The latter is true; the former is an error. Every atom “is always striving to get into harmonious relation with other atoms”; this is its nature; and its nature being stable, consisting of certain inalienable and intrinsic qualities, the atom acts with consistency. Certain atoms, say atoms of hydrogen, are of such a nature as to combine with certain other atoms, say atoms of oxygen, into molecules that form a certain substance of peculiar properties, which, if each atom of oxygen combines with two atoms of hydrogen, would be _H₂O_, or water. This substance again, having certain definite qualities, will in a temperature below freezing point crystallise at a definite angle. The angle of crystallisation being the same for all molecules _H₂O_, the result will necessarily be one of most marvellous regularity. And not being able to observe the atoms in their secret activity, not knowing all the details of nature’s marvellous laboratory, we are astonished to find such a wonderfully harmonious relation. And yet, considering the nature of things, we are urged to confess that it is the result of an inevitable necessity, which takes place according to strict mathematical laws.
Although every atom strives, according to its nature, to get into harmonious relation with other atoms, we do not see any “intelligent power of selection” in the province of inorganic nature. Every atom of inorganic substances acts according to its nature in one and the same way throughout. There is no choice, no selection, allowed. Choice and selection are faculties that are reserved for the higher domains of psychical life, which originates in the domain of animal existence when meaning, conditioned by the presence of sentiency, rises into being and creates the soul.
Supposing that through some combination of atoms their subjectivity be combined in such a form as to produce sentiency or feeling, we can very easily understand how this feeling will in time become representative of the conditions by which it is affected. The soul does not consist of the atoms of its organism, nor of the sum of the qualities of the atoms. The soul consists of something more subtle than matter: the soul consists of the meaning that is attached to the different forms of the feelings which obtain in living organisms.
THE PROBLEM OF THEISM.
The problem as to whether or not there is an element of feeling present in the unorganised realm of nature, is connected also with the problem of theism. The monistic view of the world, which considers nature as alive throughout, can neither accept the old supernaturalism, nor the materialistic theory of atheism. Theism, as it is usually conceived, believes in a personal creator and ruler of the world. Materialism denies the existence of any God; it regards matter and its actions as the only reality.
Monism does not regard mental phenomena as an incidental by-play of blindly operating forces. It regards mind as a necessary product of reality. Mind and the peculiar qualities of mind are characteristic of the world-tree, of which it is the highest efflorescence we know. From the fruit we can know the root, from the product we can judge of the factors, in the creature we see the creator.
That great something which has produced us, the All-power in which we live and move and have our being, and obedience to the laws of which are the conditions of life, of welfare, and of an advance to higher life, is called with a popular religious name “God.”
Let us comprise under the name “theism” all those views which recognise any conception of God, and reserve the term anthropotheism for that view which regards God as a person, a mind, a conscious being, or a world-ego. Atheism in that case will be a negation of the existence of God in any form, a negation of the All-power of which we are parts and to which we have to conform; and accordingly atheism will be also a negation of any authority of moral conduct.
We call attention to the fact that many who call themselves atheists, simply because they do not believe in anthropotheism, are according to this definition not to be classed among the atheists.
What has monism to say, on the problem of the existence of God?
Prof. George J. Romanes, in an article which appeared some time ago in the _Contemporary Review_ under the title “The World as an Eject,” declares that monism has left the problem of theism in the same state it was in before. He says:
“The views of the late Professor Clifford concerning the influence of monism on theism, are unsound. I am in full agreement with him in believing that monism is destined to become the generally accepted theory of things, seeing that it is the only theory of things which can receive the sanction of science on the one hand, and of feeling on the other. But I disagree with him in holding that this theory is fraught with implications of an anti-theistic kind. In my opinion, _this theory leaves the question of theism very much where it was before_.[44] That is to say, while not furnishing any independent proof of theism, it likewise fails to furnish any independent disproof.
“As a matter of methodical reasoning it appears to me that monism alone can only lead to agnosticism. That is to say, it leaves a clear field of choice as between theism and atheism.”[45]
Clifford says in the passage referred to by Professor Romanes:
“Reason, intelligence, and volition are properties of a complex which is made up of elements themselves not rational, not intelligent, not conscious.”
Rational, intelligent, conscious beings, so far as their material existence is concerned, are made up of elements not rational, not intelligent, not conscious. But mind, reason, intelligence are not at all made up of material elements; they are neither latent nor germinal and least of all fully developed properties of the single atoms. Reason can in our conception never be explained as a complex result of the interaction of absolutely irrational elements. The material elements of the world, it is true, are not intelligent, not conscious; but the world as a whole (although _not_ conscious and _not_ endowed with purposive volition) is at least _not ir_rational and not void of determination. On the contrary the world as a whole is the prototype of all rationality, and human reason is a mere image of the world-order. What is the reason of a rational being but an incarnation of this world-order?
Reason is not a thing of matter; exactly so the world-order is not a thing of matter. But it exists none the less; it is a reality. On the other hand, the world-order need neither be a personal being nor the work of a personal being. The order that prevails in the real world and in the laws of nature appears also in the ideal world, in the laws of formal thought, in mathematics, and its kindred sciences; and the same rationality that obtains in the ideal domain permeates the realms of reality, the universe of objective existence.
The idea that God created the world-order and dictated its laws is a fanciful and poetical allegory; it is as such a pagan notion which belongs in the same category with Hesiod’s Cosmology, but it is scientifically and philosophically unthinkable. For God is eternal and God’s being is eternal. God has not created his own attributes and the world-order is simply an attribute of God; it is part and parcel of his nature. Or can you think of God without that attribute of irrefragable order that appears to science as necessity, to religion as holiness, to ethics as justice, to art as the law of beauty, to the mystic as the key to all the wonders of existence which though solving all the problems remains most wonderful itself?
The world as a whole, the cosmos, God, or whatever we call the One and All, is the prototype of all reason, but he is not a mind; he is not a system of sentient symbols; he is not a soul. Minds are a special kind of God’s creatures; but God is not a creature: he is the condition of the existence of creatures, he is the creator.
The objection is made from materialistic quarters: “What is the world as a whole but the sum of all atoms!” This is an error. The world is not merely the sum of all its atoms; the universe does not consist of innumerable little particles which in their combination form the All. On the contrary: the world as a whole, existence in its oneness, or speaking religiously God, is alone the only true reality; all other things and beings are parts of him. Atoms are abstract concepts; the existence of an atom and of its actions presupposes the existence of the great whole of which it is a part, and without which it would have no reality. There are no atoms in themselves. Atoms regarded as things in themselves are a scientific superstition.
Professor Romanes advances the proposition, that cosmical events, being as highly complex as nervous phenomena, might be possessed of a similar subjectivity. The nervous phenomena which constitute the physiological action of mind in the province of objectivity are, it is true, very complex, but complexity does not constitute that characteristic feature on the presence of which depends the origin of mind.
Professor Romanes says:
“Both mind and matter in motion admit of degrees: first as to quantity, next as to velocity, and lastly as to _complexity_. But the degrees of matter in motion are found, in point of observable fact, not to correspond with those of mind, save in the last particular of complexity, where there is unquestionably an evident correspondence.
“Now, if we fix our attention merely on this subject-matter of complexity, and refuse to be led astray by obviously false analogies of a more special kind, I think that there can be no question that the macrocosm does furnish amply sufficient opportunity, as it were, for the presence of subjectivity, even if it be assumed that subjectivity can only be yielded by an order of complexity analogous to that of a nervous system. For, considering the natural and dynamical system of the universe as a whole, it is obvious that the complexity presented is greater than any of its parts. Not only is it true that all these parts are included in the whole, and that even the visible sidereal system alone presents movements of enormous intricacy, but we find, for instance, that even within the limits of this small planet there is presented to actual observation a peculiar form of circumscribed complex, fully comparable to that of the individual brain, and yet external to each individual brain. For the so-called ‘social organism,’ although composed of innumerable individual personalities, is, with regard to each of its constituent units, a part of the objective world—just as the human brain would be, were each of its constituent cells of a construction sufficiently complex to yield a separate personality.”
The so-called social organism which is composed of innumerable personalities undoubtedly yields a peculiar spiritual existence, which cannot be explained solely as the sum of the parts and actions of its constituent individuals. The relations in which the members of society stand to each other are of an analogous importance to the relations of the cells and organs in an organism. It is the form that constitutes this or that kind of an organism, not the sum of atoms, nor the intricacy or complexity of their combinations. Different forms of perhaps the same material amount, and of the same intricacy of combination, yield quite distinct types of individuality, and every state, every nation, every society possesses, as it were a personality of its own.
Mind is not constituted by complexity. Mind is a system of sentient symbols. Wherever we find organisms acting in such a way that their actions depend upon the _meanings_ of certain stimuli, we have to attribute to them that characteristic feature which we call mind, or soul. The action of a falling stone is explainable without attributing to it any mentality. There is no representative value, no meaning in that quality of the stone which, under certain conditions, makes the stone fall. However, if a man acts, the motive of his action does not consist in the gravity of certain material particles of his brain. It consists in the meaning that resides in certain feelings. Without taking into consideration the meaning that dominates the man’s motives, we cannot explain his action, and it is the meaning of feelings that the soul consists of. Only where and when we can discern the presence of meaning as the raison d’être of actions, are we justified in calling phenomena mental. When the action that takes place in response to a stimulus depends solely upon the significance of a symbol, the inference is legitimate, nay, it is inevitable and conclusive, that we have to deal with a mind. The motion of a comet, which depends perhaps not only upon the gravity of its mass, but also upon the chemical actions and explosions of its constituent elements during its approach to the sun, may be ever so intricate; but this does not in the least justify the assumption of the presence of mind in the comet.
The assumption of mind in inorganic nature is not only fantastical, it is also needless. Facts are better explained without this speculation.
The world as a whole is not bare of subjectivity. In this we agree with both Clifford and Romanes. But we do not identify subjectivity and mind, the latter being a special and indeed a very complex form of subjectivity. We suppose that subjectivity pervades also all the processes of unorganised nature, and no less the cosmic events; but be they ever so much more complex than nervous phenomena, there is present only a non-mental subjectivity.
Yet although the phenomena of so-called inanimate nature, be they motions of celestial bodies or physical and chemical processes, are non-mental, there is in every one of them present that grand feature which is as it were the breath of God. This feature appears in all the phenomena of nature, but in none of them more gloriously than in the soul of man. Even the cosmical events of marvellous sublimity appear as a mere prelude to the appearance of soul-life, for in soul-life is focused all the divinity of nature. Reason is the reflex of the world-order and thus a rational being is made in the likeness of God.
Professor Romanes presents the problem of the subjectivity of existence by the adjoined diagram, which he explains as follows:
“Following Clifford, I will call these inferred subjectivities by the name of ‘ejects,’ and assign to them the symbol _Y_. Thus in the following discussion _X_ = the objective world, _Y_, the ejective world, and _Z_, the subjective world. Now, the theory of monism supposes that _X_, _Y_ and _Z_ are all alike in kind, but presents no definite teaching as to how far they may differ in degree. We may, however, at once allow that between the psychological value of _Z_ and that of _X_, there is a wide difference of degree, and also that while the value of _Z_ is a fixed quantity, that of _Y_ varies greatly in the different parts of the area _Y_.”