496 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS. f I tween the organism and its environment; they must all be j different sides of, or different phases of,, the co-ordinated t groups of changes whereby internal relations are adjusted to ^ external relations. Between the reception of certain impres- f sions and the performance of certain appropriate motions, J there is some inner connexion. If the inner connexion is •, 1" organized, the action is of the reflex order, either simple or; f compound; and none of the phenomena "of consciousness |j proper, exist. If the inner connexion is not organized, then f the psychical changes which come between the impressions f and motions are conscious ones: the entire action must I have all the essential elements of a conscious action — must simultaneously exhibit Memory, Reason, Feeling, and Will; for there can be no conscious adjustment of an inner to an outer relation without all these being involved* Let us consider the matter more nearly.
§ 218. When the automatic actions become so involved, so varied in kind, and severally so infrequent, as no longer to be performed with unhesitating precision — when, after -the reception of one of the more complex impressions, the appropriate motor changes become nascent, but are prevented from passing into immediate action by the antagonism of certain other nascent motor changes appropriate to some nearly allied impression; there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it finally issues in action, displays what we term volition. Each set of nascent motor changes arising in the course of this conflict, is a weak revival of the state of consciousness which accompanies such motor changes when actually performed — is a representation of such motor changes as were before executed under like circumstances — is an idea of such motor changes. We have*, therefore, a conflict between two sets of ideal motor changes which severally tend to become real, and one of which eventually does become real; and this passing of an ideal motor change into a real one, we distinguish as Will. In a voluntary act of the simplest kind, we can_find nothing beyond a.mental representation of tlie act followed by a performance of it — a rising of that incipient psychical change which constitutes at once the tendency to act and the idea of the act, into the complete psychical change which constitutes the performance of the act, in so.. fir as it is mental. Between an involuntary movement of the leg and a voluntary one, the difference is that whereas the involuntary one occurs without previous consciousness of the movement to be made, the voluntary one occurs only after it has been represented in consciousness; and as the representation of it is nothing else than a weak form of the psychical state accompanying the movement,, it is nothing else than a nascent excitation of the nerves concerned, preceding their actual excitation. Involuntary movement implies that the psychical states accompanying the impression and the action, are so coherent that the one follows the other instantly; while voluntary movement implies that they are so imperfectly coherent, that the psychical state. accompanying the action does not follow instantly — is par-; tially aroused before it is fully aroused; and so occupies consciousness for an appreciable time. Thus the cessation of automatic action and the dawn of volition are one and the same thing.
It is quite true that as we advance from the earliest and simplest manifestations of Will to its later and more involved manifestations, the composite state of consciousness by which any act is preceded includes much beyond the nascent motor changes, and even much beyond the ideal - sensory impressions which the act will immediately render real ones. It further includes an extensive aggregate of ideal sensory impressions such as have before been more or less remotely realized by the act; and which constitute representations of the various consequences of the act. Even when Will is but incipient, there must be some accompaniment of this kind. Along with any two con- % flic-ting sets of motor changes produced by an indistinctly cognized impression, there will become nascent the several pleasurable or painful psychical states which have in experience been respectively connected with such motor changes.
These are partially integrated with the other psychical states,, actual and nascent, which the impression immediately or mediately excites; and by increasing the group of psychical states which cohere with the appropriate motor changes, they add to the tendency which those motor changes have to take place. By that ever-progressing fusion of psychical states described in the last chapter, these ideal sensory impressions representing distant consequences, come to form the greater part of the composite psychical state which precedes the act — constitute the mass of what we call the desire to perform the act; and thus obscure that original relation between sensations and motions which is their nucleus. But the general nature of the process remains the same. Feelings, immediately derived from the senses or mediately suggested by such, make nascent certain appropriate motor changes, and the ideal feelings connected with such changes; these, again, make nascent other changes and other ideal feelings; and so on to many degrees of remoteness: producing a complicated group of imagined actions and consequences. All of these having, directly or indirectly, connexions in experience with the motor changes, or with antagonist motor changes, tend to produce or to prevent the action. An immense number of psychical states are partially aroused, some of which unite with the original impression in exciting the action, while the rest combine as exciters of an opposite action • and when eventually, from their greater number or intensity, the first outbalance the others, the interpretation is ihat, as an accumulated stimulus, they become sufficiently strong to make the nascent motor changes pass into actual motor changes.
1 That Will conies into existence through the increasing f complexity and imperfect coh.eren.ce of automatic actions, is clearly implied "by the converse fact, that when actions which were once incoherent and voluntary are very frequently repeated, they become coherent and involuntary. Just as any set of psychical changes originally displaying Memory, Reason, and Feeling, cease to be conscious, ra tional, and emotional, as fast as by repetition they grove closely organized: so do they at the same time pass beyond the sphere of volition. Memory, Reason, Feeling, and Will,} simultaneously disappear in proportion as psychical changes \ become automatic. Thus, the child learning- to walk, wills each movement before making it; but the adult, when setting out anywhere, does not think of his legs but of his destination, and his successive steps are made with no more volition than his successive inspirations. Every one of those vocal imitations made by the child in acquiring its mother tongue, or by the man in learning a new language, is voluntarily made; but after years of practice, conversation is carried on without thought of the muscular adjustments required to produce each articulation: the motions of the larynx and mouth respond automatically to the trains of ideas. Similarly with writing, and all other familiar processes. Not only is this so with actions daily occurring in the lives of all, but it is so with special habits. From time to time curious results hence arise; as in the case of the old soldier who let fall the pie he was carrying home for his Sunday' s dinner, when the word " attention " was shouted behind him. The same general truth is recognized in the common remark, made of any one who has long persisted in some evil practice, that " he has lost power over himself " — " can no longer control himself:" that is to say, by frequent repetition certain psychical changes have more or less passed from the voluntary into the automatic.* * Dr. Hughlings Jackson narrates of an animal an action analogous to I that of the old soldier. "Some years ago," he says, " I was on an omnibtis,| ,'500 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
§ 219. Long before reacliing this point,, most readers must have perceived that tlie doctrines developed in the last two parts of this work are at variance with the current tenets respecting the freedom of the."WjlL That every one is at liberty to do what he desires to do (supposing there are no external hindrances), all admit; though people of confused ideas commonly suppose this to be the thing denied. But that every one is at liberty to desire or not to desire, which is the real proposition involved in the dogma of free will, is negatived as much by the analysis of consciousness as by the contents of the preceding chapters. From the universal law that, other things equal, the cohesion of psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have followed one another in experience, it is an inevitable corollary that all actions whatever must be determined by those psychical connexions which experience has_ generated — either in the life of the individual, or in that general antecedent life of which the accumulated results are organized in his constitution.
To go at length into this long-standing controversy respecting the Will, would be alike useless and out of place. I can but briefly indicate what seems to me the nature of the current illusion, as interpreted from the point of view fit which we have arrived. We will look at it first subjectively and then objectively.
Considered as an internal perception, the illusion results from supposing that at each moment the ego, present as such in consciousness (I exclude the implied, but unknown, substratum which can never be present), is and we were kept some time, as one of tlie horses would not start. Various plans were tried to overcome its stupidity, but without success. At last the Driver directed the conductor to shut the door violently (this is a usual signal for starting). To my great surprise the horse went on at once." Lond. Hosp. Reports. Vol. L, 186 i, p. 45 i. Here the once voluntary act of starting after hearing the sound, had become so automatic that an antagonist volition could not prevent it.
something more tlian the aggregate of feelings and ideas which then exists. When, after a certain composite mass of emotion and thought has arisen in him, a man performs an action,, he commonly asserts that he determined to perform the action; and by speaking as though there were a mental self, present to his conscioutiness, yet nou included in this composite mass of emotion and thought, he is led into the error of supposing that it was not this composite mass of emotion and thought which determined the action. But while it is true that he determined tho action, it is also true that the aggregate of his feelings and ideas determined it; since, during its existence., this aggregate constituted his entire consciousness — that is, constituted his mental self. Either the ego which: is supposed to determine or will the action, is present in ' consciousness or it is not. If it is not present in consciousness, it is something of which we are unconscious — something, therefore, of whose existence we neither have nor can have any evidence. If it is present in consciousness, then, as it is ever present, it can be at each moment nothing else than the total consciousness, simple or compound, passing at that moment. It follows, inevitably, thu,j when an impression received from without, makes nascent certain appropriate motor changes, and various o£ the feelings and ideas which must accompany and succeed them; and when, under the stimulus of this composite psychical state, the nascent motor changes pass into actual motor changes; this composite psychical state which excites the action, is at the same time the ego which is said to will the_action. Naturally enough, then, the subject of such psychical changes says that he wills the action; since, psychically considered, he is at that moment nothing more tEan^Tilie composite state of consciousness by which the action is excited. But to say that the performance <rf the action is, therefore, the result of his free will, is to say that he determines the cohesions of the psychical states which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute himself at that moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine their own cohesions, which is absurd. Their., cohesions have been determined by experiences— the greater part of them, constituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent organisms; and" the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at each moment take place in his consciousness, and among others those which he is said to will, are produced by this infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses: the effects of these combined factors being in every case qualified by the physical state, general or local, of his organism.
This subjective illusion in which the notion of free will commonly originates, is strengthened by a corresponding objective illusion. The actions of pther individuals, lacking;as they do that uniformity characterizing phenomena of Hvhich the laws are known, appear to be lawless — appear to be under no necessity of following any particular order; and are hence supposed to be determined by the unknown independent something called the Will. But this seeming indeterminateness in the mental succession is consequent on the extreme complication of the forces in action. The composition of causes is so intricate, and from moment to moment so varied, that the effects are not calculable.
These effects are, however, as conformable to law as the simplest reflex, actions. The irregularity and apparent freedom _ are _ineyitable results "of the complexity; and equally arise in the inorganic world under parallel conditions. To amplify an illustration before used: — A body in space, subject to the attraction of a single other body, move* in a direction that can be accurately predicted. If subject to the attractions of two bodies, its course is but approximately calculable. If subject to the attractions of three bodies,, its course can be calculated with still less precision. And if on all sides of it there are multitudinous "bodies of various sizes at various distances,, as in the middle of one of the great star-clusters, its motion -will appear uninfluenced by any of them: it will move in some indefinable way that looks self-determined: it will seem to be free. Similarly, in proportion as the cohesions of each psychical | state to others, become great in number and various in degree, the psychical changes will become incalculable and. apparently subject to no law.
§ 220. To meet objections that have been raised, let me add here some explanations.
If we spoke of Henry VIII. as defying the Pope, and then said that the English King also defied the Pope, there would be a manifest mistaking of words for tilings. The kingly power we know to be nothing bat the permanent name for the power of a person, who i« now of one nature and now of another. But in the case of mental government, this confusion between words and things is almost universal. The permanent name for the holder of power, is supposed to imply an entity additional to that implied by the name of the temporary holder of power. We speak of Will as something apart/; from the feeling or feelings which, for the moment, prevail'1' over others; whereas it is nothing but the general name' given to the special feeling that gains supremacy and*: determines action. Take away all sensations and emotions, \j and there jpemains.no.."Will. Excite some of these, and' Will, becoming possible, becomes actual only when one of them, or a group of them, gains predominance. Until there is a tnotwQ (mark the word) there is no ^Will. That is to say, WHT'is no more an existence separate from the predominant feeling, than a king is an existence separate from the man occupying the throne.
That the ego is something more than the passing group \ of feelings and ideas, is true or untrue according to the \ degree of comprehension we give to the word. It is true if we include the body, and its functions; but it is untrue if we include only what is given in consciousness.
Physically considered, the ego is the entire organism, including its nervous system; and the nature of this ecjo is pre-determined: the infant had no more to do with the structure of its brain than with the colour of its eyes. Further,, the ego considered physically,, includes all the functions carried on by these structures, when supplied with the requisite materials. These functions have for their net result to liberate from the food, &c., certain latent 'forces. And that distribution of these forces shown by the activities of the organism, is from moment to moment caused partly by the existing arrangement of its parts and partly by the environing conditions.
? The physical structures thus pervaded by the forces thus : obtained, constitute that substantial ego which lies behind ; and determines those ever-changing states of consciousness we call Mind. And while this substantial ego, unknowable in ultimate nature, is phenomenally known to us under its statical form, as the organism, it is phenomenally known under its dynamical form as the energy diffusing itself through the organism, and, among other parts, through the nervous system. Given the external stimuli, and the nervous changes with their correlative mental states, * depend partly on the nervous structures and partly on the • amount of this diffused energy: each of which factors is [determined by causes not in consciousness but beneath consciousness. The aggregate of feelings and ideas constituting the mental I, have not in themselves the principle of cohesion holding them together as a whole; but the I which continuously survives as the subject.of these changing; states, is that portion of the Unknowable Power which is Statically conditioned in special nervous structures pervaded by a dynamically -conditioned portion, of the JJn-I tnowable Power called energy. (Compare with § 469.)
NOTE TO PABT IV- IN his Principles of Mental Physiology, Dr. Carpenter, referring to the doctrine of mental evolution as caused by the inherited effects of experiences, developed in the foregoing chapters, says: — " But it had been distinctly foreshadowed as regards the Instincts of animals (which are only lower forms of Man's intellectual Intuitions) by Sir John Sebright, Mr. T. A. Knight, and M. lionlin j of \vbose observations a summary has been given by the Writer in the Contemporary Review,, January, 1873H * * * And in the Fourth and Fifth Editions of his * Human Physiology,! published respectively in 1852 and 1S55, the Writer had distinctly expressed; his belief that the Cerebrum of Man grows to the modes of thought in which it is habitually exercised; and that such modifications in its structure are transmissible hereditarily. * * * He here refers to this fact, merely to show that the general doctrine above enunciated * * * is much older than Mr. Herbert Spencer."
Communications to which the above passage led, disclosed the fact that Dr. Carpenter had not read this work; but had, as I understood, purposely refrained from doing so. I pointed out to him the difference between the proposition that transmitted mental modifications produce varieties of mental faculty within the limits of a species; and the proposition that Mind, in all its faculties, is produced by transmissions of such modifications through all the successions of species during the evolution of life upon the Earth. After obtaining from Dr. Carpenter the admission that this latter proposition had not even been entertained (much less elaborated into a system) by those he names, I concluded that he would, in his next edition, alter the above statement. He has not done this, however; and therefore, somewhat reluctantly, I must myself point out the grave misrepresentations it embodies.
Manifestly no one can entertain the belief that the psychical* powers of all creatures have arisen by evolution, without tacitly or avowedly committing himself to the belief that their physical structures have arisen by evolution. Dr. Carpenter is fully aware that* in 1855, when the first edition of this work was published, the " development-hypothesis," as it was then commonly called, was repudiated by men of science, as well as by the world at^Iarge; and further, that any one who held it exposed himself to the ridicule of the scientific. He does not allege that those he names believed it; much less gave a public adhesion to it. Yet now, in the above passage, he asserts that he and others had enunciated in a genera] NOTE TO PART IV.
way, the doctrine elaborated in this work: they avowed a conclusion the necessary premises of which they did not admit!
Either Dr. Carpenter is still In the' position of not having read this work, or lie lias read it since the time above referred to. If he has Dot read it. then it is strange that he should undertake to correct the impressions of;i younger readers," concerning the relation between its views and the views previously held (see Contemporary Revieic, for February, 1875). If he has read it, then it is even more strange that he should persist in the above state* rneoc. In the first place, he must have become aware that the facts and inferences named by him, as current before this work was written, are referred to in this work as familiar — are taken • as established (§ ISO, in edition of 1855); not propounded as new.
In the second place, he must have seen that these facts and inferences are used as part of my data — that my reasonings begin where the reasonings he names leave off. And yet having seen this, he identifies the theory that mental modifications within the limits of a species are producible by inherited effects of experiences, with the theory that the genesis of all mental faculties, down to forms of thought, have been thus produced. He alleges previous currency of the " general doctrine." It seems to me that his ideas of general and special are no less remarkable than his idea of identity. The proposition that such changes of dog-nature as a pointer's habits show, arise by inherited mental modifications, would commonly be thought a special proposition; while the proposition ihat by inherited..modifications., there has been an evoliiiTon_p^ from reflex action up_to abstract reason aod jii oral sentiment, would commonly be thought a general proposition. But Dr.'~Carpenter thinks the contrary. Doubtless, in*pulrsuance of the same view, he regards the doctrine that pigeons and other domestic animals may have their structures modified by selection, as a "general" one /and the doctrine of Mr. Darwin, that all structures of all animals are caused by natural selection, as a special one. For the two cases are perfectly similar. Between the idea that structural changes are producible within the limits of a species by selection, and the idea that all organization is thus producible, there is a relation exactly parallel to the relation between the idea that the instincts of a species may be changed by inherited effects of experiences, and the idea that all mental organization is producible by the inherited effects of experiences.
Hence, we may expect that when next Dr. Carpenter refers to the hypothesis of " natural selection," he will point out thac it had been distinctly foreshadowed by Sir John Sebright, Mr. Youatt, and others; and after quoting passages from their writings, will remarkthat he does so u merely to show that l\& general doctrine " " is macb older than " Mr. Darwin.
PART Y.
CHAPTER L A FURTHER INTERPRETATION NEEDED.
§ 221. We are now prepared for dealing with, the remaining problem presented by objective Psychology. Though not conspicuous,, the hiatus between the interpretation we have reached and a complete interpretation,, is a deep one; and one which, when first) looked into, appears impassable. For there has still to be answered the inquiry — how is mental evqlution to be affiliated on Evolution at large, regarded as a process of physical transformation? It is not enough that in the preceding General Synthesis the phenomena of psychical life have been traced up through their objective manifestations, and, along with the phenomena of physical life, have been found to progress in integration, in heterogeneity, in definiteness. It is not enough that, in the Special Synthesis just closed, intelligence has been shown to have the same nature and the same law from the lowest reflex action up to the most transcendent triumph of reason; and that, from first to last, its growth is due to the repetition of experiences, the effects of which are accumulated, organized, and inherited. It may yet be asked — By what process; is the organization of experiences achieved? Granting that/ a survey of the facts proves it to take place; still, no an-" swers are given to the questions — Why, does it take pla^e?\ And how does the transformation 'which brings it about*' come^nthin the formula of Evolution in general?
£03 PHYSICAL SYNTHESIS.
Specifically stated, the problem is to interpret mental evolution in terms of the re-distribution of Matter and Motion. Though under its subjective aspect, Mind is known only as an aggregate of states of consciousness, which cannot be conceived as forms of Matter and AJotion, and do not therefore necessarily conform to the same laws of re-distribution; yet under its objective aspect, Mind is known as an aggregate of activities manifested by an organism— is the correlative, therefore, of certain material transformations, which must come within the general process of material evolution, if that process is truly universal. Though the development of Mind itself, cannot be explained by a series of deductions from the Persistence of Force, yet it remains possible that its obverse, the development of physical changes in a physical organ, may be so explained; and until it is so explained, the conception of mental evolution as a part of Evolution in general, remains incomplete.
§ 222. Here, then, the structure and functions of tho nervous system, considered as resulting from intercourse between the organism and its environment, form our subject-matter. We have to identify the physical process by which an external relation that habitually affects an organism, produces in the organism an adjusted internal relation.
Of course, it is not to be expected that specific interpretations can be given of the particular structures performing particular functions which fit an animal to its particular conditions of existence. All we can hope is to assign a general cause, which, acting under conditions such as are known to exist, is capable of producing effects like those observed. Let us present in its simplest and most definite form the question which alone admits of an answer.
We have seen the law of intelligence to be, that the strength of the tendency which the antecedent of any psy- A FURTHER INTERPRETATION NEEDED. 509 chical change has to be followed by its consequent, is proportionate to the persistence of the union between the external things they symbolize. We have seen that the fulfilment of this law is accounted for if, by inheritance through successive organisms, intelligence grows, as it does in the individual organism, in consequence of the fact that, when any two psychical states occur in immediate succession, such an effect is produced that when the first recurs, there is a tendency for the second to follow it. And now, to complete the solution, we have to ascertain the universal principle to which this tendency is due. In other words, regarding psychical changes as the subjective faces of what on their objective faces are nervous actions, the inquiry before us is — • from what general law of the re-distribution of Matter and Motion does it result, that when a wave of molecular transformation passes through a nervous structure, there is wrought in ibe structure a modification such that, other things equal, a subsequent like wave passes through this structure with greater facility than its predecessor? And — not to evade a still deeper question which immediately follows — is the establishment of nervous communication itself explicable on this same general principle? Are we enabled by it to understand not only how nerve becomes more permeable, but how nerve is formed?