78. Descartes having attributed all animal actions to a sensitive mechanism, and indeed all human actions to a similar mechanism, endeavored to reconcile this hypothesis with the irresistible facts of Consciousness—which assured us that our actions, at least, were determined by Feeling. To this end he assumed that man had a spiritual principle over and above the sentient principle. The operation of this principle was, however, limited to Thought; the actions themselves were all performed by the automatic mechanism; so that, in strict logic, the conclusion from his premises was the same for man as for animals. This conclusion Professor Huxley announced in his Address before the British Association, 1874222—to the great scandal of the general public, which did not understand him aright; and to the scandal also of a physiological public, which, strangely enough, failed to see that it was the legitimate expression of one of their favorite theories—the celebrated Reflex Theory. Now although it is quite open to any one to reject the premises which lead to such a conclusion, if he sees greater evidence against the conclusion than for the premises, it is surely irrational to accept the premises as those of scientific induction, and yet reject the conclusion because it endangers the stability of other opinions? For my own part, 79. Professor Huxley adopts certain Theses which represent the views generally adopted by physiologists; to which he adds a Thesis which is adopted by few, and which he only puts forward hypothetically. Against these positions I place Antitheses, less generally adopted, but which in my belief approximate more nearly to the inductions of experience.
I have already stated that my polemic is against the views that Professor Huxley is supposed to hold by those whom his expressions mislead, rather than against the views I imagine him really to hold. I have little doubt that he would disavow much that I am forced to combat, although his language is naturally interpreted in that sense. But I do not know in how far he would agree with me, and in the following remarks I shall confine myself to what seems to be the plain interpretation of his words, since that is the interpretation which has been generally adopted, and which I most earnestly desire to refute. 81. To begin with this passage. After stating the views of Descartes, he says: “As actions of a certain degree of complexity are brought about by mere mechanism, why may not actions of still greater complexity be the result of a more refined mechanism? What proof is there that brutes are other than a superior race of marionnettes, which eat without pleasure, cry without pain, desire nothing, know nothing, and only simulate intelligence as a bee simulates a mathematician?” What proof? Why, in the first place, the proof which is implied in the “more refined mechanism” required for the greater complexity 82. Having stated the hypothesis, Professor Huxley says he is not disposed to accept it, though he thinks it cannot be refuted. His chief reason for not accepting it is that the law of continuity forbids the supposition of any complex phenomenon suddenly appearing; the community between animals and men is too close for us to admit that Consciousness could appear in man without having its beginnings in animals. Finding that animals have brains, he justly concludes that they also must have brain functions; and they also therefore must be credited with Consciousness. This argument seems to me to have irresistible cogency; and to be destructive not only of the automaton hypothesis, but equally of the hypothesis on which the Reflex Theory is founded. If the law of continuity forbids the sudden appearance of Consciousness, the law of similarity of property with similarity of structure forbids the supposition that central nerve-tissue in one part of the system can suddenly assume a totally different property in another part. If the brain of an animal, a bird, a reptile, or a fish—and a fortiori if the oesophageal ganglia of an insect or a mollusc—may be credited with Sensibility, because of the fundamental similarity of these structures with the structures of the human brain, then surely the spinal cord must be credited with Sensibility; for the tissue of the spinal cord is more like that of the brain, than the brain of a reptile is like the brain of a man. The sudden disappearance of all Sensibility, on the removal of one portion of the central nervous system, would be a violation of the law of continuity. 83. Professor Huxley would probably admit this; for however his language may at times seem to point to another conclusion, and is so far ambiguous, he has expressed the view here maintained with tolerable distinctness in the following passage, to which particular attention is called:— “But though we may see reason to disagree with Descartes’ hypothesis, that brutes are unconscious machines, it does not follow that he was wrong in regarding them as automata. They may be more or less conscious sensitive automata; and the view that they are such conscious machines is that which is implicitly or explicitly adopted by most persons. When we speak of the actions of the lower animals being guided by instinct and not by reason, what we really mean is that though they feel as we do, yet their actions are the results of their physical organization. We believe, in short, that they are machines, one part of which (the nervous system) not only sets the rest in motion and co-ordinates its movements in relation with changes in surrounding bodies, but is provided with a special apparatus the function of which is the calling into existence of those states of consciousness which are termed sensations, emotions, and ideas.” 84. To say that they are “conscious automata” seems granting all that I demand; but there are two objectionable positions which the phrase conceals: first, that Consciousness is not a coefficient; and secondly, that Reflex Action is purely mechanical. Professor Huxley nowhere, I think, establishes the distinction 85. “His [the soldier’s in the abnormal state] movements remain free, and his expression calm, except for a contraction of the brow, an incessant movement of the eyeballs, and a chewing motion of the jaws. The eyes are wide open, and their pupils dilated. If the man happens to be in a place to which he is accustomed he walks about as usual; but if he is in a new place, or if obstacles are intentionally placed in his way, he stumbles against them, stops, and then feeling over the objects with his hands, passes on one side of them. He offers no resistance to any change of direction which may be impressed upon him, or to the forcible acceleration or retardation of his movements. He eats, drinks, smokes, walks about, dresses and undresses himself, rises and goes to bed at the accustomed hours. Nevertheless pins may be run into his body, or strong electric shocks sent through it, without causing the least indication of pain; no odorous substance, pleasant or unpleasant, makes the least impression; he eats and drinks with avidity whatever is offered, and takes asafoetida or vinegar of quinine as readily as water; no noise affects him; and light influences him only under certain conditions.” 86. Observe that while this soldier exhibits such insensibility to certain stimuli, he unequivocally exhibits sensibility to other stimuli. All his acts show sense-guidance. Sight and Touch obviously regulate his movements. And when he feels objects placed in his way, and then passes beside them, wherein does this differ from the normal procedure of sensitive organisms? wherein does it resemble automata? Dr. Mesmet—from whose narrative the case is cited—remarks that the sense of Touch seems to persist “and indeed to be more acute and delicate than in the normal state”; upon which Professor Huxley has this comment:—“Here a difficulty arises. It is clear from the facts detailed that the nervous apparatus 87. It is here we are made vividly aware of the absolute need there is to disengage the terms employed from their common ambiguities. All the evidence of a tactile sensation which can possibly be furnished, on the objective side, is furnished by the actions of this soldier; to doubt it would be to throw a doubt on the sensibility of any animal unable to tell us what it felt; nay, even a man if he were dumb, or spoke a language we could not understand, could give us no other proof. We conclude that the soldier had tactile sensations, because we see him guided by them as we ourselves are guided by tactile sensations; we know that he is an organism, not a machine, and therefore reject the inference that he has become reduced to a “pure mechanism” because it is inferred that his consciousness is absent. And on what is this inference grounded? 1°, The belief that the brain is the sole organ of consciousness (Sentience)—a belief flatly disproved by the facts, which show Sentience when the brain has been removed; and 2°, the belief that the decapitated frog, because it avoids obstacles and redirects its leaps to avoid them, does so without Sentience. According to the definition we adopt, we may either say that the decapitated frog, and the soldier in his abnormal state, act without consciousness, or with it. But what does not seem permissible 88. There can be no doubt that the soldier had perceptions, and that these perceptions guided his movements; whether these shall be called “states of consciousness” or not, is a question of terms. Now since we know that certain actions are uniformly consequent on certain perceptions, we are justified in inferring that whenever the We are said to walk unconsciously at times; and the continuance of the movement is said to be due to reflex action. But it is demonstrable that the cutaneous sensibility of the soles of the feet is a primary condition. If the skin be insensible, the walking becomes a stumble. In learning to walk, or dance, the child fixes his eyes on his feet, as he fixes them on his fingers in learning to play the piano. After a while these registered sensations connected with the muscular sense suffice to guide his feet or his fingers; but not if feet or fingers lose their sensibility. 89. With these explanations let us follow the further details of this soldier’s abnormal actions:— 90. Before criticising this conclusion let me adduce other illustrations of this dreamlike activity. “A gentleman whom I attended in a state of perfect apoplexy,” says Abercrombie, “was frequently observed to adjust his nightcap with the utmost care when it got into an uncomfortable state: first pulling it down over his eyes, and 91. Returning now to Dr. Mesmet’s soldier, and to the conclusion that his dreamlike acts were no more than the actions of one of Vaucanson’s automata, surely we are justified in concluding, first, that these actions were not of the same kind as those of an automaton, since they were those of a living organism; secondly, that they present all the evidence positive and inferential which Sensibility can present in the actions we observe in another, and do not feel in ourselves; and thirdly, if with physiologists we agree that the mechanism of these actions is “worked by molecular changes in the nervous system,” there is some difficulty in understanding how Consciousness, which is said to be caused by such changes, could 92. What automata can be made to perform is surprising enough, but they can never be made to display the fluctuations of sense-guided actions, such as we see in the report of Dr. Mesmet’s soldier:— “The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had at one time been employed as a singer at a cafÉ. In one of his abnormal states he was observed to begin humming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself carefully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel which lay on the bed, as if he were trying to find something. Dr. Mesmet, suspecting that he was seeking his music, made up one of these into a roll and put it into his hand. He appeared satisfied, took up his cane, and went down stairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesmet turned him round, and he walked quite contentedly in the opposite direction. The light of the sun shining through a window happened to fall upon him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage on which he was accustomed to make his appearance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary music, put himself in the attitude of a singer, and sang with perfect execution three songs one after the other. After which he wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank without a grimace a tumbler of strong vinegar-and-water.” 93. Epileptic patients have frequently been observed going through similar dreamlike actions in which only those external stimuli which have a relation to the dream seem to take effect.228 We interpret these as phenomena of disordered mental action, the burden of proof lies on him who says they are phenomena of pure mechanism. A mail-coach does not suddenly cease to be a mail-coach Can any one conceive an automaton acting as the sergeant is described to be in the following passage?— “Sitting at a table he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began to write a letter to his general, in which he recommended himself for a medal on account of his good conduct and courage. It occurred to Dr. Mesmet to ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned in this act of writing. He therefore interposed a screen between the man’s eyes and his hands; under these circumstances he went on writing for a short time, but the words became illegible, and he finally stopped. On the withdrawal of the screen, he began to write again where he had left off. The substitution of water for ink in the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped, looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it in the water, and began again, with the same effect. On one occasion he began to write upon the topmost of ten superposed sheets of paper. After he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly drawn away. There was a slight expression of surprise, but he continued his letter on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the first. This operation was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet contained nothing but the writer’s signature at the bottom of the page. Nevertheless, when the signature was finished, his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet, and he went through the form of reading over what he had written, a movement of the lips accompanying each word; moreover, with his pen he put in such corrections as were needed.” 94. Dr. Mesmet concludes that “his patient sees some things and not others; that the sense of sight is accessible 95. The point never to be left out of sight is that actions which are known to be preceded and accompanied by sensations do not lose their special character of Sentience, as actions of a sentient mechanism, because they are not also preceded and accompanied by that peculiar state which is specially called Consciousness, i.e. attention to the passing changes (comp. p. 403). When we see a man playing the piano, and at the same time talking of something far removed from the music, we say his fingers move unconsciously; but we do not conclude that he is a musical machine—muscular sensations and musical sensations regulate every movement of his fingers; and if he strikes a false note, or if one of the notes jangles, he is instantly conscious of the fact. Either we must admit 96. Let us now pass to another consideration, namely, whether Consciousness—however interpreted—is legitimately conceived as a factor in the so-called conscious and voluntary actions; or is merely a collateral result of certain organic activities? To answer this, we must first remember that Consciousness is a purely subjective process; although we may believe it to be objectively a neural process, we are nevertheless passing out of the region of Physiology when we speak of Feeling determining Action. Motion may determine Motion; but Feeling can only determine Feeling. Yet we do so speak, and are justified. For thereby we implicitly declare, what Psychology explicitly teaches, namely, that these two widely different aspects, objective and subjective, are but the two faces of one and the same reality. It is thus indifferent whether we say a sensation is a neural process, or a mental process: a molecular change in the nervous system, or a change in Feeling. It is either, and it is both, as I have elsewhere explained.229 There it was argued that the current hypothesis of a neural process causing the mental process—molecular movement being in some mysterious way transformed 97. “It may be assumed,” says Professor Huxley, “that molecular changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness of brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness may conversely cause those molecular changes which give rise to muscular motion? I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims, and goes through his gymnastic performances, quite as well without consciousness, and consequently without volition, as with it; and if a frog in his natural state possesses anything corresponding with what we call volition, there is no reason to think that it is anything but a concomitant of the molecular changes in the brain, which form part of the series involved in the production of motion. The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.” Particular attention is called to the passages in italics. In the first is expressed a view which seems not unlike the one I am advocating, but which is contradicted by the second. Let us consider what is implied. 98. When Consciousness is regarded solely under its subjective aspect there is obviously no place for it among material agencies, regarded as objective. So long as we have the material mechanism in view we have nothing 99. It is the unfortunate ambiguity of the word Consciousness, and the questionable hypothesis of the brain being the sole seat of Sensibility, which darken this investigation. Because animals, after the brain has been removed, are seen to perform certain actions as deftly as before, they are said to perform these without the intervention of Consciousness; when all that is proved by the facts is that these actions are performed without the intervention of the brain. In support of this explanation, examples are cited of unconscious actions performed by human beings. But if we assign Sensibility not to one part of the nervous system exclusively, but to the whole, we can readily understand how the loss of a part will be manifested by very marked changes in the reactions of the whole, and yet not altogether prevent the reactions of the parts remaining intact. An animal must respond somewhat differently with and without a brain. One marked difference is the spontaneity of the actions when the brain is intact, and the loss of much spontaneity when the brain is injured or removed. Cerebral processes prompt and regulate actions, as the pressure of the driver on the reins prompts and regulates the movements of the horses; but the carriage is moved by the horses and not by the driver; and the action is executed by the motor mechanism, whether the incitation arise in a cerebral process or a peripheral stimulation. 100. If we admit that Consciousness is itself an organic process, accompanying the molecular changes as a convex surface accompanies a concave, we must also admit that its fluctuations are adjustments and readjustments of the organic mechanism, and that the actions are the effects 101. Having thus claimed a place for Consciousness in the series of organic processes, let us now see whether it has a place among the active agencies. According to Professor Huxley it is not itself an agent, but only the “collateral product of the working of the machine.” It accompanies actions, it does not direct them. It is an index, not a cause. Surely it seems more accurate to say that it accompanies and directs the working? It accompanies the working in two senses: first, as the subjective aspect of the objective process; secondly, as the change which produces a subsequent change, that is to say, the movements initiated by a feeling are themselves also felt as they pass; and this feeling enters into the general stream of simultaneous excitations out of which new movements and feelings arise; or to express it physiologically, the sensory impressions determine muscular movements, which in turn react on the nerve-centres, and these reactions blend with the general excitation of reflected and re-reflected processes.230 Since every change in Consciousness is a 102. Volition is said to be an “emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.” Here it 103. “Much ingenious argument,” says Professor Huxley, “has at various times been bestowed upon the question: How is it possible to imagine that volition which is a state of consciousness, and as such has not the slightest community of nature with matter and motion, can act upon the moving matter of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do in voluntary acts? But if, as is here suggested, the voluntary acts of brutes—or in other words, the acts which they desire to perform—are as purely mechanical as the rest of their actions, and are simply accompanied by the state of consciousness called volition, the inquiry, so far as they are concerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions do not enter into the chain of causation of their actions at all.... As consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence of molecular motion in the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.” This has been answered in the foregoing pages; nor do I think the reader who 104. The important question whether reflex actions are insentient, and therefore mechanical, will occupy us in the next problem. The question of Automatism which has been argued in the preceding chapters, may, I think, be summarily disposed of by a reference to the irresistible evidence each man carries in his own consciousness that his actions are frequently—even if not always—determined by feelings. He is quite certain that he is not an automaton, and that his feelings are not simply collateral products of his actions, without the power of modifying and originating them. Now this fundamental fact cannot be displaced by any theoretical explanation of its factors. Nor would this fundamental truth be rendered doubtful, even supposing we were to grant to the full all that is adduced as evidence that some actions were the result of purely mechanical processes without sentience at all. I am a conscious organism, even if it be true that I sometimes act unconsciously. I am not a machine, even if it be true that I sometimes act mechanically. |