Naturalism And Religion Part 13

Here it produces an effect, not of a psychical nature, but some minute chemical, or physical,-or purely mechanical change, which goes through many permutations within the nervous centre itself, unites there with the stored energies, and then, thus altered, returns by the efferent nerve paths to effect a muscle-contraction in some organ, a stretching of the hand, or a movement of the whole body. The physical process is accompanied by a peculiar inward mirroring, which is the psychical penumbra or shadow of the whole business. Thus what is in reality a purely mechanical and reflex sequence appears like a psychical experience, like choice and will and psychical causality. We may be compared to Spinoza's stone; it was thrown, and it thought it was flying.

The reasons for interpreting things in this way lie in the principles of investigation. It is only in this way, we are told, that nature can be reduced to natural terms, that is, to chemistry, physics, and mechanics.

Only in this way is it possible to gain a true insight into and understanding of things, and to bring them under mathematical formulae.

Thus only, too, can "the miraculous" be eliminated. For if we are obliged to admit that the will has a real influence on the corporeal, for instance upon our brain, and nerves, and arm-muscles, this would be a violation of the law of the constancy of the sum of energy. For in this case there would occur, at a certain point in the nexus of phenomena, a piece of work done, however small it might be, for which there was no equivalent of energy in the previous const.i.tution. But this is, since the days of Helmholtz, an impossible a.s.sumption. And thus all those experiments and theories on what we have called the "second line" of mechanistic interpretation of the universe show themselves to be relevant to our present subject.

Interpretations of the psychical such as these have given rise to four peculiar "isms" of an epistemological nature, _i.e._, related to a theory of knowledge. Not infrequently they are the historical antecedents which result in the naturalistic theory of the psychical. These are nominalism and sensualism, empiricism and a-posteriorism, which, setting themselves against epistemological rationalism, a.s.sail the dignity, the independence, and the autonomy of the thinking mind. They are so necessarily and closely a.s.sociated with naturalism that their fate is intimately bound up with its fate, and they are corroborated or refuted with it. And it would be possible to conduct the whole discussion with which we are concerned purely with reference to these four "isms." The strife really begins in their camp.

The soul is a _tabula rasa_, all four maintain, a white paper on which, to begin with, nothing is inscribed. It brings with it neither innate knowledge nor commands. What it possesses in the way of percepts, concepts, opinions, convictions, principles of action, rules of conduct, are inscribed upon it through experience (empiricism). That is, not antecedent to, but subsequent to experience (a posteriori). But experience can only be gained through the senses. Only thus does reality penetrate into and stamp itself upon us. "What was not first in the senses (sensus) cannot be in the intelligence." What the senses convey to us alone builds up our mental content, from mere sensory perceptions upwards to the most abstract ideas from the simplest psychical elements up to the most complex ideas, concepts, and conclusions, to the most varied imaginative constructions. And in the development of the mental content the "soul"

itself is merely the stage upon which all that is acquired through the senses crowds, and jostles, and unites to form images, perceptions, and precepts. But it is itself purely pa.s.sive, and it becomes what happens to it. Therefore it is not really spirit at all, for spirit implies spontaneity, activity, and autonomy.

Philosophy and the mental sciences have always had to carry on the strife with these four opponents. And it is in the teacup of logic and epistemology that the storm in regard to theories of the universe has arisen. It is there, and not in the domain of neurology, or zoology, that the real battlefield lies, upon which the controversy must be fought out to the end. What follows is only a sort of skirmish about the outposts.

What naturalism holds in regard to the psychical and spiritual may be, perhaps, most simply expressed by means of an ill.u.s.tration. Over a wide field there glide mighty shadows in constant interplay. They expand and contract, become denser or lighter, disappear for a little, and then reveal themselves again. While they are thus forming and changing, one state follows quite connectedly on another. At first one is tempted to believe that they are self-acting and self-regulating, that they move freely and pa.s.s from one state to another according to causes within themselves. But then one sees that they are thrown upon the earth from the clouds above, now in this way and now in that, that all their states and forms and changes are nothing in themselves, and neither effect anything in themselves nor react upon the occurrences and realities up above, which they only accompany, and by which they are determined without any co-operation on their own part, even in determining their own form. So it is with nature and spirit. Nature is the true effective reality; spirit is its shadow, which effects nothing either within or outside of itself, but simply happens.

The Fundamental Answer.

How can the religious conception of the world justify itself and maintain its freedom in face of such views of spirit and spiritual being? It is questionable whether it is worth while attempting to do so. Is not the essence of the validity and freedom of spirit made most certain simply through the fact that it is able to inquire into it? If we leave popular naturalism out of the question, is not the attempt made by scientific naturalism the best witness against itself? For scientific study, and the establishment of fundamental conceptions and guiding principles are only possible if mind and thought are free and active and creative. The direct experience that spirit has of itself, of its individuality and freedom, of its incomparability with all that is beneath it, is far too constant and genuine to admit of its being put into a difficulty by a doctrine which it has itself established. And this doctrine has far too much the character of a "fixed theory" to carry permanent inward conviction with it. Here again, the mistake made is in starting with scepticism and with the fewest and simplest a.s.sumptions. It is by no means the case that in order to discover the truth we must start always from a position of scepticism, instead of from calm confidence in ourselves and in our conviction that we possess in direct experience the best guarantee of truth. For we experience nothing more certainly than the content and riches of our own mind, its power of acting and creating, and all its great capacities. And it is part of the duty laid upon us by the religious conception of the universe, as well as by all other idealistic conceptions, to follow this path of self-a.s.surance alone, that is, through self-development and self-deepening, through self-realisation and self-discipline, to use to the full in our lives all that we have in heart and mind as possibilities, tendencies, content, and capacities, and so practically to experience the reality and power of the spiritual that the mood of suspicion and distrust of it must disappear. The validity of this method is corroborated by all the critical insight into the nature of our knowledge that we have gained in the course of our study, and it might be deepened in regard to this particular case. For here, if anywhere, we must recognise the limitations of our knowledge; the impossibility of attaining to a full understanding of the true nature and depths of things applies to the inquiring mind and its hidden nature. From Descartes to Leibnitz, Kant, and Fries, down to the historian of materialism itself, F. A. Lange, it has been an axiom of the idealistic philosophy, expressed now in dogmatic, now in critical form, that the mathematical-mechanical outlook and causal interpretation of things, not excluding a naturalistic psychology, is thoroughly justifiable as a method of arranging scientifically the phenomena accessible to us and of penetrating more deeply towards an understanding of these. It is, indeed, justifiable, so long as it does not profess to reveal the true nature of things, but remains conscious of the free spirit, whose own work and undertaking the whole is.

Yet here again it is by no means necessary to surrender to naturalism a field which it has tried to take possession of, but is certainly unable to hold. We need not try to force naturalism to read out of empirical psychology the high conclusions as to human nature and spirit which pertain to the religious outlook, or to find in the "simplicity" of the "soul monad" a kind of physical proof of its indestructibility, or anything of that kind. We maintain that to comprehend the true inwardness of the vitality, freedom, dignity, and power of the spirit is not the business of psychology at all, but may perhaps be dealt with in ethics, if it be not admitted that with these concepts one has already entered the realm of religious experience, and that they are the very centre of religious theory. But undoubtedly we must reject in great measure the claims which naturalism makes upon our domain, and maintain that the most important starting-points for the higher view are to be found in the priority of everything spiritual over everything material, in the underivability of the spiritual and the impossibility of describing it in corporeal-mathematical terms and concepts.

Individual Development.

What lives in us, as far as we can perceive and trace it in its empirical expression, is not a finished and spiritual being that leaps, mature and complete, from some pre-existence or other into its embodied form, but is obviously something that only develops and becomes actual very gradually.

Its becoming is conditioned by "stimuli," influences, impressions from without, and perfects itself in the closest dependence upon the becoming of the body, is inhibited or advanced with it, and may be entirely arrested by it, forced into abnormal developments which never attain to the level of an "ego" or "personality," but remain incomprehensible anomalies and monstrosities. In general, the psychical struggles slowly and laboriously free from purely vegetative and physiological processes, and gains control over itself and over the body. Its self-development and concentration to full unity and completeness of personality is only achieved through the deepest self-culture, through complete "simplification" as the ancients said, through great acts and experiences of inward centralisation such as that which finds religious expression in the metaphor of "regeneration." What "building up" and self-development of the psychical means remains obscure. If we think of it as a summation, an adding on of new parts and const.i.tuents, and thus try to form a concrete image of the process, we spoil it altogether. If we speak of the transition from the potential to the actual, from the tendency to the realisation, we may not indeed spoil it, but we have done little to make the process more intelligible. So much only we can say: certain as it is that the Psyche, especially as conscious inner life, only gradually develops and becomes actual, and that in the closest dependence upon the development, maturing, and establishment of the nervous basis and the bodily organisation in general, yet the naturalistic view, _a fortiori_ the materialistic, is never at any point correct. There are three things to be borne in mind. First, the origin, the "whence" of the psychical is wholly hidden from us, and, notwithstanding the theory of evolution and descent, it remains an insoluble riddle. And secondly, however closely it is a.s.sociated with and tied down to the processes of bodily development, it is never at any stage of its development really a function of it in actual and exact correspondence and dependence. And finally, the further it advances in its self-realisation, the further the relation of dependence recedes into the background, and the more do the independence and autonomy of the psychical processes become prominent.

We have still to consider and amplify this in several respects, and then we may go on to still more important matters.

Underivability.

The first of the three points we have called attention to has, so to speak, become famous through the lectures of du Bois-Reymond, which attracted much attention, on "The Limits of Natural Knowledge," and "The Seven Riddles of the Universe." That these thoughtful lectures made so great an impression did not mean that a great new discovery had been made, but was rather a sign of the general lack of reflection on the part of the public, for they only expressed what had always been self-evident, and what had only been forgotten through thoughtlessness, or concealed by polemical rhetoric. Consciousness, thought, even the commonest sensation of pleasure and pain, or the simplest sense-perception, cannot be compared with "matter and energy," with the movements of ma.s.ses. They represent a foreign and altogether inexplicable guest in this world of matter, molecules, and elements. Even if we could follow the play of the nervous processes with which sensation, consciousness, pain, or pleasure are bound up, into their most intricate and delicate details, if we could make the brain transparent, and enlarge its cells to the size of houses, so that, with searching glance, we could count and observe all the processes, and even follow the dance of the molecules within it, we should never see "pain," "pleasure," or "thought," or anything more than bodies and their movements. A thought, such as, for instance, the perception that two and two make four, is not long or broad, above or beneath; it cannot be measured or weighed in inches or pounds like matter, tested with the manometer, thermometer, or electrometer for its potential or intensity and tension, measured by amperes or volts or horse-powers like energies and electric currents; it is something wholly different, which can be known only through inner experience, but which is much better known than anything else whatever, and which it is absolutely impossible to compare with anything but itself. Even if we admit that it can only become actual and develop as an accompaniment of processes within bodies, and only within those bodies we call "living," and that wherever bodies exist psychical phenomena occur; even if we were able, as we never shall be able, to produce living beings artificially in a retort, and even if psychical phenomena occurred in these also, we should still have made no progress towards explaining what the psychical really is. It would still only be the blazing up in these bodies of a flame which, in some inexplicable way, had fallen upon them, and a.s.sociated itself with them.

We do not doubt that this a.s.sociation, where it takes place, does so in obedience to the strictest law and the most inexorable necessity; therefore, that wherever and however the corporeal conditions are produced, sensation and consciousness will awaken. For we believe in a world governed by law. But the mystery is in no way lessened by this, and the modern theory of evolution throws no light into this utterly impenetrable darkness. In the first place, the whole idea of "explaining"

in terms of "evolution" is a futile one. The process of becoming is pictured as a simple process of c.u.mulation, a gradual increase of intensities, while the business is really one of change in quality and the introduction of what is new. In the second place, the occurrence even of the first and most primitive sensation contains the whole riddle concentrated on a single point. In the third place, the riddle meets us anew and undiminished in every developing individual. For to say that the physical inwardness, once it has arisen, is "transmitted," is not an explanation but merely an admission that the riddle exists. And the idea that the psychical is just a penumbra or shadow of reality, which comes of itself and so to speak gratis, is quite inadmissible from the point of view of strict natural science. There are no longer _luxus_ and _lusus naturae_. Reality cannot throw a "shadow." According to the principles of the conservation of matter and energy, we must be able to show whence it gets the so-called shadow, and with what it compensates for it.

Pre-eminence of Consciousness.

But we have already spent too much time over this nave mode of looking at things, which, though it professes to place things in their true light, in reality distorts them and turns them upside down. As if this world of the external and material, all these bodies and forces, were our first and most direct data, and were not really all derived from, and only discoverable by, consciousness. We have here to do with the ancient view of all philosophy and all reflection in general, although in modern days it has taken its place as a great new discovery even among naturalists themselves, by whom it is extolled and recognised as "the conquest of materialism." Such exaggerated emphasis tends to conceal the fact that this truth has been regarded as self-evident from very early times.

What is a body, extension, movement, colour, smell and taste? What do I possess of them, or know of them, except through the images, sensations and feelings which they call up in my receptive mind? No single thing wanders into me as itself, or reveals itself to me directly; only through the way in which they affect me, the peculiar changes which they work in me, do things reveal to me their existence and their special character. I have no knowledge of an apple-tree or of an apple, except through the sense perceptions they call up in me. But these sense perceptions, what are they but different peculiar states of my consciousness, peculiar determinations of my mind? I see that the tree stands there, but what is it to see? What is the perception of a colour, of light, of shade, and their changes? Surely only a peculiar change of my mind itself, a particular state of stimulus and awareness brought about in myself. And in the same way I can feel that the apple lies there. But what is the perception of resistance, of hardness, of impenetrability? Nothing more than a feeling, a change in my psychical state, which is unique and cannot be described in terms of anything but itself. Even as regards "attraction and repulsion," external existence only reveals itself to us through changes in the mind and consciousness, which we then attribute to a cause outside ourselves.

It is well enough known that this simple but incontrovertible fact has often led to the denial of the existence of anything outside of ourselves and our consciousness. But even if we leave this difficult subject alone, it is quite certain that, if the question as to the pre-eminence of consciousness and its relation to external things is to be asked at all, it should be formulated as follows, and not conversely: "How can I, starting from the directly given reality and certainty of consciousness and its states, arrive at the certainty and reality of external things, substances, forces, physics and chemistry?"

Creative Power of Consciousness.

To this insight into the underivability and pre-eminence of consciousness over the world of external reality there must be added at this stage a recognition of its peculiar creative character. We have here to recognise that consciousness itself creates its world,-that is, the world that becomes our own through actual experience, possession, and enjoyment. We are led to this position even by the conception now current in natural science of the world as it is, not as it is mirrored in consciousness, and the theory of the "subjectivity of sensory qualities." The qualities which we perceive in things through the senses are "subjective"; philosophy has long taught that, and now natural science teaches it too. That is to say, these qualities are not actually present in the things themselves; they are rather the particular responses which our consciousness makes to stimuli. Take, for instance, tone or colour. What we call tone or sound is not known to acoustics. That takes cognisance only of vibrations and the conditions of vibration in elastic bodies, which, by means of the ear and the nerves of hearing, become a stimulus of consciousness. Consciousness "responds" to this stimulus by receiving a sense-impression of hearing.

But in this, obviously, there is nothing of the nature of oscillations and vibrations, but something quite different. What outside of us is nothing more than a complex process of movement according to mathematical conditions, blossoms within us to a world of sound, tone, and music. The world itself is soundless, toneless. And the same is true of light and colour; "light" and "blue" are nothing in themselves-are not properties of things themselves. They are only the infinitely rapid movements of an infinitely delicate substance, the ether. But when these meet our consciousness, they spin themselves within us into this world of light and colour, of brilliance and beauty. Thus without us there is a world of a purely mathematical nature, without quality, charm, or value. But the world we know, the world of sound, light, and colour, of all properties whatsoever, of the ugly or the beautiful, of pain and pleasure, is in the most real sense the product of consciousness itself, a creation which, incited by something outside of itself and of a totally different nature, which we can hardly call "world," evolves out of itself and causes to blossom. No part of this creation is given from without; not the blue of the heavens, for outside of us there is no colour, only vibrations of the ether; not the gold of the sun nor the red glory of the evening sky.

External nature is nothing more than the stimulus, the pressure upon the mind, which liberates from its depths the peculiar reactions and responses to this stimulus, and calls them forth from its own treasure-stores.

Certainly in this creating the consciousness is entirely dependent on the impressions stamped on it from outside, and to that extent upon "experience." But it is by no means a _tabula rasa_, and a merely pa.s.sive mirror of the outer world, for it translates the stimulus thus received into quite a different language, and builds up from it a new reality, which is quite unlike the mathematical and qualityless reality without.

And this activity on the part of consciousness begins on the very lowest stages. The simplest perception of light or colour, the first feeling of pleasure or discomfort, is a reaction of the psychical, which brings about something entirely new and unique. "The spirit is never pa.s.sive."

That the psychical is not derivable from the physical, that it does not arise out of it, is not secondary to it, but pre-eminent over it, is not pa.s.sive but creative; so much we have already gained to set over against naturalism. But its claims are even more affected by the fact of real psychical causality. We need not here concern ourselves with the difficult question, whether the mind can of itself act upon the body, and through it upon the external world. But in the logical consistence of naturalism there was implied not only a negative answer to this last question, but also a denial of the causality of the psychical, even within itself and its own domain. This is well ill.u.s.trated in the figure of the cloud shadows. In consciousness state follows upon state, a upon b, b upon c.

According to naturalism, b is not really the result of a, nor c of b, for in that case there would be independence of phenomena, and distinctness of laws in the psychical. But as all the states, a, b, and c, of the cloud shadows, depend upon states _a_, _b_, and _c_, of the clouds themselves, but do not themselves form a concatenation of causes, so all the states of the mind depend upon those of the body, in which alone there is a true chain of causes because they alone have true reality.

This is a complete distortion of the facts of the case. It would never be possible to persuade oneself or any one else that the arm, for instance, did not bend simply because we willed that it should. And it is still less possible to doubt that there are sequences of causes within the psychical, that in the world of thought and feeling, of desire and will, one thing calls up another, awakes it, impels it onwards, and influences it. Indeed, the mode of influence is peculiarly rich, subtle, and certain. Mental images and experiences arouse joy or sorrow, admiration or repulsion. One image calls up another, forces it to appear according to quite peculiar laws, or may crowd it out. Feelings call up desires, desires lead to determination. Good news actually causes joy, this is actually strengthened to willing, and the new situation gives rise to actual resolves. All this is so obvious and so unquestionable that no naturalism can possibly prevail against it. It has also long been made the subject of special investigation and carefully regulated experiment, and it is one of the chief subjects of modern psychological science. And especially as regards the different forms of "a.s.sociation of ideas," the particular laws of this psychical causality have been established.

It cannot be denied, however, that this psychology of a.s.sociation has itself in a deeper sense certain dangers from the point of view of the freedom of the mind, and it is apt to lead, not indeed to naturalistic conceptions, but to views according to which the "soul" is reduced to the level of a pa.s.sive frame and stage, so to speak, for the exhibition of mental mechanics and statics. "Ideas" or thoughts, or states of feelings, are sometimes represented almost as actual little realities, which come and go in accordance with their own laws of attraction and repulsion, unite and separate again, by virtue of a kind of mental gravitation, move and crowd one another, so that one must almost say "it thinks," as one says "it rains," and not "the mind thinks" or "I think." But more of this later. This psychological orderliness is in sharp antagonism to pure naturalism. It describes the laws of a sequence of causes, which have nothing to do with the physical, chemical, or mechanical, and clearly establishes the uniqueness, independence, and underivability of the psychical as contrasted with the physical.

The individuality and incommensurability of this psychical causality shows itself in another series of factors which make even the _form_ of the psychical process quite distinctive, and produce phenomena which have no parallel in the material sequences of the world, indeed, conflict with all its fundamental laws. The great psychologists of to-day, Wundt in particular, and James, have frequently emphasised these factors. We can only briefly call attention to a few points, as, for instance, Wundt's theory of the creative resultants through which the psychical processes show themselves to be quite outside of the scope of the laws of equivalence which hold good in the physical. If, in the realm of the corporeal, two components of energy, a and b, come together, they unite in a common resultant c, which includes in part a new movement, in part transformation into heat, but always in such a way that c remains equal to a and b. But it is otherwise in the psychical. Here there occurs what may be called an increase (and a qualitative change) of the psychical energy.

If we take the notes, c, e, and g, and call the sensation- and perception-value of the individual notes x, y, z, when they come together, the resulting sensation-value is by no means simply x + y + z, for a "harmony" results of which the effect is not only greater than the mere sum of x + y + z, but is _qualitatively_ different. This is true of all domains of psychical experience. The parallels from mechanical operation cannot be applied in any case. These only supply inadequate a.n.a.logies and symbols which never really represent the actual state of the case.

Let us take, for instance, a motive, _m_, that impels us towards a particular action, and another, _n_, that hinders us. If these meet in us, the result is not simply a weakening of the power of the one, and a remaining motive of the strength of _m_ minus _n_. The meeting of the two creates an entirely new and peculiar mental situation, which gives rise to conflict and choice, and the resultant victorious motive is never under any circ.u.mstances _m-n_, but may be a double or three-fold _m_ or _n_.

Thus, in the different aspects of psychical activity, there are factors which make it impossible to compare these with other activities, remove them outside of the scope of the law of the equivalence of cause and effect, and prove that there is self-increase and growth on the part of psychical energies. And all such phenomena lead us away from the standpoint of any mere theory of a.s.sociation.

Activity of Consciousness.

Naturalism takes refuge in the doctrine of a.s.sociation, when it does not attain anything with its first claims, and applies this theory in such a way that it seems possible from this standpoint to interpret mental processes as having an approximate resemblance to mechanically and mathematically calculable phenomena. As in physics the molecules and atoms, so here the smallest mental elements, the simplest units of feeling are sought for, and from their relations of attraction and repulsion, their groupings and movements, it is supposed that the whole mental world may be constructed up to its highest contents, will, ideals, and development of character. But even the a.n.a.logy, the model which is followed, and the fact that a model is followed at all, show that this method is uncritical and not unprejudiced. What reason is there for regarding occurrences in the realm of physics as a _norm_ for the psychical? Why should one not rather start from the peculiar and very striking differences between the two, from the primary and fundamental fact, not indeed capable of explanation, but all the more worthy of attention on that account, that there is an absolute difference between physical occurrences and mental behaviour, between physical and mental causality? These most primitive and simplest mental elements which are supposed to float and have their being within the mind as in a kind of spiritual ether are not atoms at all, but deeds, actions, performances.

The laws of the a.s.sociation of ideas are not the laws of a mental chemistry, but laws of mental behaviour; very fixed and reliable laws, but still having to do with modes of behaviour. Their separating and uniting, their relations to one another, their grouping into unities, their "syntheses," are not automatic permutations and combinations, but express the _activity_ of a thinking intelligence. Not even the simplest actual synthesis comes about of itself, as psychologists have shown by a neat ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Square _a_2, next to smaller square _b_2. Above them are horizontal lines _a_ and _b_, the same lengths as the widths of the squares below them. Caption: _a_ and _b_ only a.s.sociated. Squares of _a_ and _b_ in juxtaposition.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Square _c_2. Above it is horizontal line _c_, the same length as the width of the square below it. Caption: _a_ and _b_ really synthetised to _c_. Square of _a_ + _b_ as a true unity = _c_2.]

Given that, through some a.s.sociation, the image of the line _a_ calls up that of the line _b_, and both are a.s.sociatively ranged together, we have still not made the real synthesis _a_ + _b_ = _c_. For to think of _a_ and _b_ side by side is not the same thing as thinking of _c_, as we shall readily see if we square them. The squares of _a_ and _b_ thought of beside one another, that is, _a_2 and _b_2, are something quite different from the square of the really synthetised _a_ and _b_, which is (_a_ + _b_)2 = _a_2 + 2_ab_ + _b_2, or _c_ 2. This requires quite a new view, a spontaneous synthesis, which is an action and not a mere experience.