Suppose we restrict our view to facts of one and the same plane, and let that be the bodily plane: cannot all the outward phenomena6 of intelligence still be exhaustively described? Those mental images, those 'considerations,' whereof we spoke7, - presumably they do not arise without neural8 processes arising simultaneously9 with them, and presumably each consideration corresponds to a process sui generis, and unlike all the rest. In other words, however numerous and delicately differentiated10 the train of ideas may be, the train of brain-events that runs alongside of it must in both respects be exactly its match, and we must postulate11 a neural machinery that offers a living counterpart for every shading, however fine, of the history of its owner's mind. Whatever degree of complication the latter may reach, the complication of the machinery must be quite as extreme, otherwise we should have to admit that there may be mental events to which no brain-events correspond. But such an admission as this the physiologist13 is reluctant to make. It would violate all his beliefs. 'No psychosis without neurosis,' is one form which the principle of continuity takes in his mind.
But this principle forces the physiologist to make still another step. If neural action is as complicated as mind; and if in the sympathetic system and lower spinal15 cord we see what, so far as we know, is unconscious neural action executing deeds that to all outward intent may be called intelligent; what is there to hinder us from supposing that even where we know consciousness to be there, the still more complicated neural action which we believe to be its inseparable companion is alone and of itself the real agent of whatever intelligent deeds may appear? "As actions of a certain degree of complexity17 are brought about by mere18 mechanism19, why may not actions of a still greater degree of complexity be the result of a more refined mechanism?" The conception of reflex action is surely one of the best conquests of physiological20 theory; why not be radical21 with it? Why not say that just as the spinal cord is a machine with few reflexes, so the hemispheres are a machine with many, and that that is all the difference? The principle of continuity would press us to accept this view.
But what on this view could be the function of the consciousness itself? Mechanical function it would have none. The sense-organs would awaken22 the brain-cells; these would awaken each other in rational and orderly sequence, until the time for action came; and then the last brain-vibration would discharge downward into the motor tracts23. But this would be a quite autonomous24 chain of occurrences, and whatever mind went with it would be there only as an 'epiphenomenon,' an inert25 spectator, a sort of 'foam26, aura, or melody' as Mr. Hodgson says, whose opposition27 or whose furtherance would be alike powerless over the occurrences themselves. When talking, some time ago, we ought not, accordingly, as physiologists28, to have said anything about 'considerations' as guiding the animal. We ought to have said 'paths left in the hemispherical cortex by former currents,' and nothing more.
Now so simple and attractive is this conception from the consistently physiological point of view, that it is quite wonderful to see how late it was stumbled on in philosophy, and how few people, even when it has been explained to them, fully29 and easily realize its import. Much of the polemic30 writing against it is by men who have as yet failed to take it into their imaginations. Since this has been the case, it seems worth while to devote a few more words to making it plausible31, before criticising it ourselves.
To Descartes belongs the credit of having first been bold enough to conceive of a completely self-sufficing nervous mechanism which should be able to perform complicated and apparently32 intelligent acts. By a singularly arbitrary restriction33, however, Descartes stopped short at man, and while contending that in beasts the nervous machinery was all, he held that the higher acts of man were the result of the agency of his rational soul. The opinion that beasts have no consciousness at all was of course too paradoxical to maintain itself long as anything more than a curious item in the history of philosophy. And with its abandonment the very notion that the nervous system per se might work the work of intelligence, which was an integral, though detachable part of the whole theory, seemed also to slip out of men's conception, until, in this century, the elaboration of the doctrine34 of reflex action made it possible and natural that it should again arise. But it was not till 1870, I believe, that Mr. Hodgson made the decisive step, by saying that feelings, no matter how intensely they may be present, can have no causal efficacy whatever, and comparing them to the colors laid on the surface of a mosaic35, of which the events in the nervous system are represented by the stones. Obviously the stones are held in place by each other and not by the several colors which they support.
About the same time Mr. Spalding, and a little later Messrs. Huxley and Clifford, gave great publicity36 to an identical doctrine, though in their case it was backed by less refined metaphysical considerations.
A few sentences from Huxley and Clifford may be subjoined to make the matter entirely37 clear. Professor Huxley says:
"The consciousness of brutes38 would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral39 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 on its machinery. Their volition40, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such 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 . . . Thus far I have strictly41 confined myself to the automatism of brutes . . . It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment42, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular44 changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate43 cause of that act. We are conscious automata."
Professor Clifford writes:
"All the evidence that we have goes to show that the physical world gets along entirely by itself, according to practically universal rules. . . . The train of physical facts between the stimulus45 sent into the eye, or to any one of our senses, and the exertion46 which follows it, and the train of physical facts which goes on in the brain, even when there is no stimulus and no exertion, - these are perfectly47 complete physical trains, and every step is fully accounted for by mechanical conditions. . . . The two things are on utterly48 different platforms - the physical facts go along by themselves, and the mental facts go along by themselves. There is a parallelism between them, but there is no interference of one with the other. Again, if anybody says that the will influences matter, the statement is not untrue, but it is nonsense. Such an assertion belongs to the crude materialism49 of the savage50. The only thing which influences matter is the position of surrounding matter or the motion of surrounding matter. . . . The assertion that another man's volition, a feeling in his consciousness that I cannot perceive, is part of the train of physical facts which I may perceive, - this is neither true non untrue, but nonsense; it is a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will not go together . . . . Sometimes one series is known better, and sometimes the other; so that in telling a story we speak sometimes of mental and sometimes of material facts. A feeling of chill made a man run; strictly speaking, the nervous disturbance51 which coexisted with that feeling of chill made him run, if we want to talk about material facts; or the feeling of chill produced the form of sub-consciousness which coexists with the motion of legs, if we want to talk about mental facts . . . .When, therefore, we ask: 'What is the physical link between the ingoing message from chilled skin and the outgoing message which moves the leg?' and the answer is, 'A man's will,' we have as much right to be amused as if we had asked our friend with the picture what pigment52 was used in painting the cannon53 in the foreground, and received the answer, 'Wrought54 iron.' It will be found excellent practice in the mental operations required by this doctrine to imagine a train, the fore2 part of which is an engine and three carriages linked with iron couplings, and the hind16 part three other carriages linked with iron couplings; the bond between the two parts being made up out of the sentiments of amity55 subsisting56 between the stoker and the guard."
To comprehend completely the consequences of the dogma so confidently enunciated57, one should unflinchingly apply it to the most complicated examples. The movements of our tongues and pens, the flashings of our eyes in conversation, are of course events of a material order, and as such their causal antecedents must be exclusively material. If we knew thoroughly58 the nervous system of Shakespeare, and as thoroughly all his environing conditions, we should be able to show why at a certain period of his life his hand came to trace on certain sheets of paper those crabbed59 little black marks which we for shortness' sake call the manuscript of Hamlet. We should understand the rationale of every erasure60 and alteration61 therein, and we should understand all this without in the slightest degree acknowledging the existence of the thoughts in Shakespeare's mind. The words and sentences would be taken, not as signs of anything beyond themselves, but as little outward facts, pure and simple. In like manner we might exhaustively write the biography of those two hundred pounds, more or less, of warmish albuminoid matter called Martin Luther, without ever implying that it felt.
But, on the other hand, nothing in all this could prevent us from giving an equally complete account of either Luther's or Shakespeare's spiritual history, an account in which every gleam of thought and emotion should find its place. The mind-history would run alongside of the body-history of each man, and each point in the one would correspond to, but not react upon, a point in the other. So the melody floats from the harp-string, but neither checks nor quickens its vibrations62; so the shadow runs alongside the pedestrian, but in no way influences his steps.
Another inference, apparently more paradoxical still, needs to be made, though, as far as I am aware, Dr. Hodgson is the only writer who has explicitly63 drawn64 it. That inference is that feelings, not causing nerve-actions, cannot even cause each other. To ordinary common sense, felt pain is, as such, not only the cause of outward tears and cries, but also the cause of such inward events as sorrow, compunction, desire, or inventive thought. So the consciousness of good news is the direct producer of the feeling of joy, the awareness65 of premises66 that of the belief in conclusions. But according to the automaton-theory, each of the feelings mentioned is only the correlate of some nerve-movement whose cause lay wholly in a previous nerve-movement. The first nerve-movement called up the second; whatever feeling was attached to the second consequently found itself following upon the feeling that was attached to the first. If, for example, good news was the consciousness correlated with the first movement, then joy turned out to be the correlate in consciousness of the second. But all the while the items of the nerve series were the only ones in causal continuity; the items of the conscious series, however inwardly rational their sequence, were simply juxtaposed.
Reasons for the Theory.
The 'conscious automaton-theory,' as this conception is generally called, is thus a radical and simple conception of the manner in which certain facts may possibly occur. But between conception and belief, proof ought to lie. And when we ask, 'What proves that all this is more than a mere conception of the possible?' it is not easy to get a sufficient reply. If we start from the frog's spinal cord and reason by continuity, saying, as that acts so intelligently, though unconscious, so the higher centres, though conscious, may have the intelligence they show quite as mechanically based; we are immediately met by the exact counter-argument from continuity, an argument actually urged by such writers as Pflüger and Lewes, which starts from the acts of the hemispheres, and says: "As these owe their intelligence to the consciousness which we know to be there, so the intelligence of the spinal cord's acts must really be due to the invisible presence of a consciousness lower in degree." All arguments from continuity work in two ways, you can either level up or level down by their means; and it is clear that such arguments as these can eat each other up to all eternity67.
There remains68 a sort of philosophic69 faith, bred like most faiths from an aesthetic70 demand. Mental and physical events are, on all hands, admitted to present the strongest contrast in the entire field of being. The chasm71 which yawns between them is less easily bridged over by the mind than any interval73 we know. Why, then, not call it an absolute chasm, and say not only that the two worlds are different, but that they are independent? This gives us the comfort of all simple and absolute formulas, and it makes each chain homogeneous to our consideration. When talking of nervous tremors74 and bodily actions, we may feel secure against intrusion from an irrelevant75 mental world. When, on the other hand, we speak of feelings, we may with equal consistency76 use terms always of one denomination77, and never be annoyed by what Aristotle calls 'slipping into another kind.' The desire on the part of men educated in laboratories not to have their physical reasonings mixed up with such incommensurable factors as feelings is certainly very strong. I have heard a most intelligent biologist say: "It is high time for scientific men to protest against the recognition of any such thing as consciousness in a scientific investigation78." In a word, feeling constitutes the 'unscientific' half of existence, and any one who enjoys calling himself a 'scientist' will be too happy to purchase an untrammelled homogeneity of terms in the studies of his predilection79, at the slight cost of admitting a dualism which, in the same breath that it allows to mind an independent status of being, banishes80 it to a limbo81 of causal inertness82, from whence no intrusion or interruption on its part need ever be feared.
Over and above this great postulate that matters must be kept simple, there is, it must be confessed, still another highly abstract reason for denying causal efficacity to our feelings. We can form no positive image of the modus operandi of a volition or other thought affecting the cerebral83 molecules84.
"Let us try to imagine an idea, say of food, producing a movement, say of carrying food to the mouth. . . . What is the method of its action? Does it assist the decomposition85 of the molecules of the gray matter, or does it retard86 the process, or does it alter the direction in which the shocks are distributed? Let us imagine the molecules of the gray matter combined in such a way that they will fall into simpler combinations on the impact of an incident force. Now suppose the incident force, in the shape of a shock from some other centre, to impinge upon these molecules. By hypothesis it will decompose87 them, and they will fall into the simpler combination. How is the idea of food to prevent this decomposition? Manifestly it can do so only by increasing the force which binds88 the molecules together. Good! Try to imagine the idea of a beefsteak binding89 two molecules together. It is impossible. Equally impossible is it to imagine a similar idea loosening the attractive force between two molecules."
This passage from an exceedingly clever writer expresses admirably the difficulty to which I allude90. Combined with a strong sense of the 'chasm' between the two worlds, and with a lively faith in reflex machinery, the sense of this difficulty can hardly fail to make one turn consciousness out of the door as a superfluity so far as one's explanations go. One may bow her out politely, allow her to remain as a 'concomitant,' but one insists that matter shall hold all the power.
"Having thoroughly recognized the fathomless91 abyss that separates mind from matter, and having so blended the very notion into his very nature that there is no chance of his ever forgetting it or failing to saturate92 with it all his meditations93, the student of psychology94 has next to appreciate the association between these two orders of phenomena. . . . They are associated in a manner so intimate that some of the greatest thinkers consider them different aspects of the same process. . . . When the rearrangement of molecules takes place in the higher regions of the brain, a change of consciousness simultaneously occurs. . . . The change of consciousness never takes place without the change in the brain; the change in the brain never . . . without the change in consciousness. But why the two occur together, or what the link is which connects them, we do not know, and most authorities believe that we never shall and never can know. Having firmly and tenaciously95 grasped these two notions, of the absolute separateness of mind and matter, and of the invariable concomitance of a mental change with a bodily change, the student will enter on the study of psychology with half his difficulties surmounted96."
Half his difficulties ignored, I should prefer to say. For this 'concomitance' in the midst of 'absolute separateness' is an utterly irrational97 notion. It is to my mind quite inconceivable that consciousness should have nothing to do with a business which it so faithfully attends. And the question, 'What has it to do?' is one which psychology has no right to 'surmount,' for it is her plain duty to consider it. The fact is that the whole question of interaction and influence between things is a metaphysical question, and cannot be discussed at all by those who are unwilling98 to go into matters thoroughly. It is truly enough hard to imagine the 'idea of a beefsteak binding two molecules together;' but since Hume's time it has been equally hard to imagine anything binding them together. The whole notion of 'binding' is a mystery, the first step towards the solution of which is to clear scholastic99 rubbish out of the way. Popular science talks of 'forces,' 'attractions' or 'affinities100' as binding the molecules; but clear science, though she may use such words to abbreviate101 discourse102, has no use for the conceptions, and is satisfied when she can express in simple 'laws' the bare space-relations of the molecules as functions of each other and of time. To the more curiously103 inquiring mind, however, this simplified expression of the bare facts is not enough; there must be a 'reason' for them, and something must 'determine' the laws. And when one seriously sits down to consider what sort of a thing one means when one asks for a 'reason,' one is led so far afield, so far away from popular science and its scholasticism, as to see that even such a fact as the existence or non-existence in the universe of 'the idea of a beefsteak' may not be wholly indifferent to other facts in the same universe, and in particular may have something to do with determining the distance at which two molecules in that universe shall lie apart. If this is so, then common-sense, though the intimate nature of causality and of the connection of things in the universe lies beyond her pitifully bounded horizon, has the root and gist14 of the truth in her hands when she obstinately104 holds to it that feelings and ideas are causes. However inadequate105 our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas and feelings have it, than the Automatists are when they say they haven't it. As in the night all cats are gray, so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure. But one has no right to pull the pall106 over the psychic half of the subject only, as the automatists do, and to say that that causation is unintelligible107, whilst in the same breath one dogmatizes about material causation as if Hume, Kant, and Lotze had never been born. One cannot thus blow hot and cold. One must be impartially108 naif or impartially critical. If the latter, the reconstruction109 must be thorough-going or 'metaphysical,' and will probably preserve the common-sense view that ideas are forces, in some translated form. But Psychology is a mere natural science, accepting certain terms uncritically as her data, and stopping short of metaphysical reconstruction. Like physics, she must be naïve; and if she finds that in her very peculiar110 field of study ideas seem to be causes, she had better continue to talk of them as such. She gains absolutely nothing by a breach111 with common-sense in this matter, and she loses, to say the least, all naturalness of speech. If feelings are causes, of course their effects must be furtherances and checkings of internal cerebral motions, of which in themselves we are entirely without knowledge. It is probable that for years to come we shall have to infer what happens in the brain either from our feelings or from motor effects which we observe. The organ will be for us a sort of vat112 in which feelings and motions somehow go on stewing113 together, and in which innumerable things happen of which we catch but the statistical114 result. Why, under these circumstances, we should be asked to forswear the language of our childhood I cannot well imagine, especially as it is perfectly compatible with the language of physiology115. The feelings can produce nothing absolutely new, they can only reinforce and inhibit116 reflex currents, and the original organization by physiological forces of these in paths must always be the ground-work of the psychological scheme.
My conclusion is that to urge the automaton-theory upon us, as it is now urged, on purely117 a priori and quasi-metaphysical grounds, is an unwarrantable impertinence in the present state of psychology.
Reasons against the Theory.
But there are much more positive reasons than this why we ought to continue to talk in psychology as if consciousness had causal efficacy. The particulars of the distribution of consciousness, so far as we know them, point to its being efficacious. Let us trace some of them.
It is very generally admitted, though the point would be hard to prove, that consciousness grows the more complex and intense the higher we rise in the animal kingdom. That of a man must exceed that of an oyster118. From this point of view it seems an organ, superadded to the other organs which maintain the animal in the struggle for existence; and the presumption119 of course is that is helps him in some way in the struggle, just as they do. But it cannot help him without being in some way efficacious and influencing the course of his bodily history. If now it could be shown in what way consciousness might help him, and if, moreover, the defects of his other organs (where consciousness is most developed) are such as to make them need just the kind of help that consciousness would bring provided it were efficacious; why, then the plausible inference would be that it came just because of its efficacy - in other words, its efficacy would be inductively proved.
Now the study of the phenomena of consciousness which we shall make throughout the rest of this book will show us that consciousness is at all times primarily a selecting agency. Whether we take it in the lowest sphere of sense, or in the highest of intellection, we find it always doing one thing, choosing one out of several of the materials so presented to its notice, emphasizing and accentuating120 that and suppressing as far as possible all the rest. The item emphasized is always in close connection with some interest felt by consciousness to be paramount121 at the time.
But what are now the defects of the nervous system in those animals whose consciousness seems most highly developed? Chief among them must be instability. The cerebral hemispheres are the characteristically 'high' nerve-centres, and we saw how indeterminate and unforeseeable their performances were in comparison with those of the basal ganglia and the cord. But this very vagueness constitutes their advantage. They allow their possessor to adapt his conduct to the minutest alterations122 in the environing circumstances, any one of which may be for him a sign, suggesting distant motives123 more powerful than any present solicitations of sense. It seems as if certain mechanical conclusions should be drawn from this state of things. An organ swayed by slight impressions is an organ whose natural state is one of unstable124 equilibrium125. We may imagine the various lines of discharge in the cerebrum to be almost on a par12 in point of permeability - what discharge a given small impression will produce may be called accidental, in the sense in which we say it is a matter of accident whether a rain-drop falling on a mountain ridge72 descend126 the eastern or the western slope. It is in this sense that we may call it a matter of accident whether a child be a boy or a girl. The ovum is so unstable a body that certain causes too minute for our apprehension127 may at a certain moment tip it one way or the other. The natural law of an organ constituted after this fashion can be nothing but a law of caprice. I do not see how one could reasonably expect from it any certain pursuance of useful lines of reaction, such as the few and fatally determined128 performances of the lower centres constitute within their narrow sphere. The dilemma129 in regard to the nervous system seems, in short, to be of the following kind. We may construct one which will react infallibly and certainly, but it will then be capable of reacting to very few changes in the environment - it will fail to be adapted to all the rest. We may, on the other hand, construct a nervous system potentially adapted to respond to an infinite variety of minute features in the situation; but its fallibility will then be as great as its elaboration. We can never be sure that its equilibrium will be upset in the appropriate direction. In short, a high brain may do many things, and may do each of them at a very slight hint. But its hair-trigger organization makes of it a happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss affair. It is as likely to do the crazy as the sane131 thing at any given moment. A low brain does few things, and in doing them perfectly forfeits132 all other use. The performances of a high brain are like dice133 thrown forever on a table. Unless they be loaded, what chance is there that the highest number will turn up oftener than the lowest?
All this is said of the brain as a physical machine pure and simple. Can consciousness increase its efficiency by loading its dice? Such is the problem.
Loading its dice would mean bringing a more or less constant pressure to bear in favor of those of its performances which make for the most permanent interests of the brain's owner; it would mean a constant inhibition of the tendencies to stray aside.
Well, just such pressure and such inhibition are what consciousness seems to be exerting all the while. And the interests in whose favor it seems to exert them are its interests and its alone, interests which it creates, and which, but for it, would have no status in the realm of being whatever. We talk, it is true, when we are darwinizing, as if the mere body that owns the brain had interests; we speak about the utilities of its various organs and how they help or hinder the body's survival; and we treat the survival as if it were an absolute end, existing as such in the physical world, a sort of actual should-be, presiding over the animal and judging his reactions, quite apart from the presence of any commenting intelligence outside. We forget that in the absence of some such superadded commenting intelligence (whether it be that of the animal itself, or only ours or Mr. Darwin's), the reactions cannot be properly talked of as 'useful' or 'hurtful' at all. Considered merely physically134, all that can be said of them is that if they occur in a certain way survival will as a matter of fact prove to be their incidental consequence. The organs themselves, and all the rest of the physical world, will, however, all the time be quite indifferent to this consequence, and would quite as cheerfully, the circumstances changed, compass the animal's destruction. In a word, survival can enter into a purely physiological discussion only as an hypothesis made by an onlooker135 about the future. But the moment you bring a consciousness into the midst, survival ceases to be a mere hypothesis. No longer is it, "if survival is to occur, then so and so must brain and other organs work." It has now become an imperative136 decree: "Survival shall occur, and therefore organs must so work!" Real ends appear for the first time now upon the world's stage. The conception of consciousness as a purely cognitive137 form of being, which is the pet way of regarding it in many idealistic-modern as well as ancient schools, is thoroughly anti-psychological, as the remainder of this book will show. Every actually existing consciousness seems to itself at any rate to be a fighter for ends, of which many, but for its presence, would not be ends at all. Its powers of cognition are mainly subservient138 to these ends, discerning which facts further them and which do not.
Now let consciousness only be what it seems to itself, and it will help an instable brain to compass its proper ends. The movements of the brain per se yield the means of attaining139 these ends mechanically, but only out of a lot of other ends, if so they may be called, which are not the proper ones of the animal, but often quite opposed. The brain is an instrument of possibilities, but of no certainties. But the consciousness, with its own ends present to it, and knowing also well which possibilities lead thereto and which away, will, if endowed with causal efficacy, reinforce the favorable possibilities and repress the unfavorable or indifferent ones. The nerve-currents, coursing through the cells and fibres, must in this case be supposed strengthened by the fact of their awaking one consciousness and dampening by awakening140 another. How such reaction of the consciousness upon the currents may occur must remain at present unsolved: it is enough for my purpose to have shown that it may not uselessly exist, and that the matter is less simple than the brain-automatists hold.
All the facts of the natural history of consciousness lend color to this view. Consciousness, for example, is only intense when nerve-processes are hesitant. In rapid, automatic, habitual141 action it sinks to a minimum. Nothing could be more fitting than this, if consciousness have the teleological142 function we suppose; nothing more meaningless, if not. Habitual actions are certain, and being in no danger of going astray from their end, need no extraneous143 help. In hesitant action, there seem many alternative possibilities of final nervous discharge. The feeling awakened144 by the nascent145 excitement of each alternative nerve-tract seems by its attractive or repulsive146 quality to determine whether the excitement shall abort147 or shall become complete. Where indecision is great, as before a dangerous leap, consciousness is agonizingly intense. Feeling, from this point of view, may be likened to a cross-section of the chain of nervous discharge, ascertaining148 the links already laid down, and groping among the fresh ends presented to it for the one which seems best to fit the case.
The phenomena of 'vicarious function' which we studied in Chapter II seems to form another bit of circumstantial evidence. A machine in working order acts fatally in one way. Our consciousness calls this the right way. Take out a valve, throw a wheel out of gear or bend a pivot149, and it becomes a different machine, acting130 just as fatally in another way which we call the wrong way. But the machine itself knows nothing of wrong or right: matter has no ideals to pursue. A locomotive will carry its train through an open drawbridge as cheerfully as to any other destination.
A brain with part of it scooped150 out is virtually a new machine, and during the first days after the operation functions in a thoroughly abnormal manner. As a matter of fact, however its performances become from day to day more normal, until at last a practised eye may be needed to suspect anything wrong. Some of the restoration is undoubtedly151 due to 'inhibitions' passing away. But if the consciousness which goes with the rest of the brain, be there not only in order to take cognizance of each functional152 error, but also to exert an efficient pressure to check it if it be a sin of commission, and to lend a strengthening hand if it be a weakness or sin of omission153, - nothing seems more natural than that the remaining parts, assisted in this way, should by virtue154 of the principle of habit grow back to the old teleological modes of exercise for which they were at first incapacitated. Nothing, on the contrary, seems at first sight more unnatural155 than that they should vicariously take up the duties of a part now lost without those duties as such exerting any persuasive156 or coercive force. At the end of Chapter XXVI I shall return to this again.
There is yet another set of facts which seem explicable on the supposition that consciousness has causal efficacy. It is a well-known fact that pleasures are generally associated with beneficial, pains with detrimental157, experiences. All the fundamental vital processes illustrate158 this law. Starvation, suffocation159, privation of food, drink and sleep, work when exhausted160, burns, wounds, inflammation, the effects of poison, are as disagreeable as filling the hungry stomach, enjoying rest and sleep after fatigue161, exercise after rest, and a sound skin and unbroken bones at all times, are pleasant. Mr. Spencer and others have suggested that these coincidences are due, not to any pre-established harmony, but to the mere action of natural selection which would certainly kill off in the long-run any breed of creatures to whom the fundamentally noxious162 experience seemed enjoyable. An animal that should take pleasure in a feeling of suffocation would, if that pleasure were efficacious enough to make him immerse his head in water, enjoy a longevity163 of four or five minutes. But if pleasures and pains have no efficacy, one does not see (without some such à priori rational harmony as would be scouted164 by the 'scientific' champions of the automaton-theory) why the most noxious acts, such as burning, might not give thrills of delight, and the most necessary ones, such as breathing, cause agony. The exceptions to the law are, it is true, numerous, but relate to experiences that are either not vital or not universal. Drunkenness, for instance, which though noxious, is to many persons delightful165, is a very exceptional experience. But, as the excellent physiologist Fick remarks, if all rivers and springs ran alcohol instead of water, either all men would now be born to hate it or our nerves would have been selected so as to drink it with impunity166. The only considerable attempt, in fact, that has been made to explain the distribution of our feelings is that of Mr. Grant Allen in his suggestive little work Physiological Aesthetics167; and his reasoning is based exclusively on that causal efficacy of pleasures and pains which the 'double-aspect' partisans168 so strenuously169 deny.
Thus, them, from every point of view the circumstantial evidence against that theory is strong. A priori analysis of both brain-action and conscious action shows us that if the latter were efficacious it would, by its selective emphasis, make amends170 for the indeterminateness of the former; whilst the study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering171 a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself. The conclusion that it is useful is, after all this, quite justifiable172. But, if it is useful, it must be so through its causal efficaciousness, and the automaton-theory must succumb173 to the theory of commonsense174. I, at any rate (pending metaphysical reconstructions175 not yet successfully achieved), shall have no hesitation176 in using the language of common-sense throughout this book.
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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5
vacillation
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| n.动摇；忧柔寡断 | |
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6
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
neural
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| adj.神经的，神经系统的 | |
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9
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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10
differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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11
postulate
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| n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定 | |
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12
par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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13
physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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14
gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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15
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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16
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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17
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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18
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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19
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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20
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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21
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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22
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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23
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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24
autonomous
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| adj.自治的；独立的 | |
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25
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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26
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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27
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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28
physiologists
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| n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 )；生理学( physiology的名词复数 )；生理机能 | |
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29
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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30
polemic
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| n.争论，论战 | |
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31
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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32
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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33
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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34
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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35
mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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36
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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37
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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38
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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39
collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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40
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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41
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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42
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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43
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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44
molecular
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| adj.分子的；克分子的 | |
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45
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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46
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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47
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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48
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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49
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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50
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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51
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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52
pigment
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| n.天然色素，干粉颜料 | |
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53
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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54
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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55
amity
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| n.友好关系 | |
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56
subsisting
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的现在分词 ) | |
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57
enunciated
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| v.（清晰地）发音( enunciate的过去式和过去分词 )；确切地说明 | |
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58
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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59
crabbed
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|
| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
erasure
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| n.擦掉，删去；删掉的词；消音；抹音 | |
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61
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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62
vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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63
explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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64
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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65
awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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66
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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67
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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68
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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69
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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70
aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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71
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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72
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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73
interval
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|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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74
tremors
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|
| 震颤( tremor的名词复数 )； 战栗； 震颤声； 大地的轻微震动 | |
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75
irrelevant
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|
| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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76
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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77
denomination
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| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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78
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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79
predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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80
banishes
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的第三人称单数 ) | |
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81
limbo
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| n.地狱的边缘；监狱 | |
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82
inertness
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| n.不活泼，没有生气；惰性；惯量 | |
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83
cerebral
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| adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的 | |
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84
molecules
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| 分子( molecule的名词复数 ) | |
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85
decomposition
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|
| n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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86
retard
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| n.阻止，延迟；vt.妨碍，延迟，使减速 | |
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87
decompose
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|
| vi.分解；vt.（使）腐败，（使）腐烂 | |
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88
binds
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|
| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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89
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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90
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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91
fathomless
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| a.深不可测的 | |
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92
saturate
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| vt.使湿透，浸透；使充满，使饱和 | |
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93
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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94
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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95
tenaciously
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| 坚持地 | |
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96
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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97
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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98
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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99
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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100
affinities
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| n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 )；亲近；（生性）喜爱；类同 | |
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101
abbreviate
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| v.缩写，使...简略，缩短 | |
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102
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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103
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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104
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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105
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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106
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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107
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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108
impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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109
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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110
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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111
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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112
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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113
stewing
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| 炖 | |
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114
statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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115
physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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116
inhibit
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| vt.阻止，妨碍，抑制 | |
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117
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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118
oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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119
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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120
accentuating
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| v.重读( accentuate的现在分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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121
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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122
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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123
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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124
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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125
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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126
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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127
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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128
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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129
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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130
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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131
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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132
forfeits
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| 罚物游戏 | |
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133
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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134
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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135
onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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136
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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137
cognitive
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| adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的 | |
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subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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teleological
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| adj.目的论的 | |
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143
extraneous
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| adj.体外的；外来的；外部的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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abort
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| v.使流产，堕胎；中止；中止(工作、计划等) | |
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ascertaining
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
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pivot
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| v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的 | |
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scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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functional
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| adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的 | |
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omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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detrimental
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| adj.损害的，造成伤害的 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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noxious
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| adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的 | |
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longevity
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| n.长命；长寿 | |
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scouted
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| 寻找，侦察( scout的过去式和过去分词 )； 物色（优秀运动员、演员、音乐家等） | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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167
aesthetics
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| n.(尤指艺术方面之)美学，审美学 | |
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partisans
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| 游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙 | |
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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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170
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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171
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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172
justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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173
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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commonsense
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| adj.有常识的；明白事理的；注重实际的 | |
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reconstructions
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| 重建( reconstruction的名词复数 )； 再现； 重建物； 复原物 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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