kinds. An electric discharge sent through the body, causes a feeling akin to that which a sudden loud report causes. A strong unexpected impression made through the eye°; as by a Sash of lightning, similarly gives rise to a start or shock; and though the feeling so named seems, like the electric shock, to have the body at large for its seat, and may therefore be regarded as the correlative rather of the efferent than of the afferent disturbance, yet on remembering the mental change that results from the instantaneous transit of an object across the field of vision, I think it may be perceived that the feeling accompanying the efferent disturbance is itself reduced very nearly to the same form. The state of consciousness so generated is, in fact, comparable in quality to the initial state of con- sciousness caused by a blow (distinguishing it from the pain or other feeling that commences the instant after); which state of consciousness caused by a blow, may be taken as the primitive and typical form of the nervous shock. The fact that sudden brief disturbances thus set up by different stimuli through different sets of nerves, cause feelings scarcely distinguishable in quality, will not appear strange when we recollect that distinguishableness of feeling implies appreciable duration; and that when the duration is greatly abridged, nothing more is known than that some mental change has occurred and ceased. To have a sensation of redness, to know a tone as acute or grave, to be conscious of a taste as sweet, implies in each case a considerable con- tinuity of state. If the state does not last long enough to admit of its being contemplated, it cannot be classed as of this or that kind; and becomes a momentary modification very similar to momentary modifications otherwise caused.
It is possible, then — may we not even say ^probable — that something j)f the.same order as that which we call a neryousi sho^k is the ultimate unit of consciousness; and^tti£^all the uSikenesses among our feelings result from unlike modes of integration of this ultimate unit, I say of the same?
152 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
order, because there are discernible differences among nervous shocks that are differently caused; and the primi- tive nervous shock probably differs somewhat from each of them. And I say of the same order for the further reason, that while we may ascribe to them a general likeness in nature we must suppose a great unlikeness in degree. The nervous shocks recognized as such, are violent — must be violent before they can be perceived amid the pro- cession of multitudinous vivid feelings suddenly interrupted by them. But the rapidly-recurring nervous shocks of which the different forms of feeling consist, we must assume to be of comparatively moderate, or even of very slight, intensity. Were our various sensations and emotions com- posed of rapidly-recurring shocks as strong as those ordi- narily called shocks, they would be unbearable: indeed life would cease at once. We must think of them rather as successive faint pulses of subjective change, each having the same quality as the strong pulse of subjective change distinguished as a nervous shock.
The reader will at once see, if he has not already seen, the complete congruity between this view and the known ; character of nerve-action. As pointed out in § 33, experi- [ ments show that the so-called nerve-current is mtermittent — consists of waves which follow one another from the place where the disturbance arises to the place where its effect is felt. The external stimulus in no case acts continuously on the sentient centre, but sends to it a series of pulses of molecular motion. Hence, in concluding that the subjective effect j>r feeling, is composed of rapidly-recurring mental i shocks, we simply conclude that it corresponds with the objective cause — the rapidly-recurring shocks of molecular change. Our typical case of musical sound well exhibits :<the agreement. We have a single aerial wave, a single t movement of the drum of the ear, a single impact on the expansion of the auditory nerve, a single wave propagated to the auditory centre., and a single shock of feeling known THE SUBSTANCE OF MIND. 153 as a crack or a report; and then, when there is externally generated a succession of such aerial waves, each working its individual physical effect on the auditory structures, and its individual psychical effect as a kind of shock, we see that if the recurrent physical effects exceed a certain speed, the recurrent psychical effects are consolidated into a sensa- tion of tone. So that here the nerve pulses and the pulses r of feeling clearly answer to one another; and it can scarcely •• be doubted that they do so throughout.* We must not omit a further indirect evidence equally unlooked for and striking. A conceivable solution is af- forded by this hypothesis of two problems which, in its absence, seem entirely insoluble. How is it.possible for * Though, in the cases of the other sensations, it is equally certain that the disturbances propagated through the afferent and centripetal nerves are i liter mitten t, yet we cannot in the same way trace the genesis of the suc- cessive waves. A tolerably good clue to their mode of genesis, is, however, furnished by th^ ^action of light on the retina. Possibly it will be antici- pated that I am about to assign the rapidly-recurring pulses of the etherial medium, as the causes of pulses recurring with equal rapidity in the optic nerves; but I am far from intending to do this. Neither the velocities of the nerve-waves, nor the intervals between the nerve-waves, would yield the least countenance to such an interpretation; even were it reconcilable with the principles of physics. Undulating molecules of ether acting on the immeasurably-heavier undulating molecules of matter, can work ap- preciable changes in them only by accumulation of minute effects. If certain etherial undulations correspond in rate with the undulations of some molecule of matter united with others into a compound; then this molecule may, by a long succession of etherial impacts, have its oscillations so in- creased in their sweep as to cause detachment of it, and consequent decomposition of the compound molecule (Principles of Biology, § 13). But for the effects of etherial impacts to be thus accumulated, time is required; and appreciable time is experimentally shown to be taken by the decom- positions which light effects. Hence, then, a ray of light falling on one of the sensitive elements of the retina, may be supposed to decompose now one unstable molecule and now another, at intervals very long as compared with those of the etherial undulations, though very short as estimated by cur measures; and the decomposition of each molecule may be supposed to send along a connected nerve-fibre, the wave of molecular change which, under its subjective aspect as a nervous shock, becomes the unit of composition of the sensation called light THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
Ifeelings so different in quality as those of heat, of taste, of colour, of tone, &c., to arise in nervous centres closely allied i; to OHG another in composition and structure? And how, in i:!the course of evolution, can there have been gradually ' differentiated these wideiy-unlike orders, and genera, and : species, of feelings? Possible answers are at once supplied I if we assume that diverse feelings are produced by diverse i1: nodes, and decrees, and complexities, of integration of the I alleged ultimate unit of consciousness. If each wave of 1 molecular morion brought by a nerve-fibre to a nervej centre, has for its correlative a shock or pulse of feeling; then we can comprehend how distinguishable differences of feeling may arise from differences in the rates of recur- rence of the waves, and we can frame a general idea of the way in which, by the arrival through other fibres, of waves recurring at other rates, compound _. waves of molecular motion may be formed, and give rise to units of compound feelings: which process of compounding of waves and pro- duction of correspondingly-compounded feelings, we may .imagine to be carried on without limit, and to produce any ^amount of heterogeneity of feelings. After recognizing this possibility, the visible likenesses of nervous centres that are the seats of different feelings, cease to be mysterious; since the structures of these nervous centres need differ only as much as is requisite to produce different combinations of the waves of molecular motion. Similarly, there dis- l appears the difficulty of understanding how the multitu- dinous diverse forms of feeling have been evolved from a ^primitive simple sensibility; since complications of the fniolecular motions, and concomitant feelings, must have gone onpari passu with correlative complications of minute structures, organized little by little.
§ 61. The nature of Mind as thus conceived, will be elucidated By comparing it with the: ^atnre^pf 'JSfetterj and the fact that a parallelism exists between that which THE SUBSTANCE OF MIND. 155 chemists have established respecting Matter and that which we here suppose respecting Mind, will help to justify the conception.
Multitudinous substances that seem to be homogeneous and simple, prove to be really heterogeneous and com- pound; and many that appear wholly unrelated are shown by analysis to be near akin. Here is a group of them quite different in their apparent characters, which have an essen- tial component in common. Here is another group simi- larly held together by the universal presence of some other component. And then these seemingly-different substances each characterizing a different group, turn out them- selves to contain an element common to the two. For instance, there is a large class of salts formed by sulphuric acid; another large class formed by nitric acid; another by acetic acid; and so on. And these acids, along with many others, are all discovered to have oxygen for their active constituent. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that the so-called simple substances are them- selves compound; and that there is but one ultimate form of Matter, qut_of which the successively-more, ^complex: forins_.of, Matter are built up. By the different grouping of units, and by the combination of the unlike groups each with its own kind and each with other kinds, it is supposed that there have been produced the kinds of matter we call elementary; just as, by further compositions simi- larly carried on, these produce further varieties and com- plexities. And this supposition the phenomena of allo- tropisrn go far to justify, by showing us that the same mass of molecules assumes quite different properties when the. mode o£ aggregation.is changed.
If, then, we see that by unlike arrangements of like units, all the forms of Matter, apparently so diverse in nature, \ may be produced — if, even without assuming that the so- I called elements are compound, we remember how from a few \ of these there may arise by transformation and by conibina- \ L56 THE. INDUCTIONS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
tion numerous seemingly-simple substances, strongly con- trasted with their constituents and with one another; we shall the better conceive the possibility that the. nmlti- ? tudinous forms of Mind known as different feelings, may be composed of simpler units of feeling, and even of units fundamentally of one kind. We shall perceive that such homogeneous units of feeling may, by integration in diverse ways, give origin to different though relatively- simple feel- ings; by combination of which with one another more com- plex and more unlike feelings may arise; and so on con- tinuously.
Here, indeed, it may be added that scnne thing beyond i analogy may perhaps exist between the methods of material and jtnental evolution. When we recal the fact that mole- • cules are never at rest, and that by carrying their individual rhythmical motions into the compound molecules formed of them, they produce compound rhythms — when we recollect the extreme complexity of the molecules of nervous matter, and imagine how various and involved must be the rhythms of which they are the seats — when, further, we infer the count- less modifications of rhythms that must under such conditions ^ become possible; we shall dimly see a fitness of molecular structure for originating, and being affe~cte"dHby, the diver- sities and complications of molecular pulses above described. 'i We shall suspect that there may be here a further corre- I spondence between a known cause of physical heterogeneity vand the supposed cause of psychical heterogeneity.
§ 62. While reading the last two sections, some will perhaps have thought that they stand in direct contra- diction to the section preceding them. After alleging that the substance of Mind cannot be known, an attempt is forthwith made to show that Mind is, certainly in some cases and probably in all, resolvable into nervous shocks; and that these nervous shocks answer to the waves of molecular motion that traverse nerves aiid nerve-centres.- THE SUBSTANCE OP MTND. 157 Thus not only is the substance of Mind supposed to he knowable as having this universal character, but it is closely assimilated to, if not identified with, nervous change.
The alarm is groundless however. The foregoing reason- ing brings us no nearer to a solution of the final question. Even could we succeed in proving that Mind consists of homogeneous units of feeling of the nature specified, we should be unable to say what Mj&d is; just as we should' be unable to say what Matter is, could we succeed in de- composing it into those ultimate homogeneous units of which it is not improbably composed. In the one case, as in; the other, the ultimate unit must remain, for the reasons as- 1 signed at the outset, absolutely unknown. The reduction of 1 all the more complex forms to the simplest form, leaves us * with nothing but this simplest form as the term out of which to frame thought; and thought cannot be framed out of one term. only. Representation and re-representation of this ultimate unit of consciousness in terms of itself, loaves us at last just where we were at first. And repre- sentation of it in any other terms involves a contradiction.; For to think of it as having some assigned nature, is to think of it in some other mode of consciousness; in which case such other mode of consciousness cannot have this unit of consciousness for its component, which is contrary to the hypothesis.
When the two modes of Being which we distinguish as Subject and Object, have been severally reduced to their lowest terms, any further comprehension must be an assimila- tion of these lowest terms to one another; and, as we have already seen, this is negatived by the very distinction of Sub- ject and Object, which is itself the consciousness of a differ- ence transcending all other differences. So far from helping; us to think of them as of one kind, analysis serves but tc| render more manifest the impossibility of finding for them a! common concept — a thought under which they can be united.
153 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
, Let it be granted that all existence distinguished as ol>- i jeetive, may be resolved into the existence of units of one kind. Let it be granted that every species of objective activity, may be understood as due to the rhythmical motions of such ultimate units; and that among the objective ac- tivities so understood,, are the waves of molecular motion propagated through nerves and nerve-centres. And let it further be granted that all existence distinguished as sub- jective^ is resolvable into units of consciousness similar in nature to those which we know as nervous shocks; each of which is the correlative of a rhythmical motion of a material : unit, or group of such units. Can we then think of the sub- jective and objective activities as the same? Can the oscil- r lation of a molecule be represented in consciousness side by • side with a nervous shock,, and the two be recognized as 1 I one? No effort enables us to assimilate them. That a unit of feeling has nothing in common with a unit of motion, be- comes more than ever manifest when we bring the two into juxtaposition. And the immediate verdict of consciousness thus given, might be analytically justified were this a fit place for the needful analysis. For it might be shown that the conception of an oscillating molecule is built out of many 1 units of feeling; and that to identify it with a nervous shock j would be to identify a whole congeries of units with a single unit.
1 § 63. Here, indeed,, we arrive at the barrier which needs to , be perpetually pointed out; alike to those who seek mate- rialistic explanations of mental phenomena, and to those who ]; are alarmed lest such explanations may be found. The last 'i class prove by their fear, almost as much as the first prove by i' ' their hope, that they believe Mind may possibly be inter- «j preted in terms of Matter; whereas many whom they vitu- Ji perate as materialists, are profoundly convinced that there is not the remotest possibility of_ so interpreting "them.
1 • '-ForTEose who, not deterred by foregone conclusions, have \ THE SUBSTANCE OF MIND. 159 pushed tlieir analyses to the uttermost, see very clearly that the concept we form to ourselves of Matter, is but the symbol of some form of Power absolutely and for ever un- known to us; and a symbol which we cannot suppose to be like the reality without involving ourselves in contradictions (First Principles, § 16). They also see that the representa- tion of all objective activities in terms of Motion,, is but a re- presentation of them and not a knowledge of them; and that we are immediately brought to alternative absurdities if we assume the Power manifested to us as Motion,, to be in itself that which we conceive as Motion (First Prin- ciples, § 1 7). "When with these conclusions that Matter and Motion as we think them are but symbolic of unknowable?; forms of existence, we join the conclusion lately reached that Mind also is unknowable, and that the simplest form under which Yvre can think of its substance is but a symbol of some-: thing that can never be rendered into thought; we see tliat£ the whole question is at last nothing more than the question, whether these symbols should be expressed in terms of those or those in terms of these — a.question scarcely worth de-t ciding; since either answer leaves us as completely outside f, of the reality as we were at first.
Nevertheless, it may be as well to say here, once for all, \ that were we compelled to choose between the alternatives of' translating mental phenomena into physical phenomena, or of translating physical phenomena into mental phenomena,, the latter alternative would seem the more acceptable of the two. Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circum- scribed aggregate of activities; and the cohesion of these ac- tivities, one with another, throughout the aggregate, corn- pels the postulation of a something of which they are the activities. But the same experiences which make him aware of this coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously make him aware of activities that are not included in it — outlying activities which become known by tlieir effects on this aggregate, but which are experimentally 1GO THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
proved to "be not coherent -with it, and to be colierent with one another (First Principles, §§ 43., 44). As, by the defi- nition of them, these external activities cannot be brought within the aggregate of activities distinguished as those of Mind,, they must for ever remain to him nothing more than the unknown correlatives of their effects on this aggregate; and can be thought of only in terms furnished by this aggre- gate. Hence, if he regards his conceptions of these activities lying beyond Mind, as constituting knowledge of them,, he is I deluding himself: he is but representing these activities in [terms of Mind, and can never do otherwise. Eventually he •*^is obliged to admit that his ideas of Matter and Motion, I merely symbolic of unknowable realities, are complex states \of consciousness built out of units of feeling. But if, after admitting this, he persists in asking whether units of feeling are of the same nature as the units of force distinguished as external, or whether the units of force distinguished as external are of the same nature as units of feeling; then the reply, still substantially the same, is that we may go farther towards conceiving units of external force to be identical with units of feeling, than we can towards conceiving units of feeling to be identical with units of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are regarded as abso- lutely unknown and unknowable, then to translate units of feeling into them is to translate the known into the unknown., which is absurd* And if they are what they are supposed to be by those who identify them with their symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of feeling into them is insur- mountable: if Force as it objectively exists is absolutely alien in nature from that which exists subjectively as Feeling, then the transformation of Force into Feeling is unthinkable. Either way, therefore, it is impossible to Interpret inner existence in terms of..outer existence. But ;|if, on the*1 other hand, units of Force as they exist ob- jectively, are essentially the same in nature with those mani- fested subjectively as units of Feeling; then a ccmcej^ablo THE SUBSTANCE OP MIND. 16] hypothesis remains open. Every element of that aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness, is known as be- longing to consciousness only "by its cohesion with the rest. Beyond the limits of this coherent aggregate of activities; exist- activities quite independent of it, and which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine., then, that by their exclusion from the circumscribed activities constituting consciousness, these outer activities, though of the same intrinsic nature, become antithetically opposed in aspect. Being disconnected from consciousness, or cut off by its limits, they are thereby rendered foreign to it. Not being incorporated with its activities, or linked -with these as they are with one another, consciousness cannot, as it were, run through them; and so they come to be figured as unconscious — are symbolized as having the nature called material as opposed to that called spiritual. While, however, it thus seems an imaginable possibility that units of external Force may be identical in nature with units of the force known as Feeling,, yet we cannot by so representing them get any nearer to a comprehension of external Force. For, as already shown, supposing all forms of Mind to be composed of homogeneous units of feeling variously aggregated, the resolution of them into such units leaves us as unable as before to think of the substance of Mind as it exists in such units; and thus, even could we really figure to ourselves all units of external Force as being essentially like units of the force known as Feeling, and as so constituting a imi- i versa! sentiency, we should be as far as ever from forming a conception of that, which is inmTersaily sentient.
Hence though of the two it seems easier to translate so- called Matter into so-called Spirit, than to translate so- called Spirit into so-called Matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly impossible); yet no translation can carry us beyond our symbols. Such vague conceptions as loom before us are illusions conjured up by the wrong connotations of our words. The expression " substance of Mind/; if we use it M 162 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
in any other way than as tlie x of our equation, inevitably I betrays us into errors; for we cannot think of substance I save in terms that imply material properties. Our only I course is constantly to recognize our symbols as symbols 1 only; and to rest content with that duality of them which \ pur constitution necessitates. The Unknowable as mani- fested to us within the limits of consciousness in the shape of Feeling, being no less inscrutable than The Unknowable as manifested beyond the limits of consciousness in other shapes, we approach no nearer to understanding the last by rendering it into the first. The conditioned form under which Being is presentee! in the Subject, cannot, any more than the conditioned foim under which Being is presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to CHAPTER IL CHAPTER IL THE COMPOSITION OF MIND.
§ 6-1. In the last chapter we incidentally encroached on the topic to which this chapter is to be devoted. Certain apparently-simple feelings were shown to be compounded of units of feeling; whence it was inferred that possibly, if not probably, feelings of other classes are similarly compounded. And in thus treating of the composition of feelings, we, by implication, treated of the composition of Mind., of which feelings are themselves components.
Here, however, leaving speculations about the ultimate composition of Mind, we pass to observations on its proxi- mate composition. Accepting as really simple those con- stituents of Mind which are not decomposable by introspec- tion, we have to consider what are their fundamental distinctive characters, and what are the essential principles of arrangement among them.
§ 65. The proximate components of Mind are of two | broadly-contrasted kinds — Peelings, and B the Relations I between feelings. Among the members of each group there f exist multitudinous unlikenesses, many of which are ex- tremely strong; but such unlikenesses are small compared with those which distinguish members of the one group from members of the other. Let us, in the first place, con- sider what are the characters which all Peelings have in "^'^ ' " " '•-• ' '"'"':" " M 2 1(14 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
com TO on, and what arc the characters which, all Relations between feelings have in common.