" To acquire a just idea of the operations from which thought results, we must consider the brain as a particular organ specially destined to produce it; just as the stomach and intestines are destined to operate digestion, the liver to filter bile, the pa- rotid and maxillary glands to prepare the salivary juices. The impressions, arriving in the brain, force it to enter into activity; just as the alimen- tary materials, falling into the stomach, excite it to a more abundant secretion of gastric juice, and to the movements which result in their own solution. The function proper to the first organ is that of re- ceiving \_fiercevoir] each particular impression, of attaching signs to it, of combining the different im- pressions, of comparing them with each other, of drawing from them judgments and resolves; just as the function of the other organ is to act upon the nutritive substances whose presence excites it, Notes 55 to dissolve them, and to assimilate their juices to our nature.
"Do you say that the organic movements by which the brain exercises these functions are un- known? I reply that the action by which the nerves of the stomach determine the different oper- ations which constitute digestion, and the manner in which they confer so active a solvent power upon the gastric juice, are equally hidden from our scru- tiny. We see the food-materials fall into this vis- cus with their own proper qualities; we see them emerge with new qualities, and we infer that the stomach is really the author of this alteration. Similarly we see the impressions reaching the brain by the intermediation of the nerves; they then are isolated and without coherence. The viscus en- ters into action; it acts upon them, and soon it emits \renvoie\ them metamorphosed into ideas, to which the language of physiognomy or gesture, or the signs of speech and writing, give an outward expression. We conclude, then, with an equal certitude, that the brain digests, as it were, the im- pressions; that it performs organically the secre- tion of thought." {Rapports du Physique et du Moral, 8th edition, 1844, P- I37-] It is to the ambiguity of the word ' impression * that such an account owes whatever plausibility it may seem to have. More recent forms of the pro- 56 Notes duction-theory have shown a tendency to liken thought to a 1 force; which the brain exerts, or to a 6 state ' into which it passes. Herbert Spencer, for instance, writes: — " The law of metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces, holds equally between them and the mental forces...How this metamor- phosis takes place; how a force existing as mo- tion, heat, or light can become a mode of con- sciousness; how it is possible for aerial vibrations to generate the sensation we call sound, or for the forces liberated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise to emotion, — these are mysteries which it is impossible to fathom. But they are not profounder mysteries than the transformations of the physical forces into each other." [First Principles, 2nd Edition, p. 217.]
So Biichner says: u Thinking must be regarded as a special mode of general natural motion, which is as characteristic of the substance of the central nervous elements as the motion of contraction is of the nerve-substance, or the motion of light is of the universal-ether...That thinking is and must be a mode of motion is not merely a postulate of logic, but a proposition which has of late been demonstrated experimentally...Various ingen- ious experiments have proved that the swiftest thought that we are able to evolve occupies at least Notes 57 the eighth or tenth part of a second." [Force and Matter^ New York, 1891, p. 241.]
Heat and light, being modes of motion, 'phos- phorescence ' and ' incandescence ' are phenomena to which consciousness has been likened by the production-theory: "As one sees a metallic rod, placed in a glowing furnace, gradually heat itself, and — as the undulations of the caloric grow more and more frequent — pass successively from the shades of bright red to dark red (sic)) to white, and develope, as its temperature rises, heat and light, — so the living sensitive cells, in presence of the incitations that solicit them, exalt themselves progressively as to their most interior sensibility, enter into a phase of erethism, and at a certain number of vibrations, set free (degagent) pain as a physiological expression of this same sensibility superheated to a red-white." [J. Luys: le Cer- veau, p. 91.]
In a similar vein Mr. Percival Lowell writes: " When we have, as we say, an idea, what happens inside of us is probably something like this: the neural current of molecular change passes up the nerves, and through the ganglia reaches at last the cortical cells...When it reaches the cor- tical cells, it finds a set of molecules which are not so accustomed to this special change. The cur- rent encounters resistance, and in overcoming this 5§ Notes resistance it causes the cells to glow. This white- heating of the cells we call consciousness. Con- sciousness, in short, is probably nerve-glow." [Oc- cult Japan, Boston, 1895, p. 311.]
Note 5, page 23.
The transmission - theory connects itself very naturally with that whole tendency of thought known as transcendentalism. Emerson, for exam- ple, writes: " We lie in the lap of immense intelli- gence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams." [Self-Reliance, p. 56.] But it is not necessary to identify the con- sciousness postulated in the lecture, as preexisting behind the scenes, with the Absolute Mind of tran- scendental Idealism, although, indeed, the notion of it might lead in that direction. The absolute Mind of transcendental Idealism is one integral Unit, one single World-mind. For the purposes of my lec- ture, however, there might be many minds behind the scenes as well as one. All that the transmis- sion-theory absolutely requires is that they should transcend our minds, — which thus come from something mental that pre-exists, and is larger than themselves.
Notes 59 Note 6, page 24.
Fechner's conception of a ( psycho - physical threshold ' as connected with his i wave-scheme ' is little known to English readers. I accordingly subjoin it, in his own words, abridged: — " The psychically one is connected with a physi- cally many; the physically many contract psychi- cally into a one, a simple, or at least a more sim- ple. Otherwise expressed: the psychically unified and simple are resultants of physical multiplicity; the physically manifold gives unified or simple re- sults..."The facts which are grouped together under these expressions, and which give them their mean- ing, are as follows:...With our two hemispheres we think singly; with the identical parts of our two retinae we see singly...The simplest sensation of light or sound in us is connected with processes which, since they are started and kept up by outer oscillations, must themselves be somehow of an oscillatory nature, although we are wholly unaware of the separate phases and oscillations...
" It is certain, then, that some unified or sim- ple psychic resultants depend on physical multipli- city. But, on the other hand, it is equally certain that the multiplicities of the physical world do not always combine into a simple psychical resultant, 6o Notes — no, not even when they are compounded in a single bodily system. Whether they may not nev- ertheless combine into a unified resultant is a matter for opinion, since one is always free to ask Whether the entire world, as such, may not have some unified psychic resultant. But of any such resultant we at least have no consciousness..." For brevity's sake, let us distinguish psycho- physical continuity and discontinuity from each other. Continuity, let us say, takes place so far as a physical manifold gives a unified or simple psy- chic resultant; discontinuity, so far as it gives a distinguishable multiplicity of such resultants. In- asmuch, however, as, within the unity of a more general consciousness or phenomenon of conscious- ness, there still maybe a multiplicity distinguished, the continuity of a more general consciousness does not exclude the discontinuity of particular phenomena, " One of the most important problems and tasks of Psycho-physics now is this: to determine the conditions (Gesichtspunkte) under which the cases of continuity and of discontinuity occur.
" Whence comes it that different organisms have separate consciousnesses, although their bodies are just as much connected by general Nature as the parts of a single organism are with each other, and these latter give a single conscious re- Notes 61 sultant? Of course we can say that the connec- tion is more intimate between the parts of an organism than between the organisms of Nature. But what do we mean by a more intimate connec- tion? Can an absolute difference of result depend on anything so relative? And does not Nature as a whole show as strict a connection as any organism does, — yea, one even more indissoluble? And the same questions come up within each organism. How comes it that, with different nerve-fibres of touch and sight, we distinguish different space- points, but with one fibre distinguish nothing, although the different fibres are connected in the brain just as much as the parts are in the single fibre? We may again call the latter connection the more intimate^ but then the same sort of ques- tion will arise again.
" Unquestionably the problem which here lies before Psycho - physics cannot be sharply an- swered; but we may establish a general point of view for its treatment, consistently with what we laid down in a former chapter on the relations of more general with more particular phenomena of consciousness."
[The earlier passage is here inserted:] " The essential principle is this: That human psycho- physical activity must exceed a certain intensity for any waking consciousness at all to occur, and 62 Notes that during the waking state any particular specify cation of the said activity (whether spontaneous or due to stimulation), which is capable of occasion- ing a particular specification of consciousness, must exceed in its turn a certain further degree of inten- sity for the consciousness actually to arise...
" This state of things (in itself a mere fact need- ing no picture) may be made clearer by an image or scheme, and also more concisely spoken of. Imagine the whole psycho-physical activity of man to be a wave, and the degree of this activity to be symbolized by the height of the wave above a hori- zontal basal line or surface, to which every psycho- physically active point contributes an ordinate...The whole form and evolution of the conscious- ness will then depend on the rising and falling of this wave; the intensity of the consciousness at any time on the wave's height at that time; and the height must always somewhere exceed a certain limit, which we will call a threshold^ if waking con- sciousness is to exist at all.
" Let us call this wave the total wave, and the threshold in question the principal threshold" [Since our various states of consciousness recur, some in long, some in short periods], "we may represent such a long period as that of the slowly fluctuating condition of our general wakefulness and the general direction of our attention as a wave Notes 63 Notes 63 that slowly changes the place of its summit. If we call this the under-wave, then the movements of shorter period, on which the more special con- scious states depend, can be symbolized by wave- lets superposed upon the under-wave, and we can call these over-waves. They will cause all sorts of modifications of the under-wave's surface, and the total wave will be the resultant of both sets of waves.
"The greater, now, the strength of the move- ments of short period, the amplitude of the oscil- lations of the psycho-physical activity, the higher will the crests of the wavelets that represent them rise above, and the lower will their valleys sink be- low the surface of the under-wave that bears them. And these heights and depressions must exceed a certain limit of quantity which we may call the upper threshold, before the special mental state which is correlated with them can appear in con- sciousness " [pp. 454-456].
" So far now as we symbolize any system of psy- cho-physical activity, to which a generally unified or principal consciousness corresponds, by the image of a total wave rising with its crest above a certain 6 threshold/ we have a means of schematizing in a single diagram the physical solidarity of all these psycho-physical systems throughout Nature, to- gether with their pyscho - physical discontinuity.
64 Notes For we need only draw all the waves so that they run into each other below the threshold, whilst above it they appear distinct, as in the figure be- low.
a be A " In this figure b, c stand for three organisms, or rather for the total waves of psycho-physical ac- tivity of three organisms, whilst A B represents the threshold. In each wave the part that rises above the threshold is an integrated thing, and is con- nected with a single consciousness. Whatever lies below the threshold, being unconscious, separates the conscious crests, although it is still the means of physical connection.
" In general terms: wherever a psycho-physical total wave is continuous with itself above the threshold, there we find the unity or identity of a consciousness, inasmuch as the connection of the psychical phenomena which correspond to the parts of the wave also appears in consciousness. When- ever, on the contrary, total waves are disconnected, or connected only underneath the threshold, the corresponding consciousness is broken, and no con- nection between its several parts appears. More briefly: consciousness is continuous or discontinu- Notes 65 ous, unified or discrete, according as the psycho- physical total waves that subserve it are them- selves continuous or discontinuous above the threshold...
" If, in the diagram, we should raise the entire line of waves so that not only the crests but the valleys appeared above the threshold, then these latter would appear only as depressions in one great continuous wave above the threshold, and the discontinuity of the consciousness would be con- verted into continuity. We of course cannot bring this about. We might also squeeze the wave to- gether so that the valleys should be pressed up, and the crests above the threshold flow into a line; then the discretely-feeling organisms would have become a singly - feeling organism. This, again, Man cannot voluntarily bring about, but it is brought about in Man's nature. His two halves, the right one and the left one, are thus united; and the number of segments of radiates and articulates show that more than two parts can be thus psycho- physically conjoined. One need only cut them asunder, i. e. interpolate another part of nature between them under the threshold, and they break into two separately conscious beings."...\Ele- mente der Psychophysik, i860, vol. ii. pp. 526- 530-] One sees easily how, on Fechner's wave-scheme, 66 Notes a world-soul may be expressed. All psycho-phy- sical activity being continuous 'below the thresh- old,' the consciousness might also become contin- uous if the threshold sank low enough to uncover all the waves. The threshold throughout nature in general is, however, very high, so the conscious- ness that gets over it is of the discontinuous form.
Note 7, page 25.
See the long series of articles by Mr. Myers in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, beginning in the third volume with automatic writ- ing, and ending in the latest volumes with the higher manifestations of knowledge by mediums. Mr. Myers's theory of the whole range of pheno- mena is, that our normal consciousness is in con- tinuous connection with a greater consciousness of which we do not know the extent, and to which he gives, in its relation to the particular person, the not very felicitous name — though no better one has been proposed — of his or her 6 subliminal ' self.
Note 8, page 29.
See Kritik der reinen Vernunft, second edition, p. 809.
Note 9, page 29.
I subjoin a few extracts from Mr. Schiller's work: " Matter is an admirably calculated machin- Notes 67 ery for regulating, limiting, and restraining, the; consciousness which it encases...If the mate- rial encasement be coarse and simple, as in the lower organisms, it permits only a little intelligence to permeate through it; if it is delicate and com- plex, it leaves more pores and exits, as it were, for the manifestations of consciousness...On this analogy, then, we may say that the lower ani- mals are still entranced in the lower stage of brute lethargy^ while we have passed into the higher phase of somnambulism, which already permits us strange glimpses of a lucidity that divines the real- ities of a transcendent world. And this gives the final answer to Materialism: it consists in showing in detail...that Materialism is a hysteron prote- ron, a putting of the cart before the horse, which may be rectified by just inverting the connection between Matter and Consciousness. Matter is not that which produces Consciousness, but that which limits it, and confines its intensity within certain limits: material organization does not construct consciousness out of arrangements of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits. This explanation...admits the con- nection of Matter and Consciousness, but contends that the course of interpretation must proceed in the contrary direction. Thus it will fit the facts alleged in favor of Materialism equally well, be- 68 Notes teic^ enabling us to understand facts which Mate- Wmsm rejected as ' supernatural.' It explains the lower by the higher, Matter by Spirit, instead of vice versa, and thereby attains to an explanation which is ultimately tenable, instead of one which is ultimately absurd. And it is an explanation the possibility of which no evidence in favor of Mate- rialism can possibly affect. For if, e. g., a man loses consciousness as soon as his brain is injured, it is clearly as good an explanation to say the injury to the brain destroyed the mechanism by which the manifestation of the consciousness was rendered possible, as to say that it destroyed the seat of consciousness. On the other hand, there are facts which the former theory suits far better. If, e.g., as sometimes happens, the man, after a time, more or less, recovers the faculties of which the injury to his brain had deprived him, and that not in consequence of a renewal of the injured part, but in consequence of the inhibited functions being performed by the vicarious action of other parts, the easiest explanation certainly is that, after a time, consciousness constitutes the remaining parts into a mechanism capable of acting as a substitute for the lost parts. And again, if the body is a mechanism for inhibiting consciousness, for prevent- ing the full powers of the Ego from being prema- turely actualized, it will be necessary to invert also Notes 69 our ordinary ideas on the subject of memory, and to account for forgetfulness instead of for mem- ory. It will be during life that we drink the bitter cup of Lethe, it will be with our brain that we are enabled to forget. And this will serve to explain not only the extraordinary memories of the drown- ing and the dying generally, but also the curious hints which experimental psychology occasionally affords us that nothing is ever forgotten wholly and beyond recall." \_Riddles of the Sphinx^ Lon- don, Swan Sonnenschein, 1891, p. 293 fL] Mr. Schiller's conception is much more com- plex in its relations than the simple 'theory of transmission ' postulated in my lecture, and to do justice to it the reader should consult the original work.
Note 10, page 39.
I beg the reader to peruse R. L. Stevenson's magnificent little essay entitled 'The Lantern Bearers,' reprinted in the collection entitled Across the Plains. The truth is that we are doomed, by the fact that we are practical beings with very limited tasks to attend to, and special ideals to look after, to be absolutely blind and insensible to the inner feelings, and to the whole inner sig- nificance of lives that are different from our own. Our opinion of the worth of such lives is abso- 70 Notes 70 Notes iutely wide of the mark, and unfit to be counted at all.
Note ii, page 41.
W. Wundt: System der Philosophies Leipzig, Engelmann, 1889, p. 315.
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