Chapter IX (2)

“All the functions which I have attributed to this
machine (the body), as the digestion of food, the
pulsation of the heart and of the arteries; the nutrition
and the growth of the limbs; respiration, wakefulness,
and sleep; the reception of light, sounds, odours,
flavours, heat, and such like qualities, in the organs of
the external senses; the impression of the ideas of these
in the organ of common sensation and in the imagination;
the retention or the impression of these ideas on the
memory: the internal movements of the appetites and the
passions; and lastly the external movements of all the
limbs, which follow so aptly, as well the action of
the objects which are presented to the senses, as the
impressions which meet in the memory, that they imitate
as nearly as possible those of a real man; I desire, I
say, that you should consider that these functions in the
machine naturally proceed from the mere arrangement of
its organs, neither more nor less than do the movements
of a clock, or other automaton, from that of its weights
and its wheels; so that, so far as these are concerned,
it is not necessary to conceive any other vegetative or
sensitive soul, nor any other principle of motion or of
life, than the blood and the spirits agitated by the fire
which burns continually in the heart, and which is no
wise essentially different from all the fires which exist
in inanimate bodies.”

And would Descartes not have been justified in asking why we need deny that animals are machines, when men, in a state of unconsciousness, perform, mechanically, actions as complicated and as seemingly rational as those of any animals?

But though I do not think that Descartes’ hypothesis can be positively refuted, I am not disposed to accept it. The doctrine of continuity is too well established for it to be permissible to me to suppose that any complex natural phenomenon comes into existence suddenly, and without being preceded by simpler modifications; and very strong arguments would be needed to prove that such complex phenomena, as those of consciousness, first make their appearance in man. We know, that, in the individual man, consciousness grows from a dim glimmer to its full light, whether we consider the infant advancing in years, or the adult emerging from slumber and swoon. We know, further, that the lower animals possess, though less developed, that part of the brain which we have every reason to believe to be the organ of consciousness in man; and as, in other cases, function and organ are proportional, so we have a right to conclude it is with the brain; and that the brutes, though they may not possess our intensity of consciousness, and though, from the absence of language, they can have no trains of thoughts, but only trains of feelings, yet have a consciousness which, more or less distinctly, foreshadows our own.

I confess that, in view of the struggle for existence which goes on in the animal world, and of the frightful quantity of pain with which it must be accompanied, I should be glad if the probabilities were in favour of Descartes’ hypothesis; but, on the other hand, considering the terrible practical consequences to domestic animals which might ensue from any error on our part, it is as well to err on the right side, if we err at all, and deal with them as weaker brethren, who are bound, like the rest of us, to pay their toll for living, and suffer what is needful for the general good. As Hartley finely says, “We seem to be in the place of God to them;” and we may justly follow the precedents He sets in nature in our dealings with them.

But though we may see reason to disagree with Descartes’ hypothesis that brutes are unconscious machines, it does not follow that he was wrong in regarding them as automata. They may be more or less conscious, sensitive, automata; and the view that they are such conscious machines is that which is implicitly, or explicitly, adopted by most persons. When we speak of the actions of the lower animals being guided by instinct and not by reason, what we really mean is that, though they feel as we do, yet their actions are the results of their physical organisation. We believe, in short, that they are machines, one part of which (the nervous system) not only sets the rest in motion, and co-ordinates its movements in relation with changes in surrounding bodies, but is provided with special apparatus, the function of which is the calling into existence of those states of consciousness which are termed sensations, emotions, and ideas. I believe that this generally accepted view is the best expression of the facts at present known.

It is experimentally demonstrable—any one who cares to run a pin into himself may perform a sufficient demonstration of the fact—that a mode of motion of the nervous system is the immediate antecedent of a state of consciousness. All but the adherents of “Occasionalism,” or of the doctrine of “Pre-established Harmony” (if any such now exist), must admit that we have as much reason for regarding the mode of motion of the nervous system as the cause of the state of consciousness, as we have for regarding any event as the cause of another. How the one phenomenon causes the other we know, as much or as little, as in any other case of causation; but we have as much right to believe that the sensation is an effect of the molecular change, as we have to believe that motion is an effect of impact; and there is as much propriety in saying that the brain evolves sensation, as there is in saying that an iron rod, when hammered, evolves heat.

As I have endeavoured to show, we are justified in supposing that something analogous to what happens in ourselves takes place in the brutes, and that the affections of their sensory nerves give rise to molecular changes in the brain, which again give rise to, or evolve, the corresponding states of consciousness. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that the emotions of brutes, and such ideas as they possess, are similarly dependent upon molecular brain changes. Each sensory impression leaves behind a record in the structure of the brain—an “ideagenous” molecule, so to speak, which is competent, under certain conditions, to reproduce, in a fainter condition, the state of consciousness which corresponds with that sensory impression; and it is these “ideagenous molecules” which are the physical basis of memory.

It may be assumed, then, that molecular changes in the brain are the causes of all the states of consciousness of brutes. Is there any evidence that these states of consciousness may, conversely, cause those molecular changes which give rise to muscular motion? I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims, and goes through his gymnastic performances quite as well without consciousness, and consequently without volition, as with it; and, if a frog, in his natural state, possesses anything corresponding with what we call volition, there is no reason to think that it is anything but a concomitant of the molecular changes in the brain which form part of the series involved in the production of motion.

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.

This conception of the relations of states of consciousness with molecular changes in the brain—of _psychoses_ with _neuroses_—does not prevent us from ascribing free will to brutes. For an agent is free when there is nothing to prevent him from doing that which he desires to do. If a greyhound chases a hare, he is a free agent, because his action is in entire accordance with his strong desire to catch the hare; while so long as he is held back by the leash he is not free, being prevented by external force from following his inclination. And the ascription of freedom to the greyhound under the former circumstances is by no means inconsistent with the other aspect of the facts of the case—that he is a machine impelled to the chase, and caused, at the same time, to have the desire to catch the game by the impression which the rays of light proceeding from the hare make upon his eyes, and through them upon his brain.

Much ingenious argument has, at various times, been bestowed upon the question: How is it possible to imagine that volition, which is a state of consciousness, and, as such, has not the slightest community of nature with matter in motion, can act upon the moving matter of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do in voluntary acts? But if, as is here suggested, the voluntary acts of brutes—or, in other words, the acts which they desire to perform—are as purely mechanical as the rest of their actions, and are simply accompanied by the state of consciousness called volition, the inquiry, so far as they are concerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions do not enter into the chain of causation of their actions at all.

The hypothesis that brutes are conscious automata is perfectly consistent with any view that may be held respecting the often discussed and curious question whether they have souls or not; and, if they have souls, whether those souls are immortal or not. It is obviously harmonious with the most literal adherence to the text of Scripture concerning “the beast that perisheth;” but it is not inconsistent with the amiable conviction ascribed by Pope to his “untutored savage,” that when he passes to the happy hunting-grounds in the sky, “his faithful dog shall bear him company.” If the brutes have consciousness and no souls, then it is clear that, in them, consciousness is a direct function of material changes; while, if they possess immaterial subjects of consciousness, or souls, then, as consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence of molecular motion of the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.

Thus far I have strictly confined myself to the problem with which I proposed to deal at starting—the automatism of brutes. The question is, I believe, a perfectly open one, and I feel happy in running no risk of either Papal or Presbyterian condemnation for the views which I have ventured to put forward. And there are so very few interesting questions which one is, at present, allowed to think out scientifically—to go as far as reason leads, and stop where evidence comes to an end—without speedily being deafened by the tattoo of “the drum ecclesiastic”—that I have luxuriated in my rare freedom, and would now willingly bring this disquisition to an end if I could hope that other people would go no farther. Unfortunately, past experience debars me from entertaining any such hope, even if

“... that drum’s discordant sound
Parading round and round and round,”

were not, at present, as audible to me, as it was to the mild poet who ventured to express his hatred of drums in general, in that well-known couplet.

It will be said, that I mean that the conclusions deduced from the study of the brutes are applicable to man, and that the logical consequences of such application are fatalism, materialism, and atheism—whereupon the drums will beat the _pas de charge_.

One does not do battle with drummers; but I venture to offer a few remarks for the calm consideration of thoughtful persons, untrammelled by foregone conclusions, unpledged to shore-up tottering dogmas, and anxious only to know the true bearings of the case.

It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, 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 molecular 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 immediate cause of that act. We are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the only intelligible sense of that much-abused term—inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we like—but none the less parts of the great series of causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has been, and shall be—the sum of existence.

As to the logical consequences of this conviction of mine, I may be permitted to remark that logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men. The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves; at most their importance can only justify us in testing with extra care the reasoning process from which they result.

So that if the view I have taken did really and logically lead to fatalism, materialism, and atheism, I should profess myself a fatalist, materialist, and atheist; and I should look upon those who, while they believed in my honesty of purpose and intellectual competency, should raise a hue and cry against me, as people who by their own admission preferred lying to truth, and whose opinions therefore were unworthy of the smallest attention.

But, as I have endeavoured to explain on other occasions, I really have no claim to rank myself among fatalistic, materialistic, or atheistic philosophers. Not among fatalists, for I take the conception of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical foundation; not among materialists, for I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in which to picture that existence; not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.

And if this personal disclaimer should not be enough, let me further point out that a great many persons whose acuteness and learning will not be contested, and whose Christian piety, and, in some cases, strict orthodoxy, are above suspicion, have held more or less definitely the view that man is a conscious automaton.

It is held, for example, in substance, by the whole school of predestinarian theologians, typified by St. Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards—the great work of the latter on the will showing in this, as in other cases, that the growth of physical science has introduced no new difficulties of principle into theological problems, but has merely given visible body, as it were, to those which already existed.

Among philosophers, the pious Geulincx and the whole school of occasionalist Cartesians held this view; the orthodox Leibnitz invented the term “automate spirituel,” and applied it to man; the fervent Christian, Hartley, was one of the chief advocates and best expositors of the doctrine; while another zealous apologist of Christianity in a sceptical age, and a contemporary of Hartley, Charles Bonnet, the Genevese naturalist, has embodied the doctrine in language of such precision and simplicity, that I will quote the little-known passage of his “Essai de Psychologie” at length:—

“ANOTHER HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE MECHANISM OF IDEAS.[55]

“Philosophers accustomed to judge of things by that which
they are in themselves, and not by their relation to
received ideas, would not be shocked if they met with
the proposition that the soul is a mere spectator of
the movements of its body: that the latter performs of
itself all that series of actions which constitutes life:
that it moves of itself: that it is the body alone which
reproduces ideas, compares and arranges them; which forms
reasonings, imagines and executes plans of all kinds,
etc. This hypothesis, though perhaps of an excessive
boldness, nevertheless deserves some consideration.

“It is not to be denied that Supreme Power could create
an automaton which should exactly imitate all the
external and internal actions of man.

“I understand by external actions, all those movements
which pass under our eyes; I term internal actions, all
the motions which in the natural state cannot be observed
because they take place in the interior of the body—such
as the movements of digestion, circulation, sensation,
etc. Moreover, I include in this category the movements
which give rise to ideas, whatever be their nature.

“In the automaton which we are considering everything
would be precisely determined. Everything would occur
according to the rules of the most admirable mechanism:
one state would succeed another state, one operation
would lead to another operation, according to invariable
laws; motion would become alternately cause and effect,
effect and cause; reaction would answer to action, and
reproduction to production.

“Constructed with definite relations to the activity
of the beings which compose the world, the automaton
would receive impressions from it, and, in faithful
correspondence thereto, it would execute a corresponding
series of motions.

“Indifferent towards any determination, it would yield
equally to all, if the first impressions did not, so to
speak, wind up the machine and decide its operations and
its course.

“The series of movements which this automaton could
execute would distinguish it from all others formed on
the same model, but which, not having been placed in
similar circumstances, would not have experienced the
same impressions, or would not have experienced them in
the same order.

“The senses of the automaton, set in motion by the
objects presented to it, would communicate their motion
to the brain, the chief motor apparatus of the machine.
This would put in action the muscles of the hands and
feet, in virtue of their secret connection with the
senses. These muscles, alternately contracted and
dilated, would approximate or remove the automaton from
the objects, in the relation which they would bear to the
conservation or the destruction of the machine.

“The motions of perception and sensation which the
objects would have impressed on the brain, would be
preserved in it by the energy of its mechanism. They
would become more vivid according to the actual condition
of the automaton, considered in itself and relatively to
the objects.

“Words being only the motions impressed on the organ
of hearing and that of voice, the diversity of these
movements, their combination, the order in which they
would succeed one another, would represent judgments,
reasoning, and all the operations of the mind.

“A close correspondence between the organs of the senses,
either by the opening into one another of their nervous
ramifications, or by interposed springs (_ressorts_),
would establish such a connection in their working, that,
on the occasion of the movements impressed on one of
these organs, other movements would be excited, or would
become more vivid in some of the other senses.

“Give the automaton a soul which contemplates its
movements, which believes itself to be the author of
them, which has different volitions on the occasion of
the different movements, and you will on this hypothesis
construct a man.

“But would this man be free? Can the feeling of our
liberty, this feeling which is so clear and so distinct
and so vivid as to persuade us that we are the authors of
our actions, be conciliated with this hypothesis? If it
removes the difficulty which attends the conception of
the action of the soul on the body, on the other hand it
leaves untouched that which meets us in endeavouring to
conceive the action of the body on the soul.”

But if Leibnitz, Jonathan Edwards, and Hartley—men who rank among the giants of the world of thought—could see no antagonism between the doctrine under discussion and Christian orthodoxy, is it not just possible that smaller folk may be wrong in making such a coil about “logical consequences”? And, seeing how large a share of this clamour is raised by the clergy of one denomination or another, may I say, in conclusion, that it really would be well if ecclesiastical persons would reflect that ordination, whatever deep-seated graces it may confer, has never been observed to be followed by any visible increase in the learning or the logic of its subject. Making a man a Bishop, or entrusting him with the office of ministering to even the largest of Presbyterian congregations, or setting him up to lecture to a Church congress, really does not in the smallest degree augment such title to respect as his opinions may intrinsically possess. And, when such a man presumes on an authority which was conferred upon him for other purposes, to sit in judgment upon matters his incompetence to deal with which is patent, it is permissible to ignore his sacerdotal pretensions, and to tell him, as one would tell a mere common, unconsecrated, layman: that it is not necessary for any man to occupy himself with problems of this kind unless he so choose; life is filled full enough by the performance of its ordinary and obvious duties. But that, if a man elect to become a judge of these grave questions; still more, if he assume the responsibility of attaching praise or blame to his fellow-men for the conclusions at which they arrive touching them, he will commit a sin more grievous than most breaches of the Decalogue, unless he avoid a lazy reliance upon the information that is gathered by prejudice and filtered through passion, unless he go back to the prime sources of knowledge—the facts of nature, and the thoughts of those wise men who for generations past have been her best interpreters.