MATERIALISM OR IMMATERIALISM?

BY G. H. LEWIS.

                Comte remarks—and the remark is immensely significant—that the discovery of gravitation, the first great acquisition of positive Physics, was contemporaneous with the discovery of the circulation of the blood—the first fact which rendered positive Biology possible; and yet what immense inequality in the progress of the two sciences since that day, when the starting point of both was reached! Nor is this inequality solely and directly owing to the greater complexity of Biology; but also to the philosophic method which presided over the evolution of Physics, compared with the vague metaphysical method which has not yet ceased in Biology—a consequence, let me add, of that very complexity. No one inquires into the nature of gravitation, or into its cause; to detect its law is deemed sufficient; but physiologists are incessantly inquiring into the nature and cause of contractility and sensibility, unable as they are to conceive these phenomena as two ultimate facts—properties of two special tissues. The only distinction to be drawn between these vital properties and the general physical properties is, that they are more special; but this speciality does not make them more explicable, for it is always in exact harmony with the corresponding specialty of the structure: it is only muscular tissue that presents the phenomenon of contractility (or, more rigorously stated, it is only fibrine); it is only nervous tissue that presents the phenomenon of sensibility. All those physical and chemical hypotheses that have been invented to explain contractility and sensibility have been as unphilosophic as the ancient efforts to explain gravitation and chemical affinity. For, as Comte truly says, after all they only represent vaguely the mechanical transmission of impressions produced on the nervous extremities, but do not in any degree explain perception, which thus remains evidently untouched, although it is really the most essential element of sensation.

            A certain vague sense of the vanity of these attempts to explain the phenomena of sensation has caused an indignant reaction on the part of the metaphysicians, and by enlisting the prejudices of the majority against what is styled Materialism, has very seriously obstructed the tranquil path of inquiry. Every one feels an intense conviction that sensation and thought are not electricity, are not mere vibrations, are not “secreted by the brain as bile is secreted by the liver.” He knows that sensation is unlike all other things. He needs no revelation of science to tell him that it is different from electricity; and intimately persuaded of its specialty, he lends a willing ear to any harmoniously-worded explanation offered by the metaphysician as to its being as “immaterial principle,” an “o’er informing spirit,” a mysterious something which, whatever it mat be, is assuredly not “blind unconscious matter.”

            I confess that I have always had great scorn for what is called “Materialism”—equal, indeed, to that I felt for “Immaterialism;” and I have often called the quarrel a frivolous and vexatious dispute about words. But it was more than that. Though men squabbled about words, there were fundamental ideas working under them antagonistically; and, on the whole, I think the metaphysicians had more reason on their side than we on the other gave them credit for. Absurd as their “immaterial principle superadded to the brain” must be pronounced, it had this merit, that it kept the distinctive specialty of the phenomena of sensation in view, and preserved it from the unscientific, coarse hypotheses of some materialists.

            That “blind unconscious matter could not think, was held as a notorious argument, in spite of the assumption implied in the epithets (for the aphorism amounted to this, —blind matter cannot see, unconscious matter cannot be conscious.) To any one who looks steadily at the question, however it may be shown that, as a matter of fact, the nervous tissue, and that only being sensitive, the biological proposition simply is, that “sensitive matter can be sensitive.” To claim for this tissue any superadded entity named Thought, is to desert the plain path of observation for capricious conjecture.

            Why not call strength an immaterial principle superadded to muscular tissue, if you are to call thought one? The muscular action, and the nervous action are two special phenomena belonging to special tissues. Science can tell you no more. If your mind is dissatisfied therewith, and demands more recondite explanation, invent one to please yourself, and then invent one for heat, for attraction, for every phenomenon you conceive; the field is open; imagination has wide-sweeping wings; but do not palm off on us your imagination as science!

            What the metaphysician says in respect of the essential speciality of the phenomena of thought and sensation—their complete distinction from other physical phenomena—is therefore to be admitted as true. He builds on this basis an absurd superstructure; but the basis we cannot destroy. On the other hand, what the physiologist says respecting the identity of thought and nervous action is equally indestructible. That is his basis. Combine the two schools into one, and you have the positive philosopher, who says, “Sensibility is an ultimate fact, not explicable, not to be assigned to a knowable cause, but to be recognised as the property of a special tissue—the nervous.”

            As far as the religious application of this scientific conception is concerned, Locke long ago pointed out how it was as easy to conceive God endowing matter with thought as spirit with thought. All that the metaphysicians claim is the speciality of the phenomena of thought—their difference from the phenomena of inorganic matter—and this the positive biologist claims also. —The Leader.