■ •■•>'■ v,«. I5?f<:-,*.^^- ■^■.^ "'^m THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES % GIFT OF Perigord fe ,.w s ." !/' ' "•-if'^j^. 'M )fm^: ^y, - r LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT : STUDIES OF ORGANIC IN HUMAN NATURE LIFE IN MIND Si CONDUCT: STUDIES OF ORGANIC IN HUMAN NATURE BY HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D. ILontion MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1902 AU rights reserved BiCHARD Clay and Sons, Limited, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 3T> M44i CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Men think new that which is old — Small fraction of human course on earth — Are the inventions of modern science new ? — Discovery made through rather than by the individual — No new reflections on human nature to be made nowadays — Old thoughts new to new thinkers of them — Conventional language and artificial divisions of knowledge — Separate methods of study of mind — Living structure and function in the life of mind — Origin and primal meaning of the terms of psychology — Psychical terms own a physical origin and import — Intellect, cogita- tion, reflection — Reason, deliberation, assimilation, rumination — Under- standing, attention, ecstasy — Physical inwardness of mental feeling — Emotion and its qualities — Vagueness of metaphysical language— The organic in thought, feeling and conduct— General aim of the enquiry . Pages 1 — 15 CHAPTER II LIFE AND MIND I. — Organism and Life An organic mechanism— Its outward discharge, regular and irregular — Inward and noxious discharge — The general paralytic — The epileptic — Explosive discharge — Nature's explosive method of work — The re- productive instinct and act — Life an equilibrium of antagonistic forces— Physics and Physiology— The cycle of life : production, pre- servation, destruction — Self-repair of living matter — Every organism a complexity of organisms — Passive and active matter — The so-called vital force — Degenerations of life — Colloid and crystalloid matter — Homogeneous and heterogeneous — Life and death — Degrees of vital substance — Conservation of energy Pages 16 — 31 6305G7 CONTENTS II. — Organic Structure and Function Irritability of tissue — Unconscious purposive action — Consensus, con- sentience, consciousness — Consciousness and individuation — Internal activities of the organic molecule — The principle of individuation — Spontaneity and physical reaction — Excitability of nerve and reflex action — Simple and complex reflex action — Latent sensory stimuli — Reflection and will — Incorporate antecedents — Diverse qualities of brain — Fundamental sources of mental energy ; self-conservative and I'eproductive instincts — The cerebro-spinal and splanchnic nervous systems — The intellectual mechanism — The motive forces of reflection — The expressions of emotion — Sublimations of feeling — Intellect and purposive action — Compositions and disintegrations of will — The organic basis of will — Over-sensitiveness, passionateness — Physiological conditions of sensibility — Co-operation of phj^siological stimuli — Different levels of volitional evolution — Organization of moral feeling and will — Life-history the exposition of character — Inane abstractions — Conditions and circumstances of reproduction— Bodily structure and character Pages 32 — 54 CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL SYSTEM I. — Its Construction and Despotism The social source of the moral imperative — Benefits of social imion — Social composition of vices and virtues — Social developnaent through marriage, family, tribe, nation — -Individual rights and social authority — The social necessity of superstitious hypotheses — Ceremonies, taboos, customs and fashions — The disintegration of a community — Social variations — Suppression of variations — The conatus of organic growth and the sun's energy — The self-regarding passions as motive forces of social progress — The prudence of social conformity — Morality the selfishness of the species — Immoralities as natural degenerations — Universal brotherhood and a reign of righteousness . . . Pages 55 — 70 II. — Social Atonement Individual and social being — Law of social atonement — Reward and retribution by natural social law — Prevalence and uniformity of sacrifices — Well-doing the function of a sound social nature — Debt and credit in the social system — The manifold atonements of social life — Composition and compensation in social evolution — Vices and virtues equally necessary — Evil a factor in the development of good — A temper of philosophical acquiescence — The social source of the moral mandate- Action and reaction of individual and social medium — Variable mean between egoism and altruism Pages 71 — 81 CONTENTS vii CHAPTER IV IMAGINATION AND IDEALISM I. — Im AGIX ATIOX Rational and irrational imagination — The delight of delirious imagination — Pathological interpretation — Dissociation of mental function — Delirium of thought and of feeling — Transcendental feeling and reason — Imaginative shapings of transcendental feeling — Imagination in the different mental fimctions — Anthropomorphic interpretation of elemental energy — Is the feeling of transcendental union illusion? — Imagination a function of organic matter — Dreams^ . . . Pages 82 — 92 II. — The Ideal The partial truth of proverbs, maxims, adages — The ideal in theory and the real in practice — Moral principles idealizations of the real — Constant war between the ideal and the real— Proverbial half truths — Indispensable coexistence of the ideal and the real — Universality of ideals — Optimistic and pessimistic ideals and t€mperaments — The mean between ideal and real — The ideal of the race — A moral equilibrium incompatible with increase of knowledge — Over-valuation of knowledge — Knowledge essentially selfish — Its glorification in the interest of the species — The cement of society not knowledge but charity — Scientific inventions baneful as well as beneficial — Can know- ledge grow to an ideal perfection ?— Or moral perfection be attainable ? — Confusion of moral ideals — Fanatical enthusiasm of humanity — The eternal paradox — Symbols — Degrees of belief — Worship of symbols — Idols of wood and stone — Idols of the heart and imagination — The doctrine of the Trinity — Religious worship of pictures and statues — Decay of symbols — Transformation, not cataclysm, in organic develop- ment Pages 92 — 115 III. — Hypocrisies Habitual hypocrisies — Waves of pessimism— The necessity of hypocrisy — Its good uses — Self-respect and hypocrisy — Unconscious hypocrisy — Mental duality — Hypocrisy concerning the reproductive organs and functions — Mental disintegrations and disintegrate developments — Observance of the mean by efi"ective hj-pocrisy — Life a mean between extremes — The mean in conduct — Special standpoints of morality. Page.-i 115—126 CONTENTS IV. — Lies — Affect atiok Whj' men love to lie — Lies are idealizations : witness to productive energy of nature in mind — The liar not wholly and wilfully false — Justifiable lies — Gradations of quality in lies — The heroic liar — Veracities neces- sarily impracticable — ^Illusions the incitements of progress — Affectation and lying — Artistic and useful affectations — Affectation injurious to character Pages 126 — 133 CHAPTER V ETHICAL THEORY AND ACTION I. — Conscience An innate tribunal — Difficulties of application in the concrete — No- absolute conscience, but manifold relative consciences — Conscience the voice of the social kind — The physical basis of conscience — Conscience in savages — Inchoate and rudimental conscience — Late evolution and quick dissolution of conscience — Moral defacement and denudation — Continuity and unity of body and spirit — The brain-weak neurotic — Moral and motor apprehensions — Lessons of materialism Pages 134—145 II. — Morality Self-interest the basic motive of conduct — The ten commandments induc- tions of experience — Elimination or assimilation of morbid social elements ?— Sorrow and sympathy — Outbursts of the brute in the man — Admiration of the immoral hero — Adoration of the moral hero — Confucius's enunciation of the moral law — Retribution the rule of practical morality — Social approvals and disapprovals — Conscience bred by law — The ideal and the real — Structural virtue not self- conscious — The inheritance of a good organization — The value of a good example — Virtue a prudent wisdom — Conquest of culture and its rules of intrasocial origin — Different estimates of virtue — Rectifica- tions of laws — Arbitrary rights of the State — Relativity of morality — Passions essential factors in social development — Scientific study of and evil Pages 145 — 163 III. — Patriotism Patriotism and morality — The religion of patriotism — Narrow and bigoted patriotism — Humanity before patriotism — A growing humanization . . Pages 163— 16S CONTENTS IV. — War and Peace Condemnation of murder and glorification of war — The inter-human struggle for existence — The law of organic construction through organic destruction — Natural inconsistency between theory and practice — »Self-valuation and nature's valuation — Cessation of war and transformation of human creature — Is war a benefit or a bane ? . . . . Pages 168—173 CHAPTER VI RELIGION— PHILOSOPHY— SCIENCE I. — Religion Vitality of religion — Its root in the feeling of cosmic unity — Religion and religious systems — Survival of the fittest — The elemental feeling in art, poetry, philosophy — Every religion a fitting vesture — Hebrew per- sonification of the Divinity— Mental duality in relation to religion and reason — Unjustifiable religious persecution — Religious persecution sometimes justifiable— Hostility of religions to knowledge — The follies of men the wisdom of the world — Knowledge and the lust of life- Sublimity and impracticability of the Christian ideal — Self -idolatry of the secluded sage — The conclusion Pages 174 — 187 II. — Philosophy Philosophy essentially a simple matter — The true and the good in- separable — The exposition of truth — Vagueness of metaphysical thought and language — The vitality of metaphysics — The philosopher not self- sufficing — Clear and distinct ideas — Lost thoughts rediscovered — The mystery of life — Conduct the end or purpose of life . . Pages 188 — 196 III. — Science The little that can be known — The pioneer of science — The specializations of science — Need of a scientific synthesis — Organic unity of science — The scientific method of observation and experiment — The reform of scientific nomenclature — The questioning spirit of science Pages 196—203 CHAPTER VII NATURE— MIND— REASON I. — Nature and Mind The becoming of things — Structural organization of mind — Discords in the universal concord — Lucky and unlucky events — Providential circum- stances — The study of mind as a part of nature — Nature and free will — The opinion of free will a useful illusion — Mind the supreme organic harmony — Organic sympathy and repulsion — Interaction of bodj"^ and mind — The unity of mind and nature Pages 204 — 213 CONTENTS II. — Reason Implicit prior to conscious reason — No division in nature between reason and instinct — Complex reason like complex reflex action and instinct an organized acquisition — Equivalent ideas interchangeable in reasoning, like equivalent parts in machinery — Difficulties of substitution of mental equivalences— Men commonly reason from accepted premisses, without testing the reason of them —Irrationality of men and bees compared — The ideal and the real man — Animal tendencies and angelic aspirations — Reason a limitation and constructive process, and its limitation a boon — Universal reason a nonsense in words — The heart and the head : feeling and reason — Special feelings not original and elemental but derived and secondary : bespeak precedent culture of reason Pages 213 — 225 CHAPTER VIII HABIT— INTONATION— EXPERIENCE— TRUTH I. — Habit Habit the growth of a nature — The incorporation of function in structure — The formation of a fit nervous reflex — Its large part in mental structure — Habit of belief and renunciation of reason — Mind divisible and able to act in parts — Difi"erent minds are different organs — The destruction of a mind by destruction of its habits of belief Pages 226—232 II. — Mental Intonation Associations of sense and sentiment — Revival of associations in memory — Transforming effects of custom — Formation of special cerebral patterns of structure — Effects of exclusive education — Adaptations to social medium — Organic hardenings of mental differences — Exemplification of nervous fashioning — Consolidated thought develops its appropriate effluence of feeling — Exemplification of that law — Analogy between association and disassociation of ideas and movements Pages 232—239 III. — Experience Experience must be vital to be instruction — The inexperience of youth and the experience of age — The hurtful provokes attention and inquiry — The historian without practical experience of men — Beliefs and scientific theories which are not based on experience — The fool and the wise man — Failure in an evil environment not blameworthy — The quenching of enthusiasm by experience — The solid wisdom of proverbs — A systematic exposition of proverbs — Experience the basis of sound psychology Pages 240—248 CONTENTS xi IV.— Truth What is truth ? The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — Truths perish as well as prevail — Wisdom and folly reciprocally necessary — Free development of thought — Feeling more fundamental than reason — Truth beneficial to society in the long run — Efficacy of the lie — Comparison of truth and light — Innate love of truth — The relativity of truth Par/es 249 — 255 CHAPTER IX EDUCATION— MENTAL CULTURE— CHARACTER I. — Edccatiox Mental mechanism constructed by education — The innate forces of individual character — The beginnings of ills to be stopped — The mischief done by parental partiality — Educational eflPects of custom — The evils of early over-cramming — Uniform scholastic methods — The use of special studies to correct special faults — Wry minds sometimes must grow awry — Psychological ignorance and ignoring of organic structure and function — Unconscious education by the environment — Education in knowledge of physical nature — Education in relation to body politic and social — The practical instruction of reason — The danger of little knowledge— Man not rational but potentially rational — Over-estimation of the value of education — Good use of such over- estimation Pages 256 — 272 II. — Mental Culture Self-education — The pleasures of sense and intellect— Knowledge and pleasure — Native bias of character — Self-love — The development of knowledge by human converse — Special mental facets and special developments — The tyranny of organization — Mental exercise an invigoration of vitality — The conditions of good mental health — Inter- actions between body and mind — The lessons of moral degeneracy — The theatre as means of mental culture — A means of amusement — Effects of occupation on individual nature — Freedom from social trammels impossible — If only the individual had two lives ! — Danger of leaving off the routine of a lifelong occupation — Increase of human specialism Pages 273 — 286 III. — Character 'Character the basis of conduct — Conscious suppression of character futile — Diversities of racial character — Constitutional vitality and character — Moral and vital energy— The revelation of character — Subconscious mental currents — Character and circumstances — Formation of character by action — Intellect and moral feeling dissociated — Vices proceeding from virtues — The prospects of human society — How to know self . . Parje.i 286—295 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER X FRIENDSHIP— LOVE— DESIRE— GRIEF— JOY I. — Friendship The value of friendship — Friendship a limitation — The good uses of a friend — Unions of cliques, clubs, associations — Material and spiritual views of friendship — The ruptures of friends — Common interests in friendship — Perfect friendship an ideal Pages 296 — 300 II. — Love Its strength and subtilty — Infra-sensible undulations of energy — Love an overwhelming physical attraction — The harmony of reciprocal love — Beauty and ugliness — Love rooted in the productive energy of nature — Love-marriages and marriages of interest— The self-sacrifice and selfish- ness of lovers —The transcendental rapture of love — A delirious trans- port of egoism — Its eternal illusion Pages 300 — 308 III. — Desire — Hope Desire insatiable — Its boundlessness — Multiplications of desires and theii' gratifications — Present enjoyments spoilt by desire — The %atal basis of desire and hope — The love-passion and its glamour— The ideal and the real — The role of feeling in belief — Ultrafidianism and supra-rational reason — Men believe as they feel — Reality of pleasure — The cultivation of illusions — Consecrated lies — Idealization of the real Pages 309—319 IV. — Grief — Suffering Grief increased by imagination — The transport of a grief — Outward show of grief — Physiological limits of grief and pain — Pain an evil in itself, not merely in opinion — The sure cure of grief — The permanent eflfects of gi'ief — The unitj- of the physical and moral nature — The good use of sufi'ering Pages 319—326 V. — Joy — Laughter Joy denotes vital energy — Constitutional weakness of vitality — The expression of vitality in feeling and thought — The physical basis of mind — Reception and response of mental undulations — Futile dis- cussions about the szimmum honum — The varities of laughter — Subtile emanation of character Pages 326 — 332 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER XI I. — Organic Variation And Heredity 1. — Organic Variation Organism and medium — Organic variation — Evolution and involution — Variation and external stimulus — Law of organic development — Organic modifiability — Mental variations — Vicissitudes of families and variations — Persistence of organic qualities — Family names and family characters — Bodily and mental variations — Aptitude to variations . . Pages 333—342 2. — Heredity Reproduction and production of qualities — Reversion to ancestral forms — Vice and virtue bred into or out of a stock — -Shakespeare's com- position of parental elements — The reproductive act — The affective element in heredity — Male elements in female, and female in male nature — Seasonal development of hereditary qualities — Fundamental type and its variations — Stable and unstable mental compositions — Various aspects and inconsistencies of character — Non-inheritance of genius — Unkno-mi laws of heredity — Insanity and heredity — Special talents in imbecile or insane persons — Fundamental law of human development Pa^es 342 — 355 II. — Genius and Talent Difference between genius and talent — The man of genius — Special kinds of genius — Sanity of highest genius — Subconscious creative acti\'ity — Quality and tone of brain — Genius excites suspicion and enmity — Unhappiness of genius — Native differences of mental faculty — Sympathy and antipathy of minds — The seeing mind — Sociability and sincerity — Want of sympathy with the kind — A life of detachment — The proper part to play in the drama Pages 356 — 367 CHAPTER XII FATE— FOLLY— CRIME I. — Fate asd Fortune The little hinges of great events — Estimates of events — The way of development the right way — The epoch-maker — Epoch-maker or epoch-made ? — The dependent fate of a great movement — Incalculable operation of mental forces — Power, not wisdom, in the multitude — Fortune and providence — Homo magnus or homo felix — The fate of organization — Christianity and Paganism Pages 368 — 379 v^ xiv CONTENTS II. — Folly and Crime Fools constitute the majority— Need no compassion— The criminal— The anarchist — Clever and weak-minded criminals — Reasons and attractions of crime — Routine of respectability — Criminal, epileptic, insane, and fanatical temperaments — Degeneration by natural law — Organized nervous substrata — The lesson of punishment — The aim of punish- ment — The prevention or reformation of criminal — Nature's possible irony— Crime evidence of organic vigour Pages 380—393 CHAPTER XIII PAIN— LIFE— DEATH L— Paix Pain a necessary condition of existence — Endurance not complaint — Sus- ceptibility to pain with complexity of organization — Types of organic structure according to need of killing and not being killed — Pain a danger-signal serving self-conservation — Not remembered as it was, only that it was — Lowest organisms feel little or no pain, and instantly forget — Pain attends the organic decay of old age — Although felt in, not felt by, the part — No fixed and constant consciousness — Manifold varieties of pain — Useless and exhausting pain — The pains of parturition — Consciousness of pain and curiosity to know — The erect posture and the bodily conditions of labour-pains — Fable and allegory— Unconscious wisdom or wisdom consciously obscured — The design of pains of partu- rition — The negation of the desire to live — Pain a natural effect of organic undoing — Spontaneity or attraction : sensibility and suscepti- bility — Pleasure and pain as motives of action — The reconciliation of individuality with solidarity, physiological and social — The design of pain — Avoidance of pain the prime motive of conduct — Voluntary infliction of pain — The moral good of pain — Over-sensitiveness to pain and over-sentimentality — Human optimism Pages 394 — 417 II. — Life The lust of life — A drama of mixed tragedj' and comedy — The love of life despite the vanity of it — The routine of life — Self-renunciation, religious and stoical — Christianity and stoicism — Nature's wonted ironj- — Un- adaptibility of the fixed structure of age — Old age and youth — Praise of the past by old age — The pleasures of old age . . . Pages 417- — 420 CONTENTS III. — Dkath Death the natural ending of life — The waning of desires with the waning of life — Religion and philosophy augment the fear of death — The gloomy ceremonials of the scene of death — Thoughts, feelings, and behaviour at the point of death — The preservation of character in dying — Social dependence in dying — Deception and self-deception of the dying person— No special illumination, but gradual weakening of mind before death— Death a necessary concern to the individual — Con- tinuance of life against reason — Praise of death — Death a necessary condition of life Payes 426—435 CONCLUDING CHAPTER END AND AIM The doctrine of final causes — Order and disorder, goodness and badness- Mental products purely relative — Sin, evil, disease and death nowise anomalies — Every death a natural and necessary event — The good use of revenge — Anger justifiable socially — Ambition neither vice nor virtue — No evils from standpoint of pure reason— Absurdity of seek- ing for the origin of evil — Immortality, personal and impersonal. Pugen 436—444 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Men think new that which is old — Small fraction of human course on earth — Are the inventions of modern science new ? — Discovery made through rather than by the individual — No new reflections on human nature to be made nowadays — Old thoughts new to new thinkers of them — Conventional language and artificial divisions of know- ledge — Separate methods of study of mind — Living sti'ucture and function in the life of mind — Origin and primal meaning of the terms of psychology — Psychical terms ovm a physical origin and import — Intellect, cogitation, reflection — Reason, deliberation, assimilation, rumination — Understanding, attention, ecstasy — Physical inwardness of mental feeling — Emotion and its qualities — Vagueness of metaphysical language — The organic in thought, feeling and conduct — General aim of the enquiry. The conclusion of a sober reflection on the brief records and various revolutions of human things has been enshrined by Shakspeare in the lines of his sonnet to Time : — "Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather have them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told." And long before Shakspeare's day Laotze, the Chinese contemporary of Confucius, six hundred years before Christ, had expressed the same thought. " A vivid light," he said " shone on the highest antiquity, a few rays of which only have 2 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. reached us. It appears to us that the ancients were in dark- ness because we see them only through the thick clouds from which we ourselves have emerged. Man is an infant born at midnight who when he sees the sun rise thinks that yesterday never existed." The thought was probably then stale, having haply been made in Egypt six thousand years ago, and having certainly been made by the preacher who, weary of the monotony of things, declared that the thing which has been is that which shall be, and that there is no new thing under the sun. As mankind did not begin to think for the first time in ancient Greece nor first discovered their moral principles in Palestine, the vulgar belief of so late an intellectual and moral beginning simply proves with what sure and blind a faith the thoughts of people can rest circumscribed within their special epochs, and be counted ne\v because new to them. So brief is the record of historical time in comparison with unrecorded and forgotten time, so fabulous and false for the most part most so-called histories, that there are no sound data on which to ground a true knowledge of the remote human past. If men were ever as wise then as they are now, it is plain that we should not know it. Nor are the data adequate to warrant a safe prediction of the future fortunes of humanity on earth. Whether its past career has been a succession of alternating developments and degenera- tions, or a series of progresses in one place alternating with regresses elsewhere, yet with a gradual advance on the whole, even that is uncertain. To modern optimism, proud of present and sure of future human progress, Plato's fanciful notion of recurring evolutions and dissolutions of the same state of things in periodical revolutions of time will be wholly unwelcome. Although new comers on the human stage extol the discoveries they make as new because they are new to them, as they call the moon new at every reappearance in its monthly course, exulting accordingly over their benighted predecessors, it is hardly credible that the special discoveries I INTRODUCTORY 3 and inventions of modern science are not novel, at all events on this planet ; incredible indeed that the human mind ever before hit upon, and pursued systematically, such profitable methods of scientific observation and experiment as char- acterize its present state of evolution and have led to its great conquests over nature. Nor is it easy to agree with Shakspeare that the pyramids of Egypt were but repetitions of what had been done aforetime, notwithstanding the authority of his long-sighted imagination. ' ' Thou can'st not think O Time that I do change ; Thy pjTamids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange, They are but dressings of a former sight." Howbeit Shakspeare perhaps projected his imagination beyond the limits of this minor planet to a a superior planet in which such mighty works may have been done. For when we consider that other planets are constituted of the same elements as the earth, subject to the same universal laws, launched on similar courses under similar conditions, and that their elements must according to fixed chemical laws enter into the same compositions under the impact of the same forces in parallel circumstances, it is no more strange to imagine the production of a series of organic beings, similar or superior to those on earth than to expect the growth of two similar trees from two seeds of the same kind. The organic stream of tendency, so long as it is vitally quickened and propelled by due heat and light, must needs have like issues in the cosmic succession of things. Such is reason's good conceit of itself that it is apt to pride itself on creating that which creates it. Consider how steadily and silently the stream of human tendency works in the making of scientific discoveries and inventions : particular persons are credited with the merit of them who after all are but the organs of them ; for it is not the individual who clearly foresees and designedly plans them, it is the plan or course of organic nature which progressivly fulfils itself and reveals them through his development. Therefore it is that B 2 4 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. no one makes a scientific discovery without some one else having partially or wholly anticipated him, that disputes are frequent and bitter as to who was the first to make it, and that he who proves the new thing to the understanding of his con- temporaries is acclaimed and labelled as the discoverer, albeit he may actually have counted least in the discovery, most only in the demonstration. Were a single rose to flower early in its season, fading and falling before other roses blossomed on the same tree, it might suppose itself to be original and unique, not witting that roses had flowered independently on that tree in previous seasons, and would likewise flower after it in the same season without borrowing from it ; and if among several roses in bloom at the same time one was foremost in height of place, perfection of form, and glory of colour, it would doubtless, had it the requisite tincture of human vanity, see therein its particular merit, and imagine that its fame would endure for ever. The growths of knowledge and virtue which flower on a particular branch of the human stock, are they any more original, unique and meritorious ? From the general development of knowledge and feeling in a common social medium at a particular time and place, it must needs be that several organs thereof independently attain to pretty nearly the same structural form and function ; the event is as natural and necessary as the independent production of the same or similar proverbs, superstitions, customs, errors of reasoning, vices and crimes in separate peoples of the earth. Be that as it may with great scientific discoveries, it is most certain that no new reflections on men and their doings can be made nowadays. Human nature having been much the same since it began to think on itself, and intellects as powerful as any which exist now having existed aforetime, it was inevitable that persons of good understanding reflect- ing rightly on the materials of human experience should arrive at the same judgments independently. For as mind is not self-created in any mortal, nor infused into him mira- culously from without, a something uncaused yet causing. I INTRODUCTORY & free or fortuitous in function, but both in being and function obeys strict natural laws of cause and effect, it cannot choose, when rational, but come to the same conclusion from the same premisses : must do so as surely as two persons of equal bodily powers and skill who put the same muscles into the same sort and degrees of movements must perform inde- pendently the same feat. Two mental organisms, like two bodily organisms, constructed after the same pattern and working on similar materials, necessarily produce similar products. Therefore it is that no one nowadays makes a sound reflection concerning human motives and conduct without soon discovering, if he make adequate search, that it has been made before and made probably over and over again : he may often trace it, if he be curious, from the latest modern thinker who utters it, back to some ancient sage who uttered it long ago ; nay, perhaps to some old proverb which was the wise saw of a forgotten sage who thus preg- nantly summed up the inarticulate wisdom of the race. The thought is essentially the same, though the mode of its outward presentation differ in different languages, and to suit the special styles of thought and feeling of different epochs. As individuals die, and with them that which they pain- fully learnt in their life-travail, to be succeeded by new beings who in turn have patiently and painfully to learn for themselves before they in turn vanish, it comes to pass that old thoughts necessarily appear to be new to the young world which rethinks them for itself, and that the last thinker who utters ancient wisdom hails himself, and is often hailed by others who learn from him, as the discoverer. If he sets the truth tersely and lucidly or melodiously in a frame of fit words, or sticks it into men's minds by some apt assonance or alliteration, he may capture the long fame of it. So inveterate too is the custom to mistake familiarity of words for understanding of things when there is no real understanding of them that most people are apt to believe they utter a new thought when they only express an old 6 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. thought in new terms. Strange indeed it is to see how com- pletely the conventional language of one age will hide a vital truth from a succeeding age speaking the same language, until it is translated into a new mode of expression. So it is that many a trite adage familiar as household words, which would be spoken and heard without real thought of its meaning, delights and instructs, seeming fresh and new, when it is divested of the custom-caked covering in which it has been enshrouded, and is clothed afresh in new words and imagery. Nay, the old platitude will prick with pleasing surprise many minds when it has been patiently enucleated from the gross crudities of ill-digested thought and jolting jargon of maimed and dislocated grammar in which the affectation of the charlatan eager, mountebank-like, to draw vulgar attention to himself and his wares has deliberately chosen to involve it. Besides the obstacle which the hardening of words into lifeless forms is to fruitful thought, another obstacle, not less notable, is the hardening of artificial divisions of knowledge into separate classes and sciences with their special nomen- clatures, although the things themselves are not really separate and not therefore to be truly comprehended as dis- tinct and separate : the result being that terms of classifica- tion which, being names fixed to fitly sorted compartments of thought, are its convenient and indeed necessary aids of reference and memory amidst the multiplicity and variety of things, are held to denote separate realities and thereby the essential concatenations of nature obscured or quite overlooked. Thus too it comes to pass sometimes that different languages are employed to denote the same things without the least suspicion that they are the same. As it is certain that separate religions must disappear before there can be one true religion, so must the several sciences cease to be separate before true science can be. Assuredly when the crusts of conventional terms are broken and the essential continuities beneath rigorous divisions of things discerned by insight into their deep I INTRODUCTORY 7 connections they often show themselves more simple and clear than they seemed and were thought to be. Nowhere perhaps is this more likely to prove true eventually than in the domain of the study of mind. There at present the metaphysician prosecutes his own method of study and uses his special vocabulary, the psychologist pursues his separate method and has his favourite phraseology, the physiologist follows his method of positive research and employs his special language ; yet these formidable systems having their different names, pursuing separate paths, speaking different and mutually unintelligible languages, hostile in attitude towards one another, almost as averse to meet as parallel lines, are actually concerned with one and the same subject. Is there not good reason to expect that these divisions will disappear in time, and that when they are gone and facts seen as they truly are, matters will be much simplified, a vast deal of confusing and obscure verbiage relegated to oblivion, and Avords used which shall signify as well as sound ? As mind is life, whatever more it be, growing, maturing and decaying within its fixed period, like all life, it is hard to see how its nature and functions can ever be rightly under- stood without a knowledge of organic life and its processes of growth and development. Furthermore, as mind is not only life, but its particular life is demonstrably the life of the particular body in it, an adequate knowledge of its nature and functions must needs involve a knowledge of the several bodily organs and their co-ordinate functions in the unity of the whole — especially of the exquisitely fine networks of nervous organization which are the indispensable conditions of its earthly being, which grow in number and complexity with its growth, and on the integrity of which its function depends. It may not, it is true, be lawful and right, may indeed sometimes be mischievous, to introduce the con- ceptions and terms of a lower into a higher science ; but the question here is not concerning two sciences, higher and lower, it is the question of one science which, having its root 8 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. in a physiological basis, has its flowering in the mental pro- cesses of which metaphysics and psychology claim to take exclusive cognizance. A biological study of mind in its ascending developments, animal and human, can hardly fail to help the student of it, whatever his specially esteemed method of enquiry and however wonderful his self-conscious intuitions into the operations, conscious and unconscious, of his own mind. Those who object to bring psychology down from abstract heights to an organic basis, and to interpret mental functions in any terms of physical organization, might not do amiss to collect its descriptive terms and to consider closely their origin and primal meaning. These are essentially physical terms, bespeaking a material origin, imbued with sense-ex- perience, and signifying in the concrete properties which are physical ; and being such, it might be instructive, and not a little startling, to enquire how much meaning is left in them when all the physical meaning is taken out of them. Such words as intellect, reason, reflection, cogitation, pondering, deliberation, brooding, rumination, which sound purely mental ; such terms of feeling also as emotion, agitation, compassion, fervour, ardour, inspiration, — all tell the same story ; they are terms of physical origin and import which have been applied by abstraction from physical to mental processes. Hearing that some one has had a severe shock, I must ask whether it was a mental or a physical shock ; and if I go on to enquire what a mental shock which has killed a man means at bottom, I perceive that it has no real meaning except as a physical process : that it has killed him by a violent nervous commotion, just as a stroke of lightning might have done. Intellect and cogitation — derived from intelligo (more correctly intellego) or interlego and cogo or coago — signify the gathering or collecting of things of the same kind, or of the qualities which several things have in common, into assortments or classes which are then denoted by a common name. Intellect is indeed structurally a correct classification, I INTRODUCTORY 9 the assorted experiences of things organized in their fit nervous structure, an orderly and proportioned cerebral instruction ; and to revive actively on the required occasion that which has been thus suitably collected and stored is to re-collect it. To classify thus mentally is nothing else but, in other language, to make a generalization or induction ; an ascent in thought from particulars to the general notion which can be applied afterwards deductively ; to do in fact what is done at a higher mental stage when a scientific theory is formed from observation of instances and subsequently used to plan a particular invention. The physiological process is a forma- tion of cerebral reflexes or thought-tracts to respond on the sensory side to the qualities or relations common to several particulars, which is the inductive pole of the intellectual process, so to speak, and on the motor side to react on the particulars having such qualities or relations, which is the deductive pole of it. Reason, again, signifies ratio or proportion, which is the notable essence of sound, as its absence is the characteristic note of unsound thinking or reasoning. The cerebral re- gistration of the facts of experience in their right ratios and relations is the rightly proportional in-formation of mental structure and consequent just balance of function. Were such registration perfect and universal, psychology might have all the certainty and perfection of mathematics ; it would then be mathematical, as its hope is one day to be. The process is parallel on the mental plane to that which takes place at a lower nervous level in the fit formation and nice performance of a purposive bodily act ; for a want of proportion in the special movements of such purposive act is essential irrationality. The person who, in order to take hold of a very small object where a nice use of finger and thumb would suffice and be graceful, uses his whole hand clumsily and uglily, perhaps even adds ungainly movements of arms and shoulder, like an idiot or a partially paralyzed person, exhibits essential irrationality of the nervous mechanism governing such movements, and is not unlikely 10 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. to exhibit similar want of ratio in mental to that which he does in motor apprehension. Deliberation, like ])ondering, is obviously the balancing or weighing of one mental impression against another in order to find out the ratio ; the new experience being compared with the old and assimilated by it, if like and liked, or dis- criminated and separately registered, if unlike and not liked. Here then in speaking of assimilation we encounter a physio- logical term denoting that which in psychological language is mental classification. Nor is it the only term of its kind, for it is thought natural to speak of the digestion of facts in the mind ; to say nothing of the translation of such crude words as rumination and chewing the cud into terms of mental use.^ Now as it is not the crude matter of food taken into the stomach which is directly assimilated by the bodily tissues and constitutes their nourishment, but the sublimed essences or abstracts of them, so to speak, which are formed in the refining processes of the various metabolic laboratories through which they pass ; so it is with the mental life which is constituted and nourished, not by the direct impressions of sense but by the sublimations or re- presentative abstractions into which they are converted at a higher cerebral plane. To gain and forthwith spend is not the way to grow rich in business, nor directly to receive and react the way to grow in mind ; in both cases gains ought to be invested in capital, which investment mentally is progressive structuralization of supreme cerebral plexuses. What is understanding but to stand underneath things, as it were, so as to see and apprehend their bases and bearings ? What is attention but a special cerebral tending or tension marking a set or polarization of the molecules of a cerebral tract in one direction whereby the sensibility to the par- ticular impression and the reactive hold or apprehension are intensified ? With which attentive bent goes along necessarily more or less insensibility and inactivity of other then and ^ Crude-sounding indeed, yet capable of poetic use, for Keats speaks of youth as "chewing the honeyed cud of thought." I INTRODUCTORY 11 thereby partially dissociated federal tracts of the mental organization, dissociations ranging in degree from mere absence of mind to rapt entrancement. For if the activity of the special tracts rise to a certain pitch, becoming con- vulsive, so to speak, it is completely dissociated functionally for the time from the rest of the federation ; there is a break of mental contact and it stands out as an ecstasy. Once more it is manifest how the name denoting a physical process has acquired purely mental, in this case even high spiritual, meaning. Take out of an ecstasy the physical basis which the name literally implies, and what is the actual meaning then left in it ? The mental faculty or process of reflection rests on the physical reflection or turning of a nervous current from one to another track of the mental organization : a sort of message of enquiry to every class or compartment of the mental stores in which knowledge has been collected, sifted, laid up for use and fitly labelled. To reflect fully on an object is to put into adequate action all the associated cerebral reflexes required to constitute it mentally, the reflections on the physical side being correlative with the conscious reflections on the mental side. And forasmuch as no object in nature is ever isolated, but every object has its connections and relations, these again their connections and relations, and so on in multiplying and ever expanding radiations without end, the aim of growing reflection is the progressive establishment of a mental order of things in ever fuller and more exact conformity with their external order, so far as this can be known — that is to say, be framed internally. For the best that finite man does or can do in growth of knowledge is to lay hold of and map out for himself so much — and that an exceeding small piece — of the infinite environ- ment as with his present organs of sense and movement he can compass and get into such definite adaptive relations as to respond to and react definitely on : thus collecting and arranging in order things which he can think and re- collect, he makes for himself an internal order which is 12 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. knowledge — a mental organization in fact. The world he then knows is that which is thus translated into terms of self-experience, the world as it is to him, nowise the world of another self, still less that which is beyond the finite relations of his small self Common instinct, having its wonted close grip of the realities of things and expressing itself directly and coarsely, has hit upon such phrases as to jog the memory, to rack or ransack or cudgel the brains, to run in one's head, to set one's wits to work or to let them go wool-gathering, thick- witted and sharp-witted, and the like, in order to express that which is felt to be the true physical inwardness of things. Even such vulgar phrases as " knock sense into " a person and " knock sense out " of him have their physical justi- fication ; for as a blow or a fall on the head will notoriously efface all thought and memory, so it has rarely and strangely chanced that a lost memory and understanding have been restored suddenly by the shock of such a blow, for all the world as though dislocated molecules of the thought-tracks had been instantly set right by the concussion. In the common language of the people, if we consider it well, there is often a bottom of true instruction, for its terms are preg- nant with the lessons of real human experience ; reflecting the vital hold of things which living contact with them imparts, they fail not to throw valuable light on the origin and development of ideas. The introspective psychologist himself might not do amiss to watch closely that which goes on in his own mind when it is in process of thinking, instead of minding only the thought-products, noting the pauses in passing from one thought to another, the strains of attention or adaptive tension, the easy run or uneasy jerks of thought- junctions, the sluggish and obstructed flow of the thought- current in bad moods, and the rapid and even flow thereof in good moods ; for he may then be conscious of a set of inward experiences strongly suggestive of subtile physical operations within his own brain, perhaps not rationally interpretable otherwise. I INTRODUCTORY 13 Obviously the terms descriptive of the modes and qualities of feeling testify to the same basis of physical meaning. Emotion signifies that which emotion was always felt to be — namely, an internal commotion or perturbation moving outwards to discharge itself. How then describe its qualities except in the language of physics ? It is quick or dull, bright or gloomy, warm or cool, flutter, flurry, tremor, palpitation, cutting, piercing, sweet, bitter, caustic, thrilling, quivering, electric and so on ; and the subject of it is accordingly cold or warm-hearted, cold-blooded, luke- warm, gushing, callous, torpid, hot-headed, fiery, and the like. That the heart in common language stands for emotion is popular witness to the important part which the internal viscera play in the production of feeling ; a fact similarly attested by such expressions, once in use, as " bowels of compassion," " white-livered," " spleen," and others. Grief is heartache attended by a slow and weak pulse ; joy, a cordial attended by a quick and strong pulse ; and the saddest grief of all is heartrending and its subject some- times heart-broken. Here, however, the mental expression goes beyond the physical fact, for the heart never is broken by grief unless it has been before so wasted by disease of structure as to be nigh bursting. All the feelings then, highest and lowest, even the transport out of self which is called spiritual ecstasy, are describable only in crude terms derived from physics. When not so describable, they are incommunicable, ineffable, not to be valued, either because they are beyond value or because they are valueless. What- ever the truth be with regard to the senses and intellect, there is nothing in the language of intellect which has not entered by way of sense. It seems a pity that metaphysical psychology, instead of being so much beholden to physics, had not from the first its separate and independent nomenclature, seeing that it is concerned with the study of that which lies outside the domain of all physics. Then it would not have been necessary for it to divorce from sense the terms stamped and made current 14 LIFE IN MIND AND CONDUCT chap. by sense, to strip physical words of all physical meaning, to abstract names from matter and its properties to denote the workings of an immaterial entity. For the trouble of it now is that the translation of the terms of sense and experience into a domain of being absolutely distinct from sense- experience makes it hard to define what exact meaning they have there, and easy for no two persons to agree in their use of them ; the inevitable result being, if not what Bacon called frivolous disputations, confutations and ver- bosities, at all events much disquisition with little or no progress. With this notable result too, that in this, as in no other science, every beginner proceeds confidently to discuss and settle the very foundations of his science, and every fully equipped worker, after going to work diligently to thresh the old problems, leaves them to be threshed over again by those who come after him. In no other region of knowledge therefore might so much that is written be entirely forgotten, as for the most part indeed it is instantl}' forgotten, without the world being one whit the loser. Astrology, despite its vagaries, is supposed to have pointed the way to astronomy, and alchemy, notwithstanding its futile researches, to have begotten chemistry ; but it certainly cannot be said of psychology that it has yet helped to found a scientific ijsyclionomy ; on the contrary, it has for the most part purposely rejected any study of the facts and laws of organic life as not requisite to the construction of a mental science, taking its proud stand on an absolute breach in the continuity of nature. As it is hard to conceive the notion of a discontinuity of nature, and harder still to discover the least evidence of it in the study of concrete men and things, the main object of the following chapters is to exhibit the con- tinuity of organic nature through all human functions — in fact, to adduce evidence of the development of life, by gradual scale sublimed, from root in body to flower in mind, which Milton perceived clearly and emphatically expressed. I INTRODUCTORY 15 One first matter all, Endued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and, in things that live, of life ; But more refined, more spirituous and pure, As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending, Each in their several active spheres assigned. Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind. So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More aery, last the bright consummate flower Spirits odorous breathes : flowers and their fruit, Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed. To vital spirits aspire, to animal. To intellectual ; give both life and sense, Fancy and understanding : whence the Soul Reason receives, and Reason is her being. Discursive, or Intuitive.* (Paradise Lost, b.v. 1. 472-488). There has been no thought of writing a methodical treatise nor of setting forth any system of doctrine. By bringing several subjects usually treated as if they were separate, and for the most part abstractly, into touch with the realities of organic life and into vital relations with one another, they are put into positions in which they may be safely left to suggest their own lessons. Nor is there anything new in the moral reflections made, which for the most part have been made over and over again ; any novel aspects of them which may appear are the natural result of their fusions and oppositions, their collisions and concurrences, their qualifi- cations and accentuations when brought into contact and connection with one another and with facts. The various applications of the argument have entailed some repetition. * In his Treatise on Christian Doctrine Milton declares his distinct opinion that there is no ground for the supposed distinction between body and soul — " that man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one and individual, not compound or separable." After quoting several passages from Scripture in support of this opinion, he says that nowhere in Scripture is it said that ' ' the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so