114 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



X. " PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM ' REFUTED 



In analysing acting we have become convinced that, on 

 account of the individualised correspondence between cause 

 and effect, founded on a basis historically created, we are 

 not able to explain what is going on by the aid of physics 

 and chemistry, or of mechanics, if you prefer to say so. 

 There is a new and autonomic natural factor concerned in 

 action, a factor unknown to the inorganic world. 



Now it is very important to notice well, that by stating 

 the autonomy of natural events as occurring in action we 

 are in fundamental contradiction with a wide-spread theory 

 that is at present very much in vogue among psychologists. 

 I refer to the theory of " psycho-physical parallelism." At 

 least we are in a fundamental contradiction with one side 

 of this theory. All of you know, I suppose, what that 

 theory claims, and I can dismiss it the more briefly since 

 Professor James Ward, a few years ago, gave a splendid 

 sketch of the different aspects of the theory of psycho- 

 physical parallelism in this very place. 



The theory of parallelism may start from a metaphysical 

 basis by saying that the psychical and the physical facts 

 are but different aspects of one unknown absolute reality, 

 standing in permanent correspondence with each other, as 

 was the opinion of Spinoza and his followers, though 

 sometimes stated in a more materialistic form. Or the 



more rapid " with each repetition : there are links left out of the chain, and 

 that is most important. 



1 Compare the goneral critical discussions in Busse, Geist und Korper, 

 Keele und Leib, Leipzig, 1903. See also H. Bergson, " Le paralogisme 

 psycho-physiologique," Rev. rnctaph. ct mor. 12, No. 6, 1904, and the book 

 Matiere et Mdmoire (1896), by the same author. 



