THE INTERPRETATIONS OF AUTOMATISM. 513 



What the objectors really mean is that such a relation is incom- 

 prehensible, which it certainly is, but so also are all natural phe- 

 nomena when reduced to their lowest terms. 



The argument from equivalence is of greater weight, but is 

 not conclusive. Mental states, it is true, have never yet been 

 measured, nor are they likely to be ; but we have no right to 

 assume that quantitative relations are the only relations of which 

 the law of conservation of energy can take cognizance. As quan- 

 tity is an essential attribute of matter, so is quality an essential 

 attribute of mind, and we may discover that, mutatis mutandis, 

 the law of equivalence holds that every given quantity and kind 

 of energy expended in the cortex has its fixed equivalent in a 

 given quality of consciousness, that is, in some definite kind of 

 sensation, thought, or emotion, and vice versa. 



It should be observed that the argument from the law of con- 

 servation of energy overthrows both the theory of independence 

 and that of dependence, and we are reduced to the contemplation 

 of the relation of mind and matter as an inscrutable mystery a 

 mystery which some philosophers try thinly to veil, by invoking 

 the good offices of a third unknown substance of which both 

 matter and mind are supposed to be attributes. This is the so- 

 called doctrine of monism. 



I have thought it necessary to go into this argument to some 

 degree because without some such explanation my readers may 

 wonder why 1 regard the theory of independence as entitled to 

 any hearing whatever. Yet I think that the disrepute into which 

 it has fallen is not due to any imaginary conflict with the law 

 of conservation of energy. It is in part due to the general drift 

 of our age, which for nearly four hundred years has set away 

 from the supranaturalistic conceptions of the middle ages toward 

 naturalism, and has consequently left the doctrine of independ- 

 ence, which was universal throughout the middle ages, high and 

 dry on the sands. It is for the most part, however, due to the 

 direct evidence, of which I have above spoken, for the dependence 

 of mind upon the body. 



It is not my purpose to attempt to prove or to disprove either 

 of these theories, but before proceeding to interpretations of au- 

 tomatism which may be based upon the latter, I may point out 

 that the evidence is not so wholly one-sided as is commonly sup- 

 posed. The clinical facts by no means warrant the assumption 

 that mental degeneration necessarily keeps pace with brain de- 

 struction. Cases are frequently reported in which patients survive 

 severe and permanent injuries to the brain with relatively slight 

 mental impairment. Some of the phenomena of normal psychol- 

 ogy, as the consciousness of self, attention, and will, are as easily 

 interpreted from the one as from the other point of view ; and in 



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