IS MAN AN AUTOMATION 149 



IS MAN AN AUTOMATON? 



By Professor GEORGE STUART FULLERTON 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



IT' EW things are more irritating to the average man, who does not 

 -*- pretend to be a philosopher or a scientist, but respects the 

 opinions of such, than to be told, by those whose word seems to carry 

 authority, that he must regard himself as an automaton. 



He has been accustomed to consider his own mind and the minds 

 of his neighbors as of no little significance in the system of things. 

 He says that he rose early, because he knew he had a long day's work 

 before him; he took his bath, because he knew it was good for his 

 health; he went to the dining-room, because he wanted his breakfast; 

 he ran for the train, because he did not care to lose five minutes wait- 

 ing for another; he whistled, that the conductor might hear him and 

 might be induced to delay a moment; he climbed the stairs to his 

 office, because the elevator seemed to be intolerably long in coming. 



So it went all through the day. He did things because he wanted 

 to, or because he thought he had to. Other men about him did things 

 for the same reasons. His whole day seems to have been full of 

 thoughts and feelings, plans and decisions; nor can he bring himself 

 to believe that, had these been different, his actions and those of 

 other men would have been what they were. So unequivocally does his 

 experience appear to testify to all this, that it does not even occur to 

 him to raise a question, until some professional questioner suggests a 

 doubt. 



But he spends the evening of such a day in his library, and, as 

 he turns over the pages of certain volumes of scientific essays, his eye 

 is caught by Professor Huxley's statement that " our mental condi- 

 tions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take 

 place automatically in the organism." If he is startled by this, his 

 mind is by no means quieted when he turns to Professor Clifford and 

 reads : " Thus we are to regard the body as a physical machine which 

 goes by itself according to a physical law, that is to say, is automatic. 

 An automaton is a thing which goes by itself when it is wound up, and 

 we go by ourselves when we have had food." 



To be sure, each of these writers softens the blow somewhat. Hux- 

 ley tells us that we are conscious automata ; and Clifford says that the 

 body is not merely a machine, because consciousness goes with it. 

 Nevertheless, this does not seem to make good the previous wrong. If 



