154 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Hence, we ought to abandon our usual ways of thinking and 

 speaking about ourselves and others. 



If these results actually do follow from an acceptance of parallelism, 

 men may well feel apprehensive when they see able men advocate it. 

 If none of them follow, there is small cause for apprehension, and the 

 question becomes one of merely scientific interest. 



Let us consider the first point. Must the parallelist regard man 

 as an automaton? 



Before one can decide this point intelligently one must know what 

 the word ' automaton ' means. He who consults his dictionary is in- 

 formed that it means ' that which is self-moving, or has the power of 

 spontaneous movement, but is not conscious.' A little lower down it is 

 explained to him that the term more specifically denotes ' an apparatus 

 in which the purposely concealed power is made to imitate the volun- 

 tary or mechanical motions of living beings, such as men, horses, birds, 

 fishes,' etc. He is further given to understand that the word may be 

 applied to ' a person or an animal whose actions are purely involun- 

 tary or mechanical,' or to a person who acts ' without active intelli- 

 gence, especially without being fully aware of what he is doing.' 



Do any of these definitions cover the case of the man described in 

 the first paragraphs of this paper? Was he without consciousness? 

 Was he constructed to imitate the actions of a living being? Were 

 his actions involuntary? Did he go through his day without active 

 intelligence? Yet the definitions are very fair, and do not misrepre- 

 sent the actual use of the word defined. Even in psychology, when we 

 speak of i automatisms,' we never have in mind a shrewdly planned 

 raid upon the bourse, or the production of Caesar's ' Commentaries.' 



The fact that I choose to pin my faith to one view of the relation 

 between mind and body rather than to another gives me no right to 

 wrest words from their proper uses and to employ them in ways that 

 must be misleading. Normal man is not an automaton in any legiti- 

 mate sense of the word; and it is a grave injustice to parallelism to 

 call it ' the automaton theory.' To be sure, Clifford and others have 

 invited the injustice which has been visited upon them, and we can 

 scarcely pity them as much as though it were wholly unmerited. But 

 the frankest adherence to their parallelism need not induce us to call 

 man an automaton. To say that consciousness is ' parallel ' to brain 

 changes is not equivalent to saying that consciousness is not present 

 at all, or is present in defective measure. 



And now for the second point. Must the parallelist regard man's 

 mind as insignificant, and say that his actions would be the same if he 

 had no mind? 



Surely not. Bear in mind what parallelism maintains. It main- 

 tains that mental phenomena and certain cerebral changes are invariable 



