4G4 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



FEELING AND ENERGY: ALTERNATE AFFECTIONS OF 



MATTER. 



By W. S. DUNCAN. 



IN a former paper I boldly controverted the 

 hypothesis of concomitance between the 

 mental and physical states attendant on nervous 

 action. That hypothesis I endeavored to show 

 was inimical to a perfect psychological philoso- 

 phy on a scientific basis, inasmuch as it placed 

 an impassable gulf between consciousness and 

 action, between feeling and energy. It was op- 

 posed to universal experience and language. It 

 even jarred with the best system of ethics, based 

 on the happiness of mankind. 



With equal boldness I ventured to advance a 

 rival hypothesis — namely, that feeling and energy 

 could be regarded as strictly alternate and con- 

 vertible affections of matter — an hypothesis which 

 not only agreed with the language of mankind, 

 scientific and untaught alike, but bridged the 

 logical gulf, and accorded with the laws of con- 

 tinuity and causation in all their manifestations. 



Anticipating some objections that might be 

 urged against the view I had taken, I briefly 

 stated and endeavored to refute them. The im- 

 portance of the subject, however, demands a 

 closer examination of its bearings ; and the object 

 of this paper is to deal with some of the more 

 salient objections liable to be urged by a careful 

 critic. 



At the outset I would desire to be distinctly 

 understood as making no claim to prove the ex- 

 istence of feeling in any object, organized or not 

 organized. We infer feeling to exist in our fel- 

 low-creatures, by observing actions performed by 

 them which in ourselves seem to be the outcome 

 of feeling. The inference may be a correct one, 

 but it rests on analogical reasoning which is liable 

 to error. Neither the denial of feeling, on the 

 one hand, nor its affirmation, on the other, is 

 valid in establishing a fact which, from its very 

 nature, is incapable of absolute proof. 



But, while admitting this much, I am not pre- 

 cluded from submitting the question to a physio- 

 logical examination in view of discovering truth, 

 which, though not self-evident nor perfectly de- 

 monstrable, may yet be supported by fair deduc- 

 tion. 



Starting, then, with the assumption that mat- 

 ter in an organized form and possessed of life 

 has the quality, or affection, or property of feel- 



' ing, I think it is only the first step toward con- 

 sistency to admit that feeling, being found in that 

 form of matter, must have previously existed as 

 a fundamental property in matter before it be- 

 came organized, and must remain in matter after 

 disorganization has occurred. For it is utterly 

 out of keeping with all scientific teaching to be- 

 lieve that an entirely new thing like feeling, a 

 state believed by many to be unique, or without 

 parallel in any other aspect of Nature, should be 

 the mere product of organization. What is or- 

 ganization ? Unless we change the meaning of 

 the term it implies but the combination, in an 

 orderly connection, of elements which — with all 

 their individual properties — existed before organ- 

 ization. It is, therefore, as illogical to regard 

 matter not organized as devoid of feeling, as it 

 is illogical to attempt theoretically to evolve it, 

 after a creational fashion, as a " something out 

 of nothing" — a something created by organiza- 

 tion — called into being out of nothing, by a mere 

 process of orderly arrangement ! Feeling, being 

 found in organized matter, must exist fundament- 

 ally as an affection of matter in all its forms. 



A superficial objection to this conclusion, not 

 likely to be seriously urged by thorough-going 

 philosophers of the type of Herbert Spencer, is 

 the absence of " purposive " action in all inor- 

 ganic forms of matter. The absence of purpos- 

 ive action in the operations of chemical combina- 

 tion, the propagation of heat, light, and electrici- 

 ty, the play of gravitation, and the distribution 

 of forces by machinery, seem all to the common 

 mind utterly inconsistent with the presence of 

 feeling in the unorganized forms of matter in 

 which these physical manifestations are displayed. 

 The philosopher would reply to this objection 

 that absence of purposive action did not neces- 

 sarily imply the absence of feeling, any more 

 than that the actions of a madman, destitute of 

 purpose, proved the madman to be without feel- 

 ing. It is the characteristic of the speech and 

 action accompanying insanity in its most acute 

 forms to be purposeless. Indeed, the actions of 

 a lunatic seem to be far more erratic and unex- 

 pected than the ordinary physical activities going 

 on in the inorganic world. Yet, the absence of 

 purpose in the lunatic is not taken to imply ab- 



