RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 



PHILOSOPHY. By Hugh Elliot. 



The increasing influence of physiology in purely metaphysical 

 studies is apparent in many directions. An important book, 

 The Origin of Consciousness, by Prof. Charles A. Strong 

 (Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1918), carries a step farther the doc- 

 trine of panpsychism, by which some years ago the same 

 author attempted to reconcile metaphysics with the conclusions 

 of physiology. There are various conceivable ways in which 

 the relation between mind and body may be imagined ; there 

 is the crude old view of interaction — the theory of two dis- 

 tinct existences acting on one another by forces analogous to 

 physical forces ; there are the different varieties of parallelism, 

 which regard conscious processes as shadowy accompaniments 

 of brain processes, but inert and powerless to alter them : 

 such was Huxley's doctrine of epiphenomenalism ; there is 

 the theory that cerebral states cause mental states, but cannot 

 be affected by them ; and there is the reverse theory of 

 Prof. Strong that mental states cause cerebral states, also 

 without further reaction. The most notable feature in all 

 recent discussions of this problem is the dominance of the 

 physiological standpoint, and the marked tendency emerging 

 therefrom to break down the old sharp distinction of mind and 

 body, and adopt some kind of monistic position. The belief 

 is rapidly gaining ground that the key to the problem lies in 

 identity — as to how or where there is no general agreement ; 

 but an identity of something or other on the plane of mind 

 with something or other on the plane of body. When the 

 nature of this identity has been determined, the rest may 

 follow with less difficulty. Indeed, physiology has already 

 ruled out so many alternative hypotheses as greatly to 

 narrow the range of speculation, and to suggest that by a 

 continuance of the process we shall ultimately be driven per 

 exclusionem to the truth. The essence of the panpsychist 

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