434 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 



What then becomes of the apparent dualism between matter and spirit? 

 Many philosophers persist in affirming that the only alternative is mate- 

 rialism, according to which mind is "a function of the body (matter), and 

 depends upon it completely." This is an easy thesis to demolish; and having 

 demolished it, they can conclude that the dualistic alternative is true. The 

 real alternative to dualism they have conveniently omitted to mention. 



The only logical alternative to dualism is monism — that matter and mind 

 are two aspects of one reality, that there exists one world stuff, which re- 

 veals material or mental properties according to the point of view. Looked 

 at from the outside, the world stuff has nothing but material properties; 

 its operations appear as mind only to itself, from within.* The first objec- 

 tion to this, that we have experience of the minds of other people, disappears 

 when we remember that this experience is not direct, as is the experi- 

 ence of our own psychic processes, but indirect, deduced from other peo- 

 ple's behavior (including expression and verbal behavior), combined with 

 our knowledge of our own minds. The second objection, that a dead man 

 still has the same body as a live one, and therefore differs by the loss of a 

 living soul, is still more easily disposed of. A dead body is not the same 

 as a living body: the chemical conditions in it — for instance the presence 

 of enough oxygen for the functioning of the tissues — are different. If you 

 substitute oil for acid in the battery of your automobile, no current will 

 pass. 



But if the world stuff is both matter and mind in one; if there is no break 

 in continuity between the thinking, feeling adult human being and the 

 inert ovum from which he developed; no break in continuity between man 

 and his remote pre-amoebic ancestor; no break in continuity between life 

 and not-life — why then mind or something of the same nature as mind 

 must exist throughout the entire universe. This is, I believe, the truth. We 

 may never be able to prove it, but it is the most economical hypothesis: 

 it fits the facts much more simply than does any dualistic theory, whether 

 a universal dualism or one that assumes that mind is suddenly introduced 

 into existing matter at a certain stage, and very much more simply than 

 one-sided idealism (in the metaphysical sense) or one-sided materialism. 



THE SIGNIFICANT ELECTRIC EEL 



The notion that there is something of the same nature as human mind 

 in lifeless matter at first sight appears incredible or ridiculous. Let us, how- 

 ever, illustrate its possibility by considering certain well-established bio- 

 logical facts concerning electricity. Apart from lightning, the only power- 

 ful electric phenomena known before the late eighteenth century were 

 the electric shocks produced by the electric eel, the electric ray, and one 



* Mind is used here broadly, to denote all psychical activity and experience, con- 

 scious or subconscious, sensory, emotional, cognitive and conative. — Ed. 



