260 MECHANICAL BASIS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Whether consciousness is or is not caused by mechanical pro- 

 cesses it exercises, on this theory, no influence over those processes, 

 which, whether in the body or in the other world, " go along by 

 themselves." Thus Huxley says : — 



" All states of consciousness in us, as in them (the brutes), are im- 

 mediately caused by molecular changes of the brain substance. It seems 

 to me that in men as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of con- 

 sciousness is the cause of change of motion in the matter of the organism. 



Consciousness would appear to be related to the mechanism 



of the body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be 

 as completely without power of modifying that working as the steam 

 whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without 

 influence on the machinery."* 



But this theory seems to be sufficiently answered by what we 

 know of the processes of biological evolution. I quote in this 

 connection a characteristic passage from Prof. James : — 



" On the average what seems best to consciousness is really best for 

 the organism. It is a well known fact that pleasures are generally associated 



with beneficial, pains with detrimental experiences These 



coincidences are due, not to any pre-established harmony, but to the 

 mere action of natural selection, which would certainly kill off in the long 

 run any breed of creatures to whom the fundamentally noxious ex- 

 periences seemed enjoyable. An animal that should take pleasure in 

 a feeling of suffocation would, if that pleasure were efficacious enough to 

 make him keep his head under water, enjoy a longevity of four or five 

 minutes. But if conscious pleasure does not re-inforce, and conscious 

 pain does not inhibit anything, one does not see (apart from such pre- 

 established harmony as would be scouted by the scientific champions of 

 the automaton theory) why the most noxious acts, such as burning, might 

 not with perfect impunity give thrills of delight, and the most necessary 

 ones, such as breathing, cause agony."f 



In the same way the automaton theory would put an end to 

 those views of hedonic selection which play a large part in many 

 theories of evolution. { 



III. Conclusion. 



I hope that these reflections will show that there is a case 

 of considerable strength against the view that the mechanical 

 theory of science accounts for, or can conceivably account for 

 the problems of organic life, or even of chemistry and physics. 



In conclusion I should like to make a remark — a complaint, I 

 might call it — about the dogmatic tone which underlies so much 

 scientific writing, especially scientific writing of a popular kind. 



I preface my remark by an illustration. In the case of a jury 

 we cannot reasonably complain if they disagree on their verdict, 

 but if one juryman says that a verdict of guilty has been given, 

 and another that the verdict was not guilty, and a third that no 

 verdict was given at all, then, I think, we should have an excellent 

 right to be dissatisfied. 



So it is in the scientific world. The layman cannot expect 

 scientists to be all agreed. But if he finds scientific experts, not 

 only holding contradictory dogmas, but asserting that these dogmas 

 are the verdict of the jury of scientists as a whole, he is being unduly 



* (Essays, vol. i., p. 239 ff.) 



t (" Text Book of Psychology," pp. 103, 104). 



I (Wallace, " Darwinism," p. 172). 



