258 president's address — section j. 



the other bodily activities. He demands that physical action shall be 

 explained by physical causes, and by physical causes alone. But is it 

 possible thus to dismiss the mental facts as in no way influencing the 

 merchant's movements ? In the mere appeal to the visual centres of 

 the brain, the telegram is of no more significance than any other series 

 of upstrokes and downstrokes of the same height and in a similar script, 

 conveying, let us say, an invitation to lunch or to a game at billiards. 

 The real message lies in the meaning, conveyed in so many signs, and 

 mentally grasped. It is this which makes the merchant start up 

 agitated, and which forms a motive of his subsequent activity. We 

 may not know how the mind influences the nervous system, any more 

 than we know how nervous changes influence mind ; but to deny the 

 mental influence while alleging the other, and to treat mind as of no 

 account in the transaction of human affairs, is an ingenious folly. 



Let us suppose that the whole of our bodily movements could be 

 explained in a purely mechanical way. An unbroken chain of physical 

 causes and effects would satisfy the demands of physical science. 

 But, over and above these, there are still the mental facts. What are 

 we to make of the sensations, the percepts, the ideas, the emotions, the 

 purposes and volitions which form the truly significant side of human 

 conduct ? If the chain of physical events be complete within itself, 

 permitting no interference by mind, these events must be equally 

 powerless to produce any mental change. From this point of view 

 co-existence in time is affirmed between the physical and the psychical, 

 while interaction is denied. We are thus led, not to materialism, but 

 to parallelism, which is powerfully represented in the thought of the 

 present day. It is seen by the supporters of this theory that between 

 mind and matter there can be no mechanical causation ; physical influx 

 or efflux is impossible. Yet concomitance at least between facts of brain 

 and mind has been established by observation and experiment. Can 

 we be satisfied, however, with a statement of mere concomitance ? 

 The world is not to be cleft in twain, as by a hatchet, into unconnected 

 orders of phenomena. Mind and matter alike belong to the one great 

 system of the universe. We cannot regard them as entirely isolated, 

 running, as it were, in parallel lines, with no real connection between 

 them. Parallelists, from Spinoza downward, have sought for some 

 ground or bridge of communication connecting the two great orders. 

 Some of the supporters of parallelism have sought to base their theory 

 on an idealistic view of the universe. They have thus been able to 

 maintain the efficiency of mind, holding it to be the only thing of real 

 value and significance, the material world interesting us only as it 

 ministers to the needs of mind. (A;) In any case, parallelism in its 

 varied forms regards the mechanical theory of materialism as inadequate. 



The materialist approaches his subject from the point of view of 

 physics and physiology. But as soon as we step across the boundary 

 that separates mind from matter, and look at the mental facts for our- 



{k) Reference may be made to Professor Stout's " Manual of Psychology," Intro- 

 duction, c. III. ; Professor C. A. Strong's " Why the Mind has a Body " ; and 

 Professor Paulsen's " Introduction to Philosophy," B. I., c. I. 



