xin HUMISM AND HUMANISM 241 



held also the volitional view of causation. If so, Hume s 

 reply that the limits of our voluntary control of bodies 

 have to be ascertained from experience is so far valid. 

 But it clearly is not self-evident that if volition is the 

 true type of causation this must be known to us before 

 experience. And so Hume s argument does not touch 

 voluntarists who are also empiricists. For these will 

 naturally disclaim any a priori knowledge of causes and 

 regard it as the most natural interpretation of experience 

 to suppose that the consciousness of power is not only 

 the source of the notion, but also good evidence in its 

 favour until there is reason to reject it. They will simply 

 say what causes are, and wherein and to what extent 

 we are causes, and what effects we can produce, all this 

 we learn only from experience. And why on earth 

 should we not? Why should we not all, from the baby 

 to the paralytic, have to find out the limitations of our 

 powers from experience ? Surely you would not have us 

 assume that we must be born with a complete a priori 

 idea of power and a similar knowledge of all that we are 

 and can ? Such an assumption would be enough to make 

 nonsense, not only of our theory, but of any theory on 

 any subject whatsoever ! 



(5) The most solid part of Hume s argument, how 

 ever, is that which disputes the value of the psychological 

 consciousness of agency on physiological grounds, and 

 thus leads on to the epiphenomenal view of mind and the 

 reduction of conscious beings to automata. Indeed it is 

 difficult to see what reply was open to voluntarists at the 

 time. At present, however, thanks to the development of 

 evolutionary and genetic views of life, adequate replies are 

 easily forthcoming. 



For example, we may say that the general principle 

 underlying the gradations and variations of voluntary 

 control of different parts of the body is the welfare and 

 efficiency of the organism as a whole. Also that it is in 

 general beneficial to concentrate consciousness (which 

 is connected with what are physiologically the most 

 expensive functions of the higher brain centres) upon 



R 



