THE PROBLEM OF BODY AND MIND 229 



separate off the two aspects, or processes, or systems, and 

 the problem arises how we are to think of them in relation 

 to one another. But the fact is that ' body ' and ' mind ' 

 are alike abstractions. Prof. A. E. Taylor has said : " The 

 severance of the original unity of experience into a physi- 

 cal and a psychical aspect is entirely a product of our own 

 abstraction-making intellect. ' Body ' and ' Soul ' are not 

 given actualities of experience, but artificial mental construc- 

 tions of our own " (1903, p. 314). 



Yet here again, while many of us are impressed in our 

 experience with the inter-dependence rather than independ- 

 ence of these " two aspects " bodily and mental we must 

 admit that we do not find it an easy task to explain what 

 we mean by the phrase " two aspects " in this particular 

 connection. The words do not seem to grip. 



In stating the problem Prof. Lloyd Morgan takes the 

 case of the processes involved in seeing a candle. The rays 

 of light affect the receptors of the retina, a physical related- 

 ness (a), but as the stimulus passes by optic neurones to 

 the visual centre in the occipital lobe of the cerebrum, there 

 is a superadded physiological factor (&), so that the entire 

 process may be called db. But if we definitely take note of 

 the candle and adjust ourselves deliberately to it there seems 

 to be a third kind of relatedness, a psychical process, so that 

 the whole process may be called dbc. We have thus (1) 

 the receptors in physical relation to the physical object; 

 (2) the visual centre in physiological and physical relation 

 to the receptors and through them to the object; and (3) 

 something in psychical relation in some way to the visual 

 centre, and through it to the receptors, and ultimately and 

 essentially to the candle as representing the external world. 

 This something we call the mind. (1915, p. 4) ... 



