?4^ 



NATURE 



{Oct. 19, 1876 



language bring the relation of mind to tlie physical 

 organism under the familiar conception of organ and 

 function, 



Cabanis spoke of the brain secreting thought as the 

 liver secretes bile. Dr. Maudsley recognises, however, 

 that this is a " fallacious comparison." " Here," he says, 

 *' as elsewhere, confusion is bred by the common use of 

 the word secretion to express, not only the functional 

 process but the secreted product, both the insensible 

 vital changes and the tangible results of them." It 

 seems, then, that by the word "mind" Dr. Maudsley 

 really means to denote certain vital changes of the brain 

 and nerves ; when he speaks of an emotion or an idea, 

 he means to refer to certain peculiar agitations of the 

 white and gray matter of the nervous system. There is 

 no difificvdty now in seizing Dr. Maudsley's meaning when 

 he speaks of "the performance of an idea," nor in con- 

 ceiving " mind," that is, the nervous operations, as the 

 functions of the nervous system. And we have no other 

 criticism to make than is implied in the remark that Dr. 

 Maudsley by using language in this way would not, we 

 fear, commend himself to the old woman who was all her 

 life so thankful that Adam had had the good sense to call 

 all the animals by their right names. 



Accepting Dr. Maudsley's nomenclature we have not the 

 slightest difficulty in conceiving " that all the operations 

 which are considered mental and to belong to psychology, 

 may be performed as pure functions of the nervous 

 system, without consciousness giving evidence of them, 

 or having any part in them ; " on the contrary we are, as 

 will presently appear, disposed to be more thorough than 

 Dr. Maudsley himself in regarding the physical machine 

 as sufficient for all its own operations. But before pro- 

 ceeding to this the second branch of our criticism, let us 

 recall the original, in fact, the only difficulty. Are we, 

 now that we can talk of the " physiological mechanism " 

 working out the " cognition of a logical necessity without 

 the aid of consciousness" — are we in a better position to 

 figure to ourselves the mode of connection between con- 

 sciousness, this mere "satellite of mind," and those 

 physiological operations .'' The darkness remains thick 

 and impenetrable as ever. Here are some of the 

 empty, worse than empty, phrases, with which Dr. 

 Maudsley would have us conceal the limits of our intelli- 

 gence, and our blank ignorance of what lies beyond these 

 limits. " Consciousness," he says, " is a quality or attri- 

 bute of the concrete mental act." It is, however, we may 

 be permitted to think, a most singular quality of physio- 

 logical operations — we must not forget that these are our 

 mental facts — for it has, like Lucifer of old, rebelled 

 against the supreme power, having, as Dr. Maudsley 

 complains, " miraculously got rid of its substance, and 

 then with a wonderful assurance assumed the [office of 

 commenting and passing judgment from a higher region 

 of being, upon the nature of that whereof it is actually a 

 function." Consciousness, then, is a function, an attri- 

 bute, a satellite, a quality, the usual but " not the indis- 

 pensable accompaniment of mental function." To ask 

 ivhy "cerebral organisation functions as conscious 

 energy?/' is, says Dr. Maudsley, "an unwarrantable 

 demand." It would probably be so ; what is asked of 

 men of science is not why f but how ? How are we to 

 manipulate our conceptions of matter and motion, so as 



to get out of them our conception of consciousness ? 

 The thing is not to be done. 



We come now to the second branch of our criticism. 

 Strange to say, after preaching the gospel of Matter and 

 " the wonderful works which it is continually doing before 

 our eyes," Dr. Maudsley finds himself as helpless as the 

 most bewildered of the metaphysicians, whom he holds in 

 such supreme contempt, to work the animal machine with- 

 out the assistance of something that is not physical. In 

 arguing against the presence of consciousness in the per- 

 formances of the decapitated frog. Dr. Maudsley contends 

 that consciousness is not required for the performance of 

 these movements, that they " may be explained satisfac- 

 torily without the assumption that its spinal chord pos- 

 sesses feeling and will," " that the frog acts necessarily 

 and blindly." In thus contending for the " mechanical," 

 "the entirely physical nature of the movements," Dr. 

 Maudsley would distinguish them from another class of 

 actions which he recognises as not entirely physical in 

 their nature, as somehow " dependent on consciousness," 

 not blind and necessary, but " instigated by will and 

 guided by intelligence." Surely it is to little purpose that 

 Dr. Maudsley has made thought and emotion physical 

 phenomena, if he must after all call in the aid of con- 

 sciousness of something not physical, to work the me- 

 chanism of a frog. This is not, as might be supposed, a 

 mere slip in a subordinate argument. The thraldom of 

 spiritualism, from which Dr. Maudsley has not escaped, 

 betrays itself in all parts of his book, even when he is 

 deliberately straining after his favourite conception of a 

 thinking machine. " It may seein," he says, "an extra- 

 vagant thing to say, but to me it seems conceivable that 

 a man might be as good a reasoning machine with- 

 out as he is with consciousness, if we assumed his nervous 

 system to be equally susceptible to the influences which 

 now affect him consciously, and if we had the means, by 

 microscope or galvanoscope or some other more delicate 

 instrument hereafter to be invented, of reading off the 

 results of his cerebral operations from without." Why 

 does Dr. Maudsley need to call in the aid of microscope, 

 or galvanoscope, or some other more delicate instrument ? 

 Why should his unconscious man, equally susceptible to 

 the influences which now affect him consciously, not be 

 able when asked to tell us the results of his deliberations, 

 or to write them down for us .? Is it that after the sound 

 waves of our question have agitated the tympanum and 

 set the appropriate nervous mechanism in motion, these 

 physical phenomena have to be translated into, or taken 

 note of, by consciousness — by something that is not 

 mechanism, or that is at least more than the working of 

 mechanism — in order that this nervous stimulation from 

 without should give rise to the movements implied in 

 speaking or writing ? Dr. Maudsley's unconscious reasojier 

 who cannot tell us the results of his reasoning is a defec- 

 tive construction. In spite of himself Dr. Maudsley gives 

 to consciousness, to " the witness," " the sense by which 

 the (reasoning) operations are observed within," exactly 

 the mysterious place and inconceivable functions which 

 less advanced people attribute to the thinking soul, which 

 they believe to inhabit the body to cause and direct its 

 movements. 



Our space requires that we should bring our criticism 

 to an end ; nor is there much occasion to carry it further. 



