268 



NATURE 



[Aug, 5, 1875 



birth ; then arises the phenomenon of infancy. The orang- 

 outang, until about a month old, "lies on its back, tossing 

 about and examining its hands and feet ; " with the lowest 

 savages the period of helplessness is much longer, and 

 as civilisation advances, the period during which the child 

 must depend on the parent for support, becomes still 

 longer. Mr. Fiske believes that these considerations 

 supply " a very thorough and satisfactory explanation of 

 the change from gregariousness to sociality." " The pro- 

 longed helplessness of the offspring must keep the 

 parents together for longer and longer periods in succes- 

 sive epochs ; and when at last the association is so long 

 kept up that the older children are growing mature, while 

 the younger ones still need protection, the family relations 

 begin to become permanent. The parents have lived so 

 long in company that to seek new companionships 

 involves some disturbance of ingrained habits ; and 

 meanwhile the older sons are more likely to continue their 

 original association with each other than to establish 

 associations with strangers, since they have common 

 objects to achieve, and common enmities, bequeathed and 

 acquired, with neighbouring families. As the parent 

 dies, the headship of the family thus established devolves 

 upon the oldest, or bravest, or most sagacious male 

 remaining. Thus the little group gradually becomes a 

 clan, the members of which are united by ties considerably 

 stronger than those which ally them to members of 

 adjacent clans, with whom they may indeed combine to 

 resist the aggressions of yet further outlying clans, or of 

 formidable beasts, but towards whom their feelings are 

 usually those of hostile rivalry." " In this new sugges- 

 tion," says Mr. Fiske, " as to the causes and the effects 

 of the prolonged infancy of man, I believe we have a 

 suggestion as fruitful as the one which we owe to Mr. 

 Wallace," and " the clue to the solution of the entire 

 problem " of the origin of the human race. 



Towards the end of the second volume there is a good 

 deal of more or less original matter relating to religion, 

 much of which we think open to serious criticism, but on 

 which we cannot enter here. There is, however, in the 

 writings of Mr. Spencer, a view (adopted by Mr. Fiske) 

 with respect to the relation of feeling to movement which 

 appears to us to be nothing more than a popular fallacy, 

 and which, as it seems to us, spreads much confusion 

 through the psychological part of his system. The 

 assumption against which we would direct some criticism 

 is, that feelings stand in a causal relation to bodily 

 movements. The point has recently occupied some 

 attention, but we must reserve our remarks for another 

 article. 



Though we admire the far-reaching speculations of 

 Mr. Spencer as more wonderfully consistent than the 

 thoughts of any other thinker of equal range, we cannot 

 regard his writings as criticism-proof at all points. Mr. 

 Fiske, in arguing against the volitional theory of causation, 

 says : " Phenomenally we know of will only as the cause 

 of certain limited and very peculiar kinds of activity dis- 

 played by the nerves and muscles of the higher animals. 

 And to argue from this that all other kinds of activity are 

 equally caused by will . . . is as monstrous a stretch of 

 assumption as can well be imagined." " Because this is 

 the only cause of which we are conscious, ... we are 

 asked to assume, without further evidence, that through- 



out the infinitely multitudinous and heterogeneous pheno- 

 mena of nature no other kind of cause exists. A more 

 amazing example of the audacity of the subjective method 

 could hardly be found." We hope soon to see the evolu- 

 tion philosophy rendered at once more consistent with 

 itself, and able to give to the volitionist a more complete 

 answer than is to be found in this " crushing refutation ;" 

 at which the volitionist will but smile, believing the strong 

 language to be but^a make- weight to the weak argument. 

 The argument, as it stands, is Mr. Fiske's ; it is in the 

 admission made to the volitionist, viz. that certain move- 

 ments are caused by feeling, that he follows Mr. Spencer. 

 We contrariwise maintain that an antecedent feeling is 

 never the cause of any movement whatever, that there is 

 no evidence of its being so, that the phenomena of life 

 and motion can be wholly accounted for without such 

 assumption ; that the assumption, that feeling causes 

 movements, though it can be expressed in words, cannot 

 be represented in thought ; and that the thing asserted is 

 inconsistent with the physical explanation of the objective 

 side of the universe — of all physical phenomena, and 

 movements are such — which is a fundamental idea in 

 Mr. Spencer's philosophy. When this is accepted, the 

 answer to the volitionist will be, that he takes for the 

 cause of all action not that which is phenomenally known 

 " only as the cause of certain limited and very peculiar 

 kinds of activity," but that which is not known to be, and 

 cannot be conceived of as, the cause of any activity. 



Justice cannot be done to this criticism in a review 

 article in these columns. We shall therefore content 

 ourselves with calling attention to some of the confusion 

 which, as it seems to us, this popular fallacy introduces 

 into the philosophy Mr. Fiske expounds in these volumes. 

 First, let us have no misunderstanding, if that be possible 

 among philosophers. Certain states of consciousness, which 

 precede certain bodily movements, and which are called 

 by the learned "volitions," have in all ages been believed to 

 be the cause of these movements. This opinion is perhaps 

 as ancient as the human mind, more ancient than, and 

 the father of, the earliest conceptions of deity. It is still 

 the all but universal opinion, not of the vulgar, but of the 

 most cultured. Quoting from Mr. J, S. Mill, Mr. Fiske 

 says : " Our will causes our bodily actions in the same 

 sense (and in no other) in which cold causes ice or a 

 spark causes an explosion of gunpowder." In a passage 

 quoted from Sir William Hamilton, also with approval, 

 we have this definite expression : " A multitude of soUd 

 and fluid parts must be set in motion by the will." 



Now let us in effect deny all this in Mr. Fiske's own 

 words. Speaking of what he calls " the closed circuit of 

 motion, motion, motion," he says : "No conceivable 

 advance in physical discovery can get us out of this 

 closed circuit, and into this circuit psychical phenomena 

 do not enter. Psychical phenomena stand outside this 

 circuit, parallel with that brief segment of it which is 

 made up of molecular motions in nerve-tissue." " How- 

 ever strict the parallelism may be, within the limits of our 

 experience, between the phenomena of mind and this 

 segment of the circuit of motions, the task of transcending 

 or abolishing the radical antithesis between the pheno- 

 mena of mind and the phenomena of motions of matter 

 must always remain an impracticable task. For in order 

 to transcend or abolish this radical antithesis we must be 



