Marcu 13, 18S5.J 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



J23 





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EGOISM, THEISM, AND COSMISM. 

 (l'universe c'est moi.) 



{1629] — In an instructive article of Knowledge (Feb. 20), 

 entitled " Plant and Planet Life," is an impressive sentence to the 

 effect '■ that hatred to the development theory, as applied to solar 

 systems and stellar galaxies, is an effort to avoid rcfogniaing the 

 nothingness of man in presence of the infinities of time, space, and 

 Titality within the universe of God." Now, one of the olijects of 

 the brain theory of the world is to traverse this postulate of the 

 overwhelming sense of hnman insignificance in view of the 

 "immensities " and "eternities" with which Mr. Carlyle has so 

 familiarised up, by their resolution into creations, percepts and 

 concepts of the architectonic Ego itself. I have been propagating 

 this iof(« /ace for a number of years past, though finding it even 

 more unwelcome to the slow-moving British intellect than the 

 doctrine of Descent itself. 



In a recent number of this serial there appeared, by the liberality 

 of the editor, a short sketch [1G02] of the Brain Theory, or 

 Hylo-Idealism, with the title " Hylo-Phenomenology and Ontology." 

 My position, when rightly envisaged in true perspective, must 

 appear an irrefragable truism. The world we see and cognise must 

 be an object of sense and thought, a sensible world-sensibility being 

 clearly a function of vesiculo-neurine. It must be, therefore, an 

 immanent or esoteric world, not a transcendent or exoteric one. 

 Light, " creation's mind," which renders all things in the heavens 

 and earth visible, is itself non-luminous till kindled into luminosity 

 in, and by, what Mr. Cave Thomas graphically labels the only 

 colour-bos, viz., the sentient eye. So that, in reality, we never can 

 escape from self, or expatiate in God's, or any other, universe 

 except in that fashioned by our own consciousness. And conscious- 

 ness, being seated in the supreme ganglia or cortex of the ence- 

 phalon, each individual sentient being and sum-total of individuals 

 that constitutes humanity, when its nature is traced to first prin- 

 ciples, has the right to cap Louis XIV. 's vaunt, " L'etat c'est moi," 

 by the quite sober and sane scientific formula of the motto at the 

 top of this synopsis. Surely all must see, from a bird's-eye view 

 of this question, the inevitability of the induction, which, however, 

 i>y no means infers Acos>nism, but merely posits identity of macro- 

 cosm and microcosm, in the latter of which alone resides, as vis 

 insita, every mode of sentience. To me, at least, this plain, 

 common-sense, common-place, synthesis seems quite to explain 

 the megalomania of religions mystagogues, as well as the 

 confusion of brain -force and its objects, conditioning such 

 grandiose delusions as those of the astronomer in Rasselas.* 

 Ideally, or phenomenally, which is our highest reality, the lowest 

 sentient being does create its own world, which in the hnman beinf 

 includes all the above-named solar systems and stellar galaxies, 

 which thus form the glory, not the shame, of their Creator. In no 

 two brains can the universe — abstract or concrete, though similar 

 from structural similarity — possibly be identical. Quot cerebri tot 

 mundi is a pendant to Qnot homines tot sentential. So that each of 

 ns must claim, without presumption, and as our inalienable birth- 

 right, to pose as the Platonic Logos, an adequate definition of which 



* As a matter of fact, all poetic inspiration temporarily subjects 

 its votary to this pseudo-ecs(«S!.?. Lord Tennyson precises it in a 

 conplet of his " Palace of Art " : — 



" Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth [worlds], 

 Lord of the senses five." 



wc find in the first verses of the -Ith Gospel. Beyond this, Self- 

 contomplation and inspection, which is, according to Max Jliiller, 

 the atli'ude of the God Hialini, and, according to the late lamented 

 Sir A. Grant, that of the Aristotelian Nou.t, Humanity can self- 

 evidently penetrate, it corresi)onds with the I'rotagorean formula, 

 *'-U(Z« or mind the measure 0/ all filings," merging Theism in Thc- 

 anthropisni, thus levelling up Egoity to our ]iast and ]iresont 

 accepted ideal of Deity, All perception and conception is clearly 

 the contents of the former, not of tho latter, a position which 

 recent advances in all departments of physical research, from 

 astronomy to anatomy, have completely rescued from the old 

 cloudlnnd of mysticism and tnetaphysies. Seieuco itself i.s at fault 

 in its opposition to anthroj)ism, of which Nature's " bright imago" 

 is but an iini>ersonation. Just as Lord Hacon was in blaming 

 naturalists for spinning, as spiders' cobwebs, systems out of their 

 own viscera. Man, by the law of his organisation, cannot, in great 

 things or small, act otherwise. Such autopsical proccduro is his 

 '■ categoric imperative." His brain is but a nsr!i.«, and out of it 

 proceed all "things," living or, so-called, dead, in a world all 

 phenomenal and relative. Ihat offieina rerum is, in .a still wider 

 fense than Eve, tho universal matriarch, apart from which, as 

 essential to consciousness, all is nothingness and blar.k oblivion. 



Koi'.KUT Lkwins, M.D. 



UVLO-IDEALISM. 



[1630] — So far as T understand Mr. Cave Thomas, he holds that 

 the world, as known to us, falls into three divisions : — Ist, "objects," 

 which appear to consist chiefly of "vibrations;" 2nd, tho human 

 nervous system, or vvh.atho oddly styles " snbjt-'ctlve nerves; " and 

 3rd, the human consciousness, including tho phenomena of light, 

 sound, &c. Dr. Lewins unifies the three divisions, and asserts that 

 nothing outside consciousness can possibly bo an object of know- 

 ledge. The latter axiom may seem incompatible with the thesis 

 that consciousness is a function of the cerebral cortex ; but the 

 incompatibility is merely apparent, as I have tried to show in an 

 article published last December in the Juurnul nj Heience. It is 

 quite true that we can only infer the existence of matter ; but the 

 inference is deducible from an assumption which lies at the basis of 

 all reasoning whatsoever. If reasoning, or intellectual activity, bo 

 possible, the Ego cannot be a mere bundle of passive pictures, or 

 mental phenomena, but must be an acting Entity. And since (in 

 the words of Prof. Ilusley) "those states of consciousness which 

 we call sensation are the immediate consequent of a change in the 

 brain excited by the sensory nerves," we arc led to the conclusion 

 that the cerebral cortex is the "fons ct origo" of thought and 

 emotion, and is therefore identical with the Ego. There is ob- 

 viously no excuse for the further assum]ition of "an es.sence 

 suj)erior to, and dominating matter " ; therefore, having no evidence 

 in favour of Dualism, we obey the law of parsimony, and rest in 

 Monism. Beyond the bare attributes of existence and activity, 

 we do not pretend to know anything of matter. So far as " in- 

 ferred " it is within the mind; beyond our power of inference, it 

 becomes to us null and void. Neither the attraction of gravity 

 nor anything else can be "explained" by Newton or by any other 

 philosopher ; and we gain nothing by styling the forces of Nature 

 " Animistic." 



Berkeley's special contribution to mental science is the axiom 

 that a sensation cannot possibly resemble anything which is not a 

 sensation. I must refer Mr. Cave Thomas, not to Lewes's article, 

 so considerately indicated by the editor, but to Berkeley's own 

 writings, and to the divisions of Kant's " Critique of Pure Keason," 

 entitled, "Transcendental yEsthetic " and "Transcendental Ana- 

 lytic." And since the necessity of compression has, doubtless, 

 rendered this letter somewhat obscure, permit nie to mention the 

 following tractates : — " Tne Identity of Vital and Cosmical Torce," 

 " Life and Mind, on the Basis of Modern Medicine," both by Robert 

 Lewins, M.D., and " What is Religion," by C. N., published by 

 Messrs. Stewart* Co., 41, Farringdon-street, E.G. ; also the follow- 

 ing articles, by C.N. , printed in the Journal of Science: "Animal 

 Automatism," April, 1882 ; " The Philosophy of Thomas Carlyle," 

 June, 1882; "The Brain Theory of Mind and Matter," March, 

 1883; and " Ilylo-Idealism— a Defence," December, 1884. 



C.N. 



THE FALLACY OF MATERIALISM. 



[1631]— Referring to Mr. W. Cave Thomas's letter (1013), is 

 there not sense in the following objection to Bishop Berkeley's 

 system ? A being, such as an oyster, with no means of ascertaining 

 the opinions and impressions of other beings, might plausibly con- 

 ceive that all his own are untrustworthy, and that his idea of an 

 objective universe may be but an idea. It cannot, however, see tliat 

 higher animals would be justified in so concluding (if they could 

 think so far), becjuse they can see that all otliers are agreed on the 



