CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE WILL 77 



independent of mind, for it assumes that brain cells 

 exist independently of consciousness. For this atti- 

 tude of naive realism there is the sanction of common- 

 sense philosophy. If we refuse to take the commoner 

 view of believing to be true what appears to be 

 true, until we learn something which makes it appear 

 untrue, we can make no progress in an attempt to 

 gain some understanding of the fundamental prob- 

 lems of life. 



The doctrine that consciousness is a function of 

 complex associated nervous structures in exactly the 

 same sense that the motion of a limb is a function 

 of complex associated neuromuscular structures is 

 naturally offensive to many persons. If mind is a 

 function of what we call matter, it is evident that 

 there is no necessity for turning to the supernatural 

 to explain human feeling and emotions, however 

 complex or noble. This belief is, of course, dis- 

 tasteful to the religiously trained mind, which has 

 learned to look on the psychical life or soul as a direct 

 expression of the existence of God, in a sense quite 

 different from such expression of God as may be 

 attributed to organic or inorganic nature in general. 

 This hostility to a materialistic point of view has 

 been a powerful incentive and influence in the fash- 

 ioning of the various philosophical teachings which 

 seek in some way to attribute mind wholly to divine 

 nonmaterial agencies, or to admit such agencies to 

 a dominant or indeterminate partnership in the 

 phenomena of the soul. Other persons have been 



