Jan. 8, 1 874 J 



NATURE 



179 



selves unable to alter the arrangement of the apparatus by 

 which the effects are brought about — a guiding intelli- 

 gence is needed (voluntary action). Such appears to be 

 the condition of the nervous system in the higher forms 

 of life ; and we recognise such a guiding power, al- 

 though we know of its existence only by its effects 

 on the organic mechanism ; and we speak of it 

 as the mind or soul.' " It is for those who, holding 

 Prof. Bain's theory of volition, reject the popular hypo- 

 thesis that the body is endowed with a soul, to show the 

 flaw in Prof Lowne's argument. In saying this, however, 

 we by no means wish to imply that there is not much in 

 the writings of Prof Bain quite inconsistent with this in- 

 terpretation of his doctrine. Indeed we find set out with 

 remarkable clearness in the volume before us some of the 

 considerations which we urged, not against Mr. Lowne's 

 argument, but against the theory of volition on which it 

 is founded. " There is no warrant for the assumption 

 (we said) that any movement of the kind called voluntary 

 is not as completely and necessarily the result of purely 

 physical antecedents, as are the movements of the planets 

 or the spelling out of a telegraphic message . . . Whatever 

 may be the link of connection between consciousness and 

 nervous action, it seems both unnecessary and irrational 

 to assert that either the amount or the direction of any 

 vervous discharge depends in the slightest degree on the 

 state of consciousness that preceded or accompanies it. 

 Sitting in his easy chair, Mr. Brown debates with him- 

 self how much he will give to the Mill Memorial Fund. 

 Greed, small vanity, respect for Mr. Mill, the fear of 

 being thought shabby, and perhaps a score of other 

 mental states come and go, and at last he writes a cheque 

 for 5/. Mr. Brown was aware of the mental side of 

 his deliberations, while the corresponding physical 

 changes in his nervous system were hidden from his 

 observation. Hence the easy mistake of supposing that 

 in writing out the cheque the fingers moved in obedience 

 to spiritual direction." This view seemed, and still 

 seems to us, to forbid every conceivable interpretation of 

 the proposition that movements " take their rise in feeling 

 and are guided by intellect." It would appear, however, 

 that what we feel to be an incongruity, does not strike 

 Prof. Bain as such. For he also, if we understand him 

 aright, believes the physical chain to be at all points 

 complete and sufficient within itself. At least we find it 

 difficult to understand the following extract from the 

 chapter " How are Mind and Body united ?" in any other 

 sense. " From the ingress of a sensation, to the out- 

 going response in action, the mental succession is not for 

 an instant dissevered from a physical succession. A new 

 prospect bursts upon the view ; there is a mental result 

 of sensation, motion, thought, terminating in outward 

 displays of speech or gesture. Parallel to this series is 

 the physical series of facts, the successive agitation of the 

 physical organs, called the eye, the retina, the optic nerve, 

 optic centres, cerebral hemispheres, outgoing nerves, 

 muscles, &c. While wc go the round of the mental circle 

 of sensation, emotion, and thought there is an unbroken 

 physical circle of effects. It would be incompatible with 

 everything we know of the cerebral actions to suppose 

 that the physical chain ends abruptly in a physical void 

 occupied by an immaterial substance ; which immaterial 

 substance, after working alone, imparts its results to the 



other edge of the physical break, and determines the 

 active response— two shores of the material with an inter- 

 vening ocean of the immaterial." Now remembering that 

 movements of all kinds are physical facts, have their 

 place in the "unbroken material succession," we once 

 more put the question— In what sense can a particular 

 class of movements be said to take their rise in the 

 mental series which runs parallel to, without forming part 

 of, the physical series ? 



The truth or meaning of our assertion that the propo- 

 sition, " movements take their rise in feeling," cannot be 

 rendered into thought, may now be perceived by anyone 

 who will attempt to picture to themselves a state of con- 

 sciousness turning on, or in any way determining the 

 direction of, a nervous discharge. But as some of our 

 philosophers, strong in logic, can surmount psychological 

 impossibilities with the same ease that our divines can 

 rise above them on the wings of faith, the disciples of 

 Mr. I\Iill and Prof. Bam may demur that the question is 

 not one of conceivableness or inconceivableness, but of 

 proof. Well, then, let them show, if they can, that they 

 have any better ground for the opinion that voluntary 

 movements take their rise in feeling and are guided bv 

 intellect, than a superficial observer ignorant of the con- 

 stniction of the steam-engine might have for a belief that 

 the movements of a locomotive take their rise in noise 

 and are guided by smoke. Should it be attempted to 

 turn the point of the foregoing argument by aid of the 

 curious description of a mental fact, that it is a " two- 

 sided fact" — both body and mind — our difficulty only re- 

 quires to be restated. In what sense can a movement 

 called voluntary — the objective side of a " mental fact " 

 — take its rise in feeling the subjective side of the same 

 " two-sided fact " ? Using Prof. Bain's own words, " it is, 

 after all, body acting upon body." 



In this work Prof. Bain does not advance his idealism ; 

 probably he may have concluded, and justly, that it 

 would prove too metaphysical for the readers of the In- 

 ternational Scientific Series. Throughout his language 

 is that of a realist. Mind and Matter seem to be ac- 

 cepted as ultimate facts ; and " the institution of two 

 distinct entities" is spoken of as "not in itself a crushing 

 dispensation." Not only so, in such expressions as "un- 

 divided twins," " one substance, with two sets of proper- 

 ties, two sides, the physical and the mental — a double- 

 faced unity," we have, to say the least, very much of the 

 ring of Mr. .Spencer's hypothesis that nervous action and 

 consciousness are the objective and the subjective faces 

 of his Unknowable— the one Ultimate Reality. We do 

 not say that Prof. Bain is attempting the dangerous e.x- 

 periment of trying to put new wine into old bottles, but 

 we fear until he has explained more fully the modifica- 

 tions which, by changes or additions, he means to make 

 in his system, his present deliverance will be apt to 

 suggest this. Douglas A. Spalding 



THE ELEMENTS OF LOGARITHMS 

 The Elements of Logarithms. By J. M. Peirce. (Bos- 

 ton, U.S.A.: Ginn Brothers, 1873.) 

 IN the preface Prof. Peirce writes : — " Logarithms 

 ought not to be comprised, as they often are, in 

 the midst of a treatise on algebra. For, in the first 



