July 21, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



83 



of consciousness, determined directly or in- 

 directly through the agency of the various 

 senses. "Within this "wave of conscious- 

 ness" are presented all of the experiences 

 which together make up the drama of life 

 of the individual. While consciousness may 

 not be defined (except in terms of itself), 

 it may be described. 



To other individuals this "inner life" of 

 each individual is non-perceptual, but may 

 — in the case of man — be described through 

 language or other physical expression. To 

 the fact of its non-perceptuality to others 

 is due the "seeming unreality of the inner 

 life." 



All the "data" of science are data of 

 conscious experience. The "experiences" 

 of the individual fall into two chief classes : 



(a) Those experiences which appear as 

 manifestations of the properties of matter 

 and which may be described or interpreted 

 in terms of matter in motion — spatial phe- 

 nomena. 



(6) Those experiences such as emotions 

 which do not have spatial attributes — non- 

 spatial phenomena. 



But consciousness — the psychical aspect 

 of the individual — is not merely a string of 

 sequential "moments" of consciousness. 

 Its most essential characteristic is its pur- 

 poseful unity. There is something which 

 unifies, relates and orders the states of con- 

 sciousness in each individual. This "some- 

 thing" — the "Ego" or "Will" — is able to 

 dislocate in time the order of sequence of 

 past experiences. 



Although mind and body — the physical 

 and psychical — are distinguishable in 

 thought, there is no scientific evidence that 

 they are separate in reality. 



The laws of sequential causation apply to 

 mental states just as to physical ones. 



Mental processes are among the most reliable 

 phenomena in Nature (Glaser, '12). 



The problem of vitalism is : How are we 



to interpret the behavior of this psycho- 

 physical individual? 



Two historical answers have been given 

 to the scientific problem of vitalism — (1) 

 the answer of mechanism; (2) the answer 

 of vitalism. 



1. The Mechanistic Interpretation of In- 

 dividuality. — Mechanism is the doctrine 

 that all phenomena — living and lifeless — ■ 

 are manifestations of the properties of mat- 

 ter in motion. According to mechanism, 

 sequential physical causation is universal 

 and involves only those forms of energy 

 recognized by physics and chemistry. Such 

 sequences may be either (a) mechanical or 

 reversible, like those of machines; or, (b) 

 physical or non-reversible, like the radia- 

 tion of heat. According to mechanism, all 

 vital sequences conform to one or the other 

 of these two types. Individual behavior is 

 — directly or indirectly — the expression of 

 the energy liberated during the chemical 

 process of metabolism. Mechanism recog- 

 nizes no alien influx or interference of 

 "souls" or "entelechies" in the endless 

 series of physical sequences. 



If we let B represent the body (physical 

 individual), and (w) represent the mechan- 

 istic view of will (consciousness) as an 

 epiphenomenon, the mechanistic formula of 

 the individual is B{w). 



2. The Vitalistic Interpretation of In- 

 dividuality. — According to vitalism the me- 

 chanistic formula is inadequate to nature 

 and to life. In the living body — at least in 

 the case of man- — sequential causation in- 

 volves another factor or agency than those 

 recognized by chemists and physicists. 

 This non-physical (non-spatial) "vital- 

 istic" agency modifies the behavior of the 

 living organism so that, from a knowledge 

 of the physical conditions only, "it would 

 be impossible to predict what will happen 

 under any given set of physical condi- 

 tions." According to vitalism, the will or 



