250 Science Religion and Reality 



consciousness ; hence not only spiritualistic intuition but the 

 very mechanical interpretation of the Universe, which in the last 

 analysis derives its concepts from our human experience, is of an 

 anthropomorphic nature." The statements of the optimistic 

 advocates of nineteenth-century materialism seem crude and gross 

 when made to submit to tests of this kind. It is not as if the 

 mechanistic world-view came into our knowledge as something 

 from outside, something given, written on tables of stone and 

 possessing immutable authority ; on the contrary, it is a product of 

 our own minds and bears deeply impressed upon it the marks of its 

 origin. Mind, therefore, and all mental processes cannot possibly 

 receive explanation or description in physico-chemical terms, for 

 that would amount to explaining something by an instrument 

 itself the product of the thing explained. 



This criticism has shown us, therefore, that whereas on the 

 physical side mechanistic conceptions are perfectly adequate, they 

 cannot without grave logical difficulty be extended to cover the 

 sphere of mind. It is at this point that we realise the profound 

 truth of McDougall's dictum that vitalism is a form of animism 

 characterised by its neglect of the psychophysical problem. 



Once again we find ourselves back face to face with the 

 problem of interrelation of the material and spiritual part of the 

 organism. But we have assuredly cleared away a considerable 

 mass of debris around the base of the matter. The triumph of 

 mechanistic biology has indeed been a real one, for it has succeeded 

 in abolishing the vital force in living things which so unneces- 

 sarily complicated the whole question. We are back again with 

 the concept of the undivided anima, and the ground is perfectly 

 clear for philosophical and psychological discussion as to the 

 psychophysical problem. It is in this that the achievement of 

 physico-chemical biology is to be found. 



The name which must command our chief respect accordingly 

 is that of Descartes, who first saw clearly that the body was really 

 a machine governed not by any vital force but by the soul or mind 

 or whatever the non-material part of man may be called. It is 

 needless to say that we are not tied to any of the details of his 

 philosophy or his physiology ; indeed, both of them have for two 

 centuries been of merely historical interest. Nor are we in the 

 least compelled to accept his absolute dualism of matter and spirit ; 

 indeed, in our concluding section I hope to show that this view is 



