Materialism

Materialism

As the word itself signifies, Materialism is a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world, which undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the conditions and activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and the soul. It is diametrically opposed to Spiritualism and Idealism, which, in so far as they are one-sided and exclusive, declare that everything in the world is spiritual, and that the world and even matter itself are mere conceptions or ideas in the thinking subject. Materialism is older than Spiritualism, if we regard the development of philosophy as beginning in Greece. The ancient Indian philosophy, however, is idealistic; according to it there is only one real being, Brahma; everything else is appearance, Maja. In Greece the first attempts at philosophy were more or less materialistic; they assumed the existence of a single primordial matter — water, earth, fire, air — or of the four elements from which the world was held to have developed. Materialism was methodically developed by the Atomists. The first and also the most important systematic Materialist was Democritus, the “laughing philosopher”. He taught that out of nothing comes nothing; that everything is the result of combination and division of parts (atoms); that these atoms, separated by empty spaces, are infinitely numerous and varied. Even to man he extended his cosmological Materialism, and was thus the founder of Materialism in the narrow sense, that is the denial of the soul. The soul is a complex of very fine, smooth, round, and fiery atoms: these are highly mobile and penetrate the whole body, to which they impart life. Empedocles was not a thorough-going Materialist, although be regarded the four elements with love and hatred as the formative principles of the universe, and refused to recognize a spiritual Creator of the world. Aristotle reproaches the Ionian philosophers in general with attempting to explain the evolution of the world without the Nous (intelligence); he regarded Protagoras, who first introduced a spiritual principle, as a sober man among the inebriated.

The Socratic School introduced a reaction against Materialism. A little later, however, Materialism found a second Democritus in Epicurus, who treated the system in greater detail and gave it a deeper foundation. The statement that nothing comes from nothing, he supported by declaring that otherwise everything might come from everything. This argument is very pertinent, since if there were nothing, nothing could come into existence, i.e. if there were no cause. An almighty cause can of itself through its power supply a substitute for matter, which we cannot create but can only transform. Epicurus further asserted that bodies alone exist; only the void is incorporeal. He distinguished, however, between compound bodies and simple bodies or atoms, which are absolutely unchangeable. Since space is infinite, the atoms must likewise be infinitely numerous. This last deduction is not warranted, since, even in infinite space, the bodies might be limited in number — in fact, they must be, as otherwise they would entirely fill space and therefore render movement impossible. And yet Epicurus ascribes motion to the atoms, i.e. constant motion downwards. Since many of them deviate from their original direction, collisions result and various combinations are formed. The difference between one body and another is due solely to different modes of atomic combination; the atoms themselves have no quality, and differ only in size, shape, and weight. These materialistic speculations contradict directly the universally recognized laws of nature. Inertia is an essential quality of matter, which cannot set itself in motion, cannot of itself fix the direction of its motion, least of all change the direction of the motion once imparted to it. The existence of all these capabilities in matter is assumed by Epicurus: the atoms fall downwards, before there is either “up” or “down”; they have weight, although there is as yet no earth to lend them heaviness by its attraction. From the random clash of the atoms could result only confusion and not order, least of all that far-reaching design which is manifested in the arrangement of the world, especially in organic structures and mental activities. However, the soul and its origin present no difficulty to the Materialist. According to him the soul is a kind of vapour scattered throughout the whole body and mixed with a little heat. The bodies surrounding us give off continually certain minute particles which penetrate to our souls through our sense-organs and excite mental images. With the dissolution of the body, the corporeal soul is also dissolved. This view betrays a complete misapprehension of the immaterial nature of psychical states as opposed to those of the body — to say nothing of the childish notion of sense-perception, which modern physiology can regard only with an indulgent smile.

Epicurean Materialism received poetic expression and further development in the didactic poem of the Roman Lucretius. This bitter opponent of the gods, like the modern representatives of Materialism, places it in outspoken opposition to religion. His cosmology is that of Epicurus; but Lucretius goes much further, inasmuch as he really seeks to give an explanation of the order in the world, which Epicurus referred unhesitatingly to mere chance. Lucretius asserts that it is just one of the infinitely numerous possibilities in the arrangement of the atoms; the present order was as possible as any other. He takes particular pains to disprove the immortality of the soul, seeking thus to dispel the fear of death, which is the cause of so much care and crime. The soul (anima) and the mind (animus) consist of the smallest, roundest, and most mobile atoms. That “feeling is an excitement of the atoms”, he lays down as a firmly established principle. He says: “When the flavour of the wine vanishes, or the odour of the ointment passes away in the air, we notice no diminution of weight. Even so with the body when the soul has disappeared.” He overlooks the fact that the flavour and odour are not necessarily lost, even though we cannot measure them. That they do not perish is now certain and, we must therefore conclude, still less does the spiritual soul cease to exist. However, the soul is no mere odour of a body, but a being with real activity; consequently, it must itself be real, and likewise distinct from the body, since thought and volition are incorporeal activities, and not movement which, according to Lucretius at least, is the only function of the atoms.

Christianity reared a mighty dam against Materialism, and it was only with the return to antiquity in the so-called restoration of the sciences that the Humanists again made it a powerful factor. Giordano Bruno, the Pantheist, was also a Materialist: “Matter is not without its forms, but contains them all; and since it carries what is wrapped up in itself, it is in truth all nature and the mother of all the living.” But the classical age of Materialism began with the eighteenth century, when de la Mettrie (1709-51) wrote his “Histoire naturelle de l’âme” and “L’homme machine.” He holds that all that feels must be material: “The soul is formed, it grows and decreases with the organs of the body, wherefore it must also share in the latter’s death” — a palpable fallacy, since even if the body is only the soul’s instrument, the soul must be affected by the varying conditions of the body. In the case of this Materialist we find the moral consequences of the system revealed without disguise. In his two works, “La Volupté” and “L’art de jouer”, he glorifies licentiousness. The most famous work of this period is the “Système de la nature” of Baron Holbach (1723-89). According to this work there exists nothing but nature, and all beings, which are supposed to be beyond nature, are creatures of the imagination. Man is a constituent part of nature; his moral endowment is simply a modification of his physical constitution, derived from his peculiar organization. Even Voltaire found himself compelled to offer a determined opposition to these extravagant attacks on everything spiritual.

In Germany Materialism was vigorously assailed, especially by Leibniz (q.v.). As, however, this philosopher sought to replace it with his doctrine of monads, an out-and-out spiritualistic system, he did not give a real refutation. On the other hand, Kant was supposed to have broken definitively the power of Materialism by the so-called idealistic argument, which runs: Matter is revealed to us only in consciousness; it cannot therefore be the cause or the principle of consciousness. This argument proves absolutely nothing against Materialism, unless we admit that our consciousness creates matter, i.e. that matter has no existence independent of consciousness. If consciousness or the soul creates matter, the latter cannot impart existence to the soul or to any psychical activity. Materialism would indeed be thus utterly annihilated: there would be no matter. But, if matter is real, it may possess all kinds of activities, even psychical, as the Materialists aver. As long as the impossibility of this is not demonstrated, Materialism is not refuted. Idealism or Phenomenalism, which entirely denies the existence of matter, is more absurd than Materialism. There is, however, some truth in the Kantian reasoning. Consciousness or the psychical is far better known to us than the material; what matter really is, no science has yet made clear. The intellectual or the psychical, on the other hand, is presented immediately to our consciousness; we experience our thoughts, volitions, and feelings; in their full clearness they stand before the eye of the mind. From the Kantian standpoint a refutation of Materialism is out of the question. To overcome it we must show that the soul is an entity, independent of and essentially distinct from the body, an immaterial substance; only as such can it be immortal and survive the dissolution of the body. For Kant, however, substance is a purely subjective form of the understanding, by means of which we arrange our experiences. The independence of the soul would thus not be objective; it would be simply an idea conceived by us. Immortality would also be merely a thought-product; this the Materialists gladly admit, but they call it, in plainer terms, a pure fabrication.

The German Idealists, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, seriously espoused the Phenomenalism of Kant, declaring that matter, and, in fact, the whole universe, is a subjective product. Thereby indeed Materialism is entirely overcome, but the Kantian method of refutation is reduced to absurdity. The reaction against this extravagant Spiritualism was inevitable, and it resulted by a sort of necessary consequence in the opposite extreme of outspoken Materialism. Repelled by these fantastic views, so contrary to all reality, men turned their whole energy to the investigation of nature. The extraordinary success achieved in this domain led many investigators to overestimate the importance of matter, its forces, and its laws, with which they believed they could explain even the spiritual. The chief representatives of Materialism as a system during this period are Büchner (1824-99), the author of “Kraft und Stoff”; K. Vogt (1817-95), who held that thought is “secreted” by the brain, as gall by the liver and urine by the kidneys: Czolbe (1817-73); Moleschott, to whom his Materialism brought political fame. Born on 9 August, 1822, at Herzogenbusch, North Brabant, he studied medicine, natural science, and the philosophy of Hegel at Heidelberg from 1842. After some years of medical practice in Utrecht, he qualified as instructor in physiology and anthropology at the University of Heidelberg. His writings, especially his “Kreislauf des Lebens” (1852), created a great sensation. On account of the gross materialism, which he displayed both in his works and his lectures, he received a warning from the academic senate by command of the Government, whereupon he accepted in 1854 a call to the newly founded University of Zürich. In 1861 Cavour, the Italian premier, granted him a chair at Turin, whence fifteen years later he was called to the Sapienza in Rome, which owed its foundation to the popes. Here death suddenly overtook him in 1893, and, just as he had had burnt the bodies of his wife and daughter who had committed suicide, he also appointed in his will that his own body should be reduced to ashes. The most radical rejection of everything ideal is contained in the revised work “Der Einzige und sein Eigentum” (1845; 3rd ed., 1893) of Max Stirner, which rejects everything transcending the particular Ego and its self-will.

The brilliant success of the natural sciences gave Materialism a powerful support. The scientist, indeed, is exposed to the danger of overlooking the soul, and consequently of denying it. Absorption in the study of material nature is apt to blind one to the spiritual; but it is an evident fallacy to deny the soul, on the ground that one cannot experimentally prove its existence by physical means. Natural science oversteps its limits when it encroaches on the spiritual domain and claims to pronounce there an expert decision, and it is a palpable error to declare that science demonstrates the non-existence of the soul. Various proofs from natural science are of course brought forward by the Materialists. The “closed system of natural causation” is appealed to: experience everywhere finds each natural phenomenon based upon another as its cause, and the chain of natural causes would be broken were the same brought in. On the other hand, Sigwart (1830-1904) justly observes that the soul has its share in natural causation, and is therefore included in the system. At most it could be deduced from this system that a pure spirit, that God could not interfere in the course of nature; but this cannot be proved by either experience or reason. On the contrary it is clear that the Author of nature can interfere in its course, and history informs us of His many miraculous interventions. In any case it is beyond doubt that our bodily conditions are influenced by our ideas and volitions, and this influence is more clearly perceived by us than the causality of fire in the production of heat. We must therefore reject as false the theory of natural causation, if this means the exclusion of spiritual causes.

But modern science claims to have given positive proof that in the human body there is no place for the soul. The great discovery by R. Mayer (1814-78), Joule (1818-89), and Helmholtz (1821-94) of the conservation of energy proves that energy cannot disappear in nature and cannot originate there. But the soul could of itself create energy, and there would also be energy lost, whenever an external stimulus influenced the soul and gave rise to sensation, which is not a form of energy. Now recent experiment has shown that the energy in the human body is exactly equivalent to the nutriment consumed. In these facts, however, there is absolutely nothing against the existence of the soul. The law of the conservation of energy is an empirical law, not a fundamental principle of thought; it is deduced from the material world and is based on the activity of matter. A body cannot set itself in motion, can produce no force; it must be impelled by another, which in the impact loses its own power of movement. This is not lost, but is changed into the new movement. Thus, in the material world, motion, which is really kinetic energy, can neither originate nor altogether cease. This law does not hold good for the immaterial world, which is not subject to the law of inertia. That our higher intellectual activities are not bound by the law is most plainly seen in our freedom of will, by which we determine ourselves either to move or to remain at rest. But the intellectual activities take place with the cooperation of the sensory processes; and, since these latter are functions of the bodily organs, they are like them subject to the law of inertia. They do not enter into activity without some stimulus; they cannot stop their activity without some external influence. They are, therefore, subject to the law of the conservation of energy, whose applicability to the human body, as shown by biological experiment, proves nothing against the soul. Consequently, while even without experiment, one must admit the law in the case of sentient beings, it can in no wise affect a pure spirit or an angel. The “Achilles” of materialistic philosophers, therefore, proves nothing against the soul. It was accordingly highly opportune when the eminent physiologist, Dubois Reymond (1818-96), called a vigorous halt to his colleague by his “Ignoramus et Ignorabimus”. In his lectures, “Ueber die Grenzen der Naturerkenntniss” (Leipzig, 1872), he shows that feeling, consciousness, etc., cannot be explained from the atoms. He errs indeed in declaring permanently inexplicable everything for which natural science cannot account; the explanation must be furnished by philosophy.

Even theologians have defended Materialism. Thus, for example, F.D. Strauss in his work “Der alte und neue Glaube” (1872) declares openly for Materialism, and even adopts it as the basis of his religion; the material universe with its laws, although they occasionally crush us, must be the object of our veneration. The cultivation of music compensates him for the loss of all ideal goods. Among the materialistic philosophers of this time, Ueberweg (1826-71), author of the well-known “History of Philosophy”, deserves mention; it is noteworthy that he at first supported the Aristotelean teleology, but later fell away into materialistic mechanism. There is indeed considerable difficulty in demonstrating mathematically the final object of nature; with those to whom the consideration of the marvellous wisdom displayed in its ordering does not bring the conviction that it cannot owe its origin to blind physical forces, proofs will avail but little. To us, indeed, it is inconceivable how any one can overlook or deny the evidences of design and of the adaptation of means for the attainment of manifold ends.

The teleological question, so awkward for Materialism, was thought to be finally settled by Darwinism which, as K. Vogt cynically expressed it, God was shown the door. The blind operation of natural forces and laws, without spiritual agencies, was held to explain the origin of species and their purposiveness as well. Although Darwin himself was not a Materialist, his mechanical explanation of teleology brought water to the mill of Materialism, which recognizes only the mechanism of the atoms. This evolution of matter from the protozoon to man, announced from university chairs as the result of science, was eagerly taken up by the social democrats, and became the fundamental tenet of their conception of the world and of life. Although officially socialists disown their hatred of religion, the rejection of the higher destiny of man and the consequent falling back on the material order serve them most efficiently in stirring up the deluded and discontented masses. Against this domination of Materialism among high and low there set in towards the end of the nineteenth century a reaction, which was due in no small measure to the alarming translation of the materialistic theory into practice by the socialists and anarchists. At bottom, however, it is but another instance of what the oldest experience shows: the line of progress is not vertical but spiral. Overstraining in one direction starts a rebound in the opposite extreme. The spiritual will not be reduced to the material, but it frequently commits the error of refusing to tolerate the coexistence of matter.

Thus at present the reaction against Materialism leads in many instances to an extreme Spiritualism or Phenomenalism, which regards matter merely as a projection of the soul. Hence also the widely-echoed cry: “Back to Kant”. Kant regarded matter as entirely the product of consciousness, and this view is outspokenly adopted by L. Busse, who, in his work “Geist und Körper, Seele und Leib” (Leipzig, 1903), earnestly labours to discredit Materialism. He treats exhaustively the relations of the psychical to the physical, refutes the so-called psycho-physical parallelism, and decides in favour of the interaction of soul and body. His conclusion is the complete denial of matter. “Metaphysically the world-picture changes . . . . The corporeal world as such disappears — it is a mere appearance for the apprehending mind — and is succeeded by something spiritual. The idealistic-spiritualistic metaphysics, whose validity we here tacitly assume without further justification, recognizes no corporeal but only spiritual being. ‘All reality is spiritual’, is its verdict” (p. 479).

How little Materialism has to fear from Kantian rivalry is plainly shown, among others, by the natural philosopher Uexk ll. In the “Neue Rundschau” of 1907, Umrisse einer neuen Weltanschauung, he most vigorously opposes Darwinism and Haeckelism, but finally rejects with Kant the substantiality of the soul, and even falls back into the Materialism which he so severely condemns. He says: “The disintegrating influence of Haeckelism on the spiritual life of the masses comes, not from the consequences which his conception of eternal things calls forth, but from the Darwinian thesis that there is no purpose in nature. Really, one might suppose that on the day, when the great discovery of the descent of man from the ape was made the call went forth: ‘Back to the Ape’.” The walls, which confine Materialism, still stand in all their firmness: it is impossible to explain the purposive character of life from material forces.” “We are so constituted that we are capable of recognizing certain purposes with our intellect, while others we long for and enjoy through our sense of beauty. One general plan binds all our spiritual and emotional forces into a unity.” “This view of life Haeckel seeks to replace by his senseless talk about cell-souls and soul-cells, and thinks by his boyish trick to annihilate the giant Kant. Chamberlain’s words on Haeckelism will find an echo in the soul of every educated person: ‘It is not poetry, science, or philosophy, but a still-born bastard of all three’.” But what does the “Giant Kant” teach? That we ourselves place the purpose in the things, but that it is not in the things! This view is also held by Materialists. Uexk ll finds the refutation of Materialism in the “empirical scheme of the objects”, which is formed from our sense-perceptions. This is for him, indeed, identical with the Bewegungsmelodie (melody of motion), to which he reduces objects. Thus again there is no substance but only motion, which Materialism likewise teaches. We shall later find the Kantian Uexk ll among the outspoken Materialists.

Philosophers of another tendency endeavour to refute Materialism by supposing everything endowed with life and soul. To this class belong Fechner, Wundt, Paulsen, Haeckel, and the botanist Franc , who ascribe intelligence even to plants. One might well believe that this is a radical remedy for all materialistic cravings. The pity is that Materialists should be afforded an opportunity for ridicule by such a fiction. That brute matter, atoms, electrons should possess life is contrary to all experience. It is a boast of modern science that it admits only what is revealed by exact observation; but the universal and unvarying verdict of observation is that, in the inorganic world, everything shows characteristics opposite to those which life exhibits. It is also a serious delusion to believe that one can explain the human soul and its unitary consciousness on the supposition of cell-souls. A number of souls could never have one and the same consciousness. Consciousness and every psychic activity are immanent, they abide in the subject and do not operate outwardly; hence each individual soul has its own consciousness, and of any other knows absolutely nothing. A combination of several souls into one consciousness is thus impossible. But, even if it were possible, this composite consciousness would have a completely different content from the cell-souls, since it would be a marvel if all these felt, thought, and willed exactly the same. In this view immortality would be as completely done away with as it is in Materialism.

We have described this theory as an untenable fiction. R. Semon, however, undertakes to defend the existence of memory in all living beings in his work “Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens” (Leipzig, 1905). He says: “The effect of a stimulus on living substance continues after the stimulation, it has an engraphic effect. This latter is called the engram of the corresponding stimulus, and the sum of the engrams, which the organism inherits or acquires during its life, is the mneme, or memory in the widest sense.” Now, if by this word the persistence of psychic and corporeal states were alone signified, there would be little to urge against this theory. But by memory is understood a psychic function, for whose presence in plants and minerals not the slightest plea can be offered. The persistence is even more easily explained in the case of inorganic nature. This Hylozoism, which, as Kant rightly declares, is the death of all science, is also called the “double aspect theory” (Zweiseitentheorie). Fechner indeed regards the material as only the outer side of the spiritual. The relation between them is that of the convex side of a curve to the concave; they are essentially one, regarded now from without an again from within — the same idea expressed in different words. By this explanation Materialism is not overcome but proclaimed. For as to the reality of matter no sensible man can doubt; consequently, if the spiritual is merely a special aspect of matter, it also must be material. The convex side of a ring is really one thing with the concave; there is but the same ring regarded from two different sides. Thus Fechner, in spite of all his disclaimers of Materialism, must deny the immortality of the soul, since in the dissolution of the body the soul must also perish, and he labours to no effect when he tries to bolster up the doctrine of survival with all kinds of fantastic ideas.

Closely connected with this theory is the so-called “psycho-physical parallelism”, which most modern psychologists since Fechner, especially Wundt and Paulsen, energetically advocate. This emphasizes so strongly the spirituality of the soul that it rejects as impossible any influence of the soul on the body, and thus makes spiritual and bodily activities run side by side (parallel) without affecting each other. Wundt, indeed, goes so far as to make the whole world consist of will-units, and regards matter as mechanized spiritual activity. Paulsen, on the other hand, endeavours to explain the concurrence of the two series of activities by declaring that the material processes of the body are the reflection of the spiritual. One might well think that there could not be a more emphatic denial of Materialism. Yet this exaggerated Spiritualism and Idealism agrees with the fundamental dogma of the Materialists in denying the substantiality and immortality of the soul. It asserts that the soul is nothing else than the aggregate of the successive internal activities without any psychical essence. This declaration leads inevitably to Materialism, because activity without an active subject is inconceivable; and, since the substantiality of the soul is denied, the body must be the subject of the spiritual activities, as otherwise it would be quite impossible that to certain physical impressions there should correspond perceptions, volitions, and movements. In any case this exaggerated Spiritualism, which no intelligent person can accept, cannot be regarded as a refutation of Materialism. Apart from Christian philosophy no philosophical system has yet succeeded in successfully combatting Materialism. One needs but a somewhat accurate knowledge of the recent literature of natural science and philosophy to be convinced that the “refutation” of Materialism by means of the latest Idealism is idle talk. Thus, Ostwald proclaims his doctrine of energy the refutation of Materialism, and, in his “Vorlesungen ber Naturphilosophie”, endeavours “to fill the yawning chasm, which since Descartes gapes between spirit and matter”, by subordinating the ideas of matter and spirit under the concept of energy. Thus, consciousness also is energy, the nerve-energy of the brain. He is inclined “to recognize consciousness as an essential characteristic of the energy of the central organ, just as space is an essential characteristic of mechanical energy and time of kinetic energy.” Is not this Materialism pure and simple?

Entirely materialistic also is the widely accepted physiological explanation of psychical activities, especially of the feelings, such as fear, anger etc. This is defended (e.g.) by Uexküll, whom we have already referred to as a vigorous opponent of Materialism. He endeavours to found, or at least to illustrate this by the most modern experiments. In his work “Der Kampf um die Tierseele” (1903), he says: “Suppose that with the help of refined röntgen rays we could project magnified on a screen in the form of movable shadow-waves the processes in the nervous system of man. According to our present knowledge, we might thus expect the following. We observe the subject of the experiment, when a bell rings near by, and we see the shadow on the screen (representing the wave of excitation) hurry along the auditory nerve to the brain. We follow the shadow into the cerebrum, and, if the person makes a movement in response to the sound, centrifugal shadows are also presented to our observation. This experiment would be in no way different from any physical experiment of a similar nature, except that in the case of the brain with its intricate system of pathways the course of the stimulus and the transformation of the accumulated energy would necessarily form a very complicated and confused picture.” But what will be thereby proved or even illustrated? Even without r ntgen rays we know that, in the case of hearing, nerve waves proceed to the brain, and that from the brain motor effects pass out to the peripheral organs. But these effects are mere movements, not psychical perception; for consciousness attests that sensory perception, not to speak of thought and volition, is altogether different from movements, in fact the very opposite. We can think simultaneously of opposites (e. g. existence and nonexistence, round and angular), and these opposites must be simultaneously present in our consciousness, for otherwise we could not compare them, nor perceive and declare their oppositeness. Now, it is absolutely impossible that a nerve or an atom of the brain should simultaneously execute opposite movements. And, not merely in the case of true opposites, but also in the judgment of every distinction, the nerve elements must simultaneously have different movements, of different rapidity and in different directions.

An undisguised Materialism is espoused by A. Kann in his “Naturgeschichte der Moral und die Physik des Denkens”, with the sub-title “Der Idealismus eines Materialisten” (Vienna and Leipzig, 1907). He says: “To explain physically the complicated processes of thought, it is above all necessary that the necessity of admitting anything ‘psychical’ be eliminated. Our ideas as to what is good and bad are for the average man so intimately connected with the psychical that it is a prime necessity to eliminate the psychical from our ideas of morality, etc. Only when pure, material science has built up on its own foundations the whole structure of our morals and ethics can one think of elaborating for unbiased readers what I call the ‘Physics of Thinking’. To prepare the ground for the new building, one must first ‘clear away the debris of ancient notions’, that is ‘God, prayer, immortality (the soul)’.” The reduction of psychical life to physics is actually attempted by J. Pikler in his treatise “Physik des Seelenlebens” (Leipzig, 1901). He converses with a pupil of the highest form, at first in a very childish way, but finally heavy guns are called into action. “That all the various facts, all the various phenomena of psychical life, all the various states of consciousness are the self-preservation of motion, has not yet, I think, been explained by any psychologist.” Such is indeed the case, for, generally speaking, gross Materialism has been rejected. Materialism refers psychical phenomena to movements of the nerve substance; but self-preservation of motion is motion, and consequently this new psycho-physics is pure Materialism. In any case, matter cannot “self-preserve” its motion; motion persists on its own account in virtue of the law of the conservation of energy. Therefore, according to this theory, all matter ought to exhibit psychical phenomena.

Still more necessary and simple was the evolution of the world according to J. Lichtneckert (Neue wissenschaftl. Lebenslehre der Weltalls, Leipzig, 1903). His “Ideal oder Selbstzweckmaterialismus als die absolute Philosophie” (Ideal or End-in-itself Materialism as the Absolute Philosophy) offers “the scientific solution of all great physical, chemical, astronomical, and physiological world-riddles.” Let us select a few ideas from this new absolutist philosophy. “That God and matter are absolutely identical notions, was until to-day unknown.” “Hitherto Materialism investigated the external life of matter, and Idealism its internal life. From the fusion of these two conceptions of life and the world, which since the earliest times have walked their separate ways and fought each other, issues the present ‘Absolute Philosophy.’ Heretofore Materialism has denied, as a fundamental error, teleology or the striving for an end, and hence also the spiritual or psychical qualities of matter, while Idealism has denied the materiality of the soul or of God. Consequently, a complete and harmonious world-theory could not be reached. The Ideal or End-in-itself Materialism, or Monism, is the crown or acme of all philosophies, since in it is contained the absolute truth, to which the leading intellects of all times have gradually and laboriously contributed. Into it flow all philosophical and religious systems, as streams into the sea.” “Spirit or God is matter, and, vice versa, matter is spirit or God. Matter is no raw, lifeless mass, as was hitherto generally assumed, since all chemico-physical processes are self-purposive. Matter, which is the eternal, unending, visible, audible, weighable, measurable etc. deity, is gifted with the highest evolutionary and transforming spiritual or vital qualities, and indeed possesses power to feel, will, think, and remember. All that exists is matter or God. A non-material being does not exist. Even space is matter. . .”

One needs only to indicate such fruits of materialistic science to illustrate in their absurdity the consequences of the pernicious conception of man and the universe known as Materialism. But we cite these instances also as a positive proof that the much-lauded victory of modern Idealism over Materialism has no foundation in fact. To our own time may be applied what the well-known historian of Materialism, Friedrich Albert Lange (Geschichte des Materialismus u. Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart), wrote in 1875: “The materialistic strife of our day thus stands before us as a serious sign of the times. To-day, as in the period before Kant and the French Revolution, a general relaxation of philosophical effort, a retrogression of ideas, is the basic explanation of the spread of Materialism.” What he says indeed of the relaxation of philosophical effort is no longer true to-day; on the contrary, seldom has there been so much philosophizing by the qualified and the unqualified as at the beginning of the present and the end of the last century. Much labour has been devoted to philosophy and much has been accomplished, but, in the words of St. Augustine, it is a case of magni gressus praeter viam (i.e. long strides on the wrong road). We find simply philosophy, without ideas, for Positivism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, Psychologism, and the numerous other modern systems are all enemies of ideas. Even Kant himself, whom Lange invokes as the bulwark against Materialism, is very appropriately called by the historian of Idealism, O. Willman, “the lad who throws stones at ideas”.

The idea, whose revival and development, as Lange expects, “will raise mankind to a new level is, as we have shown, not to be sought in non-Christian philosophy. Only a return to the Christian view of the world, which is founded on Christian philosophy and the teachings of the Socratic School, can prevent the catastrophes prophesied by Lange, and perhaps raise mankind to a higher cultural level. This philosophy offers a thorough refutation of cosmological and anthropological Materialism, and raises up the true Idealism. It shows that matter cannot of itself be uncreated or eternal, which indeed may be deduced from the fact that of itself it is inert, indifferent to rest and to motion. But it must be either at rest or in motion if it exists; if it existed of itself, in virtue of its own nature, it would be also of itself in either of those conditions. If it were of itself originally in motion, it could have never come to rest, and it would not be true that its nature is indifferent to rest and to motion and could be equally well in either of the two conditions. With this simple argument the fundamental error is confuted. An exhaustive refutation will be found in the present author’s writings: “Der Kosmos” (Paderborn, 1908); “Gott u. die Sch pfung” (Ratisbon, 1910); “Die Theodizee” (4th ed., 1910); “Lehrbuch der Apologetik”, I (3rd ed., Münster, 1903). Anthropological Materialism is completely disproved by demonstrating for psychical activities a simple, spiritual substance distinct from the body — i.e. the soul. Reason assumes the existence of a simple being, since a multiplicity of atoms can possess no unitary, indivisible thought, and cannot compare two ideas or two psychical states. That which makes the comparison must have simultaneously in itself both the states. But a material atom cannot have two different conditions simultaneously, cannot for example simultaneously execute two different motions. Thus, it must be an immaterial being which makes the comparison. The comparison itself, the perception of the identity or difference, likewise the idea of necessity and the idea of a pure spirit, are so abstract and metaphysical that a material being cannot be their subject.

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For a full refutation of anthropological Materialism see Gutberlet, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (4th ed., Munster, 1904); Idem, Der Kampf um die Seele (2 vols., 2nd ed., Mains, 1903). Consult also Fabri, Briefe gegen den M. (Stuttgart, 1864); Prat, L’impuissance du M. (Paris, 1868); Moigno, Le M. et la force (2nd ed., Paris, 1873); Hertling, Ueber d. Grenzen d. mechanischen Naturerkl rung (Bonn, 1875); Flint, Antitheistic Theories (London, 1879); Bowne, Some Difficulties of M. in Princeton Rev. (1881), pp. 344-372; Dressler, Der belebte u. der unbelebte Stoff (Freiburg, 1883); Lilly, Materialism and Morality in Fortnightly Review (1886), 573-94; (1887), 276-93; Bossu, Refutation du mat rialisme (Louvain, 1890); Dreher, Der M. eine Verirrung d. menschlichen Geistes (Berlin, 1892); Corrance, Will M. be the Religion of the Future? In Dublin Review (1899), 86-96; Courbet, Faillete du M. (Paris, 1899); Fullerton, The Insufficiency of M. in Psychol. Review, IX (1902), 156-73; Pesch, Die grossen Weltrathsel (Freiburg, 1883; 3rd ed., 1907); Stockl, Der M. gepruft in seinen Lehrsatzen u. deren Consequenzen (Mainz, 1878). See also bibliography under God, Soul, Spiritualism, World.

CONSTANTIN GUTBERLET Transcribed by Robert H. Sarkissian

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Materialism

may be defined as that system of philosophy which considers matter as the fundamental principle of all things, and consequently denies absolutely the independence and autonomy of the spirit. It is sometimes considered as synonymous with Naturalism, yet this is erroneous, for there is a difference between the notions of nature and matter. It is also called by some Sensualism, which is more correct, yet only expresses one of the characteristics of the theory of materialism. In a more extended sense, the expression materialism is made to signify the whole of the practical results which, consciously or unconsciously, flow from such philosophy, and whose final object, although sometimes restrained by considerations of prudence or expediency, is sensual enjoyment in its fullest sense.

Materialism, strictly viewed, is the doctrine that all spirit, so called, is material in its substance, and is subject to the laws which govern the composition of material particles and the activity of material forces. Strictly construed, it is a psychological doctrine or theory; but, as it implies certain philosophical assumptions or principles, it makes a place for itself in the domain of speculative philosophy. Its assumptions and conclusions are also fundamental to theology. If its positions are tenable, theology is impossible. If the human soul is but another name for an aggregation of material particles, it cannot exist when these particles are sundered. Although it is conceivable that these particles may be so minute as not necessarily to be disturbed by the dissolution of the larger particles which constitute the body, yet this is too improbable to relieve the materialistic theory from the charge of being inconsistent with the possibility of a future life. The moral relations of the soul must be entirely inconsistent with its subjection to the laws whichs govern matter ands its activities, and these moral relations give to theology certainly to Christian theology all its interest. If the assumptions of materialism are correct, there can be no intelligent and personal Creator. Creation itself is inconceivable, and therefore impossible.

A significant fact, which strikes one at first on the study of the history of materialism, is that it never appears as a power among the masses in the early stages of civilization. On the contrary, we find that in all nations a more or less perfect spiritual contemplation of nature forms the first step towards religious consciousness. This fact is a sufficient answer in itself to the assertion that materialism is the original and true form of human consciousness. On the other hand, we find materialism spreading among the masses in the nations which have attained the culminating point of their civilization. It becomes, then, the premonitory sign of their downfall, being already an evidence of their moral and spiritual decay.

The materialistic theory was in some sense sanctioned by those earlier Greek philosophers who referred the origin of all things the spirit of man included to some attenuated form of matter, as water, air, or fire. From these rude speculations philosophy emerged by successive efforts, till in the Socratic school the soul of man was held to be distinct in its essence from matter, to be superior to matter, and indestructible by the dissolution of the body. The Socratic school also emphasized the doctrine that mind has infused order into the universe. The Platonic philosophy enforced these doctrines with glowing appeals to the nobler sentiments, and embellished them with a great variety of mythological representations. Aristotle, more cautious and exact in his statements, asserted for the higher forms of intellectual activity an essence distinct from matter. The philosophers of the Epicurean school were avowed materialists. They taught explicitly and earnestly the doctrine that what is called the soul is composed of atoms, and must necessarily be dissipated at death. The universe itself likewise consists of atoms, and all its phenomena are the results of fortuitous combinations of atoms. Sensation, intelligence, and desire are the effects of the action and reaction of the atoms within and the atoms without the body. These doctrines are elaborately set forth by the celebrated Lucretius (B.C. 95-44) in his poem De rerum natura. The Atomic Materialism of Epicurus, and the Imaginative and Rational Spiritualism of Plato and Aristotle, separated the Greek philosophers into two leading divisions, with various unimportant subordinate sections. Among the Jews, the Sadducees denied thlat there was either angel or spirit, or existence after death; but there is no evidence that they supported these doctrines by any philosophical materialistic theories.

The Christian philosophy was necessarily antimaterialistic. With the revival of learning and of the ancient philosophies, the Epicurean materialism found many adherents, against whose influence the pronounced. spiritualism of Descartes furnished a positive and most efficient check. Hobbes was the opponent of Descartes, and all his conceptions of the soul and of the laws of its activity are materialistic, reducing all spiritual phenomena to bodily motions. Spinoza made spiritual beings to be modes of the universal substance which is Gods every spiritual operation being the necessary counterpart of some materialistic phenomenon. But the rise of the mechanical or new philosophy of nature, to which Descartes incidentally contributed, and which Sir Isaac Newton so triumphantly established, had no little influence in developing the materialism of modern philosophy. The speculations of Locke indirectly furthered this tendency; although, with Descartes, he asserted the authority of consciousness for the reality of spiritual phenomena. But still he contended, as against Descartes, that no man has the right to affirm that God could not endow matter with the capacity to think. The free-thinking Deists of England, who called themselves the disciples of Locke, were in many cases materialists, and advanced their speculations against the possibility of a separate existence of the soul in connection with their attacks upon the Christian doctrine of to resurrection. There were few advocates of philosophical materialism among the English writers of the 18th century. David Hartley (1704-1757) made many phenomena of the soul to depend on vibrations of the brain, but expressly denied the inference that the soul is material in its substance. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was led, in the course of his speculations, to assert that the soul is nothing but the organized body, and that this doctrine is essential to the rational acceptance of the Christian system (Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, Lond, 1777, 2 vols. 8vo). In France the influence of the spiritualistic doctrines of Descartes was gradually displaced in the schools by the system of Condillac, which found its logical termination in the extreme materialism of La Mettrie (1709-1751). L’Homme machine; Histoire naturelle de l’ame, and of baron Holbach (1723-1789), Systeme de la Narture, in which all spiritual essence and activity are resolved into matter and motion. Here the Encyclopaedists Diderot (q.v.) and D’Alembert (q.v.) deserve special mention; nor should the noted Helvetius (q.v.) be forgotten.

In more recent times, materialism has been both metaphysical and physiological. Metaphysical materialism has resulted in some cases by logical deduction, or, rather, a logical tendency, from the idealistic assumption that matter and spirit are identical. The argument which seeks to make matter and spirit one, lends plausibility to the conclusion that it is indifferent whether matter should be resolved into spirit, or spirit resolved into matter. The extreme idealism of some of the German schools has prepared the way for the materialism with which they would seem to have had the least possible sympathy. The real pantheism of Spinoza and the logical pantheism of Hegel have furnished axioms and a method, which have been applied in the service of materialism. It is in physiology, however, that modem materialism has found its most efficient ally. Physiology has renewed the previously-exploded doctrine of vibrations, which again has found confirmation in that view of the correlation of forces which resolves every agency of nature into some mode of motion. If heat, and light and electricity are but modes of motion, why not nervous activity? and if nervous activity, why not vital energy? and if vital energy, why not spiritual judgments and emotions? This argument has been urged with great earnestness and pertinacity by certain physiologists both of the German and English schools. Conpicuous among them are Carl Vogt, Physiologische Briefe fur Gebildete; Kohler-Glaube und Wissenschafj, 1855; J. Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels; Der Kreislau’ des Lebens, etc.; Louis Buchner, Kraft und Stoff (1855); Natur u. Geist, etc.; Hackel, NaturlichScrhsoyfungsgeschichte; Ueber die Entstchungq und den Staunzbau des Menschengeschlechts, etc. T. H. Huxley, On the Physical Bases of Life, edit. 1868 (compare J. H. Sterling, As regards Protoplasnm, etc., edit. 1869-72), and H. Maudsley, Physiology and Pathology of the Hlumanz Miind (Lond. and N.Y. 1867), approximate to the same opinions among the English. Alexander Bain (The Senses and the Intellect, Lond. 1855, 1864); The Emotions and the Will, 2d ed. 1865; Mental and Moral Science, Lond. 1867) sympathizes with these tendencies, treating the soul in the main as though it were but a capacity in the nervous system for special functions which obey physiological laws. The doctrine of evolution by natural selection in the struggle for existence, which has been derived by the celebrated Darwin from a limited cycle of physiological facts, and extended by him to explain the production of all complex forms of being, inorganic and organic, is materialistic in its assumptions and its conclusions, even if neither of these are recognized or confessed by its advocates. The metaphysical doctrine of development by successive processes of differentiation and integration, which has been hardened into an axiom by Herbert Spencer, and applied to the explanation of all forms of being, and even of the primal truths of metaphysical science itself, can lead to no other than a materialistic psychology. The doctrine of unconscious cerebration, which is taught more or less explicitly by Dr. W. 1B. Carpenter and other eminent physiologists, though not necessarily involving the materialistic hypothesis, is yet materialistic in its tendencies and associations. The positive school of Comte teaches directly that the brain is the only substance of the soul, and that what are usually called spiritual activities are simply biological phenomena. J. S. Mill, though not avowedly a materialist, follows Hume in reducing matter and mind to idealistic formulae, which, as conceived by him, are not distinguishable from physiological phenomena or products.

According to the materialistic philosophy, as developed by whatever writer, but especially in its once popular form of Epicureanism, the perception of our senses is the only source of all human knowledge. The remembrance of many previous perceptions of the same nature gives rise to general views, and the comparison of these to judgments. Ethics are thus but the doctrine of happiness, and its highest maxim: Seek joy, avoid pain! Yet Epicurus sought to give a certain moral tendency to this fundamental axiom of his system, by declaring every pleasure objectionable which is followed by a greater unpleasantness, and every pain is desirable which is followed by a greater pleasure; according to which principle freedom from care and insensibility to bodily pain become the highest aim of man. See Lutterbeck, Neutestamentliche Lehrbegrinle (Mainz, 1852), 1:38-58; H. Ritter, Gesch. d. Philosophie; Fries, Gesch. d. Philosophie, vol. 1. SEE EPICIUREAN PHILOSOPHY. In Boston a paper entitled The Investigator is now published in the interests of materialism. The German-Americans are also quite active in this work. They have two papers the Pionier (Boston) and the Neue Zeit (New York). The editor of the former, Karl Heinzen, is frequently before the public all over the country to press the interests of his abominable work. Recently Dr. G. C. Hiebeling published a pamphlet entitled Naturwissenschaft gegen Philosophic (New York, Schmidt, 1871, 12mo) to controvert Hurtmann’s Philosophy of the Unknown.

The defects of the materialistic hypothesis are manifold. It considers only the similarities, and overlooks the differences of two classes of actual phenomena. Through its overweening desire of unity, it becomes one-sided and imperfect in all its conceptions and conclusions, and fails to do justice to the peculiarities of spiritual experiences, which are as real as the more obtrusive and palpable phenomena of matter. Moreover, it fails to discern that the intellectual and moral functions not only have a right to be recognized in their full import, but that they have a certain supremacy and authority over all others, inasmuch as the agent which knows must furnish the principles and axioms which all science assumes and on which all science must rest. If the soul is only a function of matter, then to know is one of the functions of matter. It follows that the authority of knowledge itself may be as changeable and uncertain as the changes of form, the varieties of motion, the manifold chemical combinations, or the more or less complex developments of which matter is capable. The materialistic hypothesis not only overlooks and does injustice to the facts which are open to common apprehension, but it is a suicidal theory, which destroys, by its own positions and its method, the very foundations on which any science can stand even the scientific theory of materialism itself. SEE SOUL.

Literature. Lange (Frdr. A.), Gesch. des Materialismus, etc. (Iserlohn, 1867, 8vo); Schaller, Leib. u. Seele (3d. ed. 1858); Wagner, Kanmpf um die Seele (1857); Frauenstadt, Der Materialismus; Fabri (Dr. Friedrich), Briefe gegene den Materialisnmus (Stuttg. 1856; 2d ed. 1864, 8vo; comp. Bibl. Sac. 1865, p. 525); Janet, The Materialism of the Present Day (a critique of Dr. Buchner, Lond. and N. Y. 1866, 12mo); Lotze, Medicinische (Leipsic, 1852); also his Mikrokosmus (Leipsic, 1856); Ulrici, Gott und die Natur (Leipsic, 1862); also his Gott und der Mensch (Leipsic, 1866); Fichte, Zur Seelenfr(sqge (Leipsic, 1859); Seelenfoitdauer, etc. (Leipsic, 1867); Psychologie (Leipsic, 1864); Trendelenburg, in the Denkschriften d. K. A kad. (1849); also Hist. Beitriye (1855); Jahr, Die wvichtigsten Zeitfragen; Die Natur, der slenschengeist und sein Gottesbe.grif (Leipsic, 1869, 8vo); Weiss (Dr. L.), Anti-Materialisnzus; Vortrgye aus dens Gebiete der Philosophie (Berlin, 1869, 1871, 2 vols. 8vo); Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, 2:222, 475; Pearson, On Infidelity; Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Free Thought; Buckle, Hist. of Civilization; Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought, Lect. v; Porter, Humnan Intellect, p. 18 sq.; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, p. 451; Cudworth, Intellectual Systems of the Universe; Leckey, Hist. of Rationalism; Hamilton, Discussions; Fichte, in the Zeitschr.f. die Philosophie, 1860; Christ. Exam. 1859 (Nov.); North Brit. Rev. 1860 (Nov.); Amer. Presb. Rev. 1869, p. 193; 1872, p. 194; Bibl. Sac. 1860, p. 201; 1865 (July); Theol. Eclect. 1869 (Nov.), p. 55; Princet. Rev. 1869 (Oct.), p. 616; Kitto, Journ. Sac. Lit. 25:25; Westminzster Rev. 1864 (July), p. 90; 1870 (Oct.), p. 225; Rosenkranz, in Zeitschr.fiir wissenschafl. Theol. 1864, vol. iii, art. i; Journ. Specul. Philippians vol. i, No. 3, art. vi; Catholic World, 1870 (Aug.). SEE MATTER. (N. P.)

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Materialism

General references

Act 23:8 Infidelity

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Materialism

A proposition about the existent or the realthat only matter (q.v.) is existent or real; that matter is the primordial or fundamental constituent of the universe; atomism; that only sensible entities, processes, or content are existent or real; that the universe is not governed by intelligence, purpose, or final causes; that everything is strictly caused by material (inanimate, non-mental, or having certain elementary physical powers) processes or entities (mechanism); that mental entities, processes, or events (though existent) are caused solely by material entities, processes, or events and themselves have no causal effect (epiphenomenalism); that nothing supernatural exists (naturalism); that nothing mental exists;

a proposition about explanation of the existent or the realthat everything is explainable in terms of matter in motion or matter and energy or simply matter (depending upon conception of matter entertained); that all qualitative differences are reducible to quantitative differences; that the only objects science can investigate are the physical or material (that is, public, manipulable, non-mental, natural, or sensible);

a proposition about valuesthat wealth, bodily satisfactions, sensuous pleasures, or the like are either the only or the greatest values man can seek or attain;

a proposition about explanation of human historythat human actions and cultural change are determined solely or largely by economic factors (economic determinism or its approximation);

an attitude, postulate, hypothesis, assertion, assumption, or tendency favoring any of the above propositions; a state of being limited by the physical environment or the material elements of culture and incapable of overcoming, transcending, or adjusting properly to them; preoccupation with or enslavement to lower or bodily (non-mental or non-spiritual) values.

Confusion of epiphenomenalism or mechanism with other conceptions of materialism has caused considerable misunderstanding. — M.T.K.

Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy

Materialism

the doctrine which resolves the thinking principle in man, or the immaterial and immortal soul with which God was pleased to endue Adam at his creation, into mere matter, or into a faculty resulting from its organization. Much has been written of late years against this doctrine, and the different modifications which it has assumed: but in substance nothing new has been said on either side; and the able and condensed argument of Wollaston in his Religion of Nature Delineated, if well considered, will furnish every one with a most clear and satisfactory refutation of this antiscriptural and irrational error:The soul cannot be mere matter: for if it is, then either all matter must think; or the difference must arise from the different modification, magnitude, figure, or motion of some parcels of matter in respect of others; or a faculty of thinking must be superadded to some systems of it, which is not superadded to others. But in the first place, that position, which makes all matter to be cogitative, is contrary to all the apprehensions and knowledge we have of the nature of it; nor can it be true, unless our senses and faculties be contrived only to deceive us. We perceive not the least symptom of cogitation or sense in our tables, chairs, &c. Why doth the scene of thinking lie in our heads, and all the ministers of sensation make their reports to something there, if all matter be apprehensive and cogitative? For in that case there would be as much thought and understanding in our heels, and every where else, as in our heads. If all matter be cogitative, then it must be so quatenus [so far forth as] matter, and thinking must be of the essence and definition of it; whereas by matter no more is meant than a substance extended and impenetrable to other matter. And since, for this reason, it cannot be necessary for matter to think, (because it may be matter without this property,) it cannot think as matter only; if it did, we should not only continue to think always, till the matter of which we consist is annihilated, and so the asserter of this doctrine would stumble upon immortality unawares; but we must also have thought always in time past, ever since that matter was in being; nor could there be any the least intermission of actual thinking; which does not appear to be our case. If thinking, self- consciousness, &c, were essential to matter, every part of it must have them; and then no system could have them. For a system of material parts, would be a system of things conscious, every one by itself of its own existence and individuality, and, consequently, thinking by itself; but there could be no one act of self-consciousness or thought common to the whole. Juxtaposition, in this case, could signify nothing; the distinction and individuation of the several particles would be as much retained in their vicinity, as if they were separated by miles.

In the next place, the faculties of thinking, &c, cannot arise from the size, figure, texture, or motion of it; because bodies by the alteration of these only become greater or less, round or square, &c, rare or dense, translated from one place to another with this or that new direction or velocity, or the like; all which ideas are quite different from that of thinking; there can be no relation between them. These modifications and affections of matter are so far from being principles or causes of thinking and acting, that they are themselves but effects, proceeding from the action of some other matter or thing upon it, and are proofs of its passivity, deadness and utter incapacity of becoming cogitative: this is evident to sense. They who place the essence of the soul in a certain motion given to some matter, (if any such men there really be,) should consider, among many other things, that to move the body spontaneously, is one of the faculties of the soul; and that this, which is the same with the power of beginning motion, cannot come from motion already begun, and impressed ab extra. Let the materialist examine well, whether he does not feel something within himself that acts from an internal principle; whether he does not experience some liberty, some power of governing himself, and choosing; whether he does not enjoy a kind of invisible empire in which he commands his own thoughts, sends them to this or that place, employs them about this or that business, forms such and such designs and schemes; and whether there is any thing like this in bare matter, however fashioned or proportioned; which, if nothing should protrude or communicate motion to it, would for ever remain fixed to the place where it happens to be, an eternal monument of its own being dead. Can such an active being as the soul is, the subject of so many powers, be itself nothing but an accident? When I begin to move myself, I do it for some reason, and with respect to some end, the means to effect which I have, if there be occasion for it, concerted within myself; and this does not at all look like motion merely material, or in which matter is only concerned, which is all mechanical. Who can imagine matter to be moved by arguments, or ever placed syllogisms and demonstrations among levers and pullies? We not only move ourselves upon reasons which we find in ourselves, but upon reasons imparted by words or writings from others, or perhaps merely at their desire or bare suggestion: in which case, again, nobody surely can imagine that the words spoken or written, the sound in the air, or the strokes on the paper, can, by any natural or mechanical efficience, cause the reader or hearer to move in any determinate manner, or at all. The reason, request, or friendly admonition, which is the true motive, can make no impression upon matter. It must be some other kind of being that apprehends the force and sense of them. Do not we see in conversation, how a pleasant thing said makes people break out into laughter, a rude thing into passion, and so on? These affections cannot be the physical effects of the words spoken; because then they would have the same effect, whether they were understood or not. And this is farther demonstrable from hence, that though the words do really contain nothing which is either pleasant or rude, or perhaps words are thought to be spoken which are not spoken; yet if they are apprehended to do that, or the sound to be otherwise than it was, the effect will be the same. It is therefore the sense of the words, which is an immaterial thing, that by passing through the understanding, and causing that which is the subject of the intellectual faculties to influence the body, produces these motions in the spirits, blood, and muscles.

They who can fancy that matter may come to live, think, and act spontaneously, by being reduced to a certain magnitude, or having its parts placed after a certain manner, or being invested with such a figure, or excited by such a particular motion; they, I say, would do well to discover to us that degree of fineness, that alteration in the situation of its parts, &c, at which matter may begin to find itself alive and cogitative; and which is the critical minute, that introduces these important properties. If they cannot do this, nor have their eye upon any particular crisis, it is a sign that they have no good reason for what they say. For if they have no reason to charge this change upon any particular degree or difference, one more than another, they have no reason to charge it upon any degree or difference at all: and then they have no reason by which they can prove that such a change is made at all. Beside all which, since magnitude, figure, and motion are but accidents of matter, not matter, and only the substance is truly matter; and since the substance of any one part of matter does not differ from that of another, if any matter can be by nature cogitative, all must be so: but this we have seen cannot be. So then, in conclusion, if there is any such thing as matter that thinks, &c, this must be a particular privilege granted to it; that is, a faculty of thinking must be superadded to certain parts or parcels of it; which, by the way, must infer the existence of some being able to confer this faculty; who, when the ineptness of matter has been well considered, cannot appear to be less than omnipotent, or God. But the truth is, matter seems not to be capable of such improvement, of being made to think. For since it is not the essence of matter, it cannot be made to be so without making matter another kind of substance from what it is. Nor can if be made to arise from any of the modifications or accidents of matter; and in respect of what else can any matter be made to differ from other matter.

The accidents of matter are so far from being made by any power to produce cogitation, that some even of them show it incapable of having a faculty of thinking superadded. The very divisibility of it does this. For that which is made to think must either be one part, or more parts joined together. But we know no such thing as a part of matter, purely one, or indivisible. It may, indeed, have pleased the Author of nature, that there should be atoms, whose parts are actually indiscerptible, and which may be the principles of other bodies; but still they consist of parts, though firmly adhering together. And if the seat of cogitation be in more parts than one, whether they lie close together, or are loose, or in a state of fluidity, it is the same thing, how can it be avoided, but that either there must be so many several minds, or thinking substances, as there are parts, and then the consequence which has been mentioned would return upon us again; or else that there must be something else superadded for them to centre in, to unite their acts, and make their thoughts to be one? And then what can this be but some other substance, which is purely one?

Matter by itself can never entertain abstracted and general ideas, such as many in our minds are. For could it reflect upon what passes within itself, it could possibly find there nothing but material and particular impressions; abstractions and metaphysical ideas could not be printed upon it. How could one abstract from matter who is himself nothing but matter?

If the soul were mere matter, external visible objects could only be perceived within us according to the impressions they make upon matter, and not otherwise. For instance: the image of a cube in my mind, or my idea of a cube, must be always under some particular prospect, and conform to the rules of perspective; nor could I otherwise represent it to myself; whereas now I can form an idea of it as it is in itself, and almost view all its hedrae at once, as it were encompassing it with my mind. I can within myself correct the external appearances and impressions of objects, and advance, upon the reports and hints received by my senses, to form ideas of things that are not extant in matter. By seeing a material circle I may learn to form the idea of a circle, or figure generated by the revolution of a ray about its centre; but then, recollecting what I know of matter upon other occasions, I can conclude there is no exact material circle. So that I have an idea, which perhaps was raised from the hints I received from without, but is not truly to be found there. If I see a tower at a great distance, which, according to the impressions made upon my material organs, seems little and round, I do not therefore conclude it to be either; there is something within that reasons upon the circumstances of the appearance, and as it were commands my sense, and corrects the impression; and this must be something superior to matter, since a material soul is no otherwise impressible itself but as material organs are: instances of this kind are endless. If we know any thing of matter, we know that by itself it is a lifeless thing, inert and passive only; and acts necessarily, or rather is acted, according to the laws of motion and gravitation. This passiveness seems to be essential to it. And if we know any thing of ourselves, we know that we are conscious of our own existence and acts, that is, that we live; that we have a degree of freedom; that we can move ourselves spontaneously; and, in short, that we can, in many instances, take off the effect of gravitation, and impress new motions upon our spirits, or give them new directions, only by a thought. Therefore, to make mere matter do all this is to change the nature of it; to change death into life, incapacity of thinking into cogitativity, necessity into liberty. And to say that God may superadd a faculty of thinking, moving itself, &c, to matter, if by this be meant, that he may make matter to be the suppositum of these faculties, that substance in which they inhere, is the same in effect as to say, that God may superadd a faculty of thinking to incogitativity, of acting freely to necessity, and so on. What sense is there in this? And yet so it must be, while matter continues to be matter.

That faculty of thinking, so much talked of by some as superadded to certain systems of matter, fitly disposed, by virtue of God’s omnipotence, though it be so called, must in reality amount to the same thing as another substance with the faculty of thinking. For a faculty of thinking alone will not make up the idea of a human soul, which is endued with many faculties; apprehending, reflecting, comparing, judging, making deductions and reasoning, willing, putting the body in motion, continuing the animal functions by its presence, and giving life; and therefore, whatever it is that is superadded, it must be something which is endued with all those other faculties. And whether that can be a faculty of thinking, and so these other faculties be only faculties of a faculty, or whether they must not all be rather the faculties of some substance, which, being by their own concession, superadded to matter, must be different from it, we leave the unprejudiced to determine. If men would but seriously look into themselves, the soul would not appear to them as a faculty of the body, or a kind of appurtenance to it, but rather as some substance, properly placed in it, not only to use it as an instrument, and act by it, but also to govern it, or the parts of it, as the tongue, hands, feet, &c, according to its own reason. For I think it is plain enough, that the mind, though it acts under great limitations, doth, however, in many instances govern the body arbitrarily; and it is monstrous to suppose this governor to be nothing but some fit disposition or accident, superadded, of that matter which is governed. A ship, it is true, would not be fit for navigation, if it was not built and provided in a proper manner; but then, when it has its proper form, and is become a system of materials fifty disposed, it is not this disposition that governs it: it is the man, that other substance, who sits at the helm, and they who manage the sails and tackle, that do this. So our vessels without a proper organization and conformity of parts would not be capable of being acted as they are; but still it is not the shape, or modification, or any other accident, that can govern them. The capacity of being governed or used can never be the governor, applying and using that capacity. No, there must be at the helm something distinct, that commands the body, and without which the vessel would run adrift or rather sink.

For the foregoing reasons it is plain, that matter cannot think, cannot be made to think. But if a faculty of thinking can be superadded to a system of matter, without uniting an immaterial substance to it; yet a human body is not such a system, being plainly void of thought, and organized in such a manner as to transmit the impressions of sensible objects up to the brain, where the percipient, and that which reflects upon them, certainly resides; and therefore that which there apprehends, thinks, and wills, must be that system of matter to which a faculty of thinking is superadded. All the premises then well considered, judge whether, instead of saying that this inhabitant of our heads (the soul) is a system of matter to which a faculty of thinking is superadded, it might not be more reasonable to say, it is a thinking substance intimately united to some fine material vehicle, which has its residence in the brain. Though I understand not perfectly the manner how a cogitative and spiritual substance can be thus closely united to such a material vehicle, yet I can understand this union as well as how it can be united to the body in general, perhaps as how the particles of the body itself cohere together, and much better than how a thinking faculty can be superadded to matter; and beside, several phenomena may more easily be solved by this hypothesis; which, in short, is this, that the human soul is a cogitative substance united to a material vehicle; that these act in conjunction, that which affects the one affecting the other; that the soul is detained in the body till the habitation is spoiled, and their mutual tendency interrupted, by some hurt or disease, or by the decays and ruins of old age, or the like.

But many a man, says Mr. Rennell, has maintained, that the brain has the power of thought, from the conclusions which his own experience, and, perhaps, his extended knowledge of the human frame, have enabled him to draw. He has observed the action of the brain, has watched the progress of its diseases, and has seen the close connection which exists between many of its afflictions, and the power of thought. But in this, as in most other cases, partial knowledge leads him to a more mistaken view of the matter than total ignorance. Satisfied with the correctness of his observations, he hastily proceeds to form his opinion, forgetting that it is not on the truth only, but on the whole truth, that he should rest his decision. By an accidental blow, the scull is beaten in, the brain is pressed upon, and the patient lies without sense or feeling. No sooner is the pressure removed than the power of thought immediately returns. It is known, again, that the phenomena of fainting arise from a temporary deficiency of blood in the brain; the vessels collapse, and the loss of sense immediately ensues. Restore the circulation, and the sense is as instantly recovered. On the contrary, when the circulation in the brain is too rapid, and inflammation of the organ succeeds, we find that delirium, frenzy, and other disorders of the mind arise in proportion to the inflammatory action, by which they are apparently produced. It is observed, also, that when the stomach is disordered by an excess of wine, or of ardent spirits, the brain is also affected through the strong sympathies of the nervous system, the intellect is disordered, and the man has no longer a rational command over himself or his actions. From these, and other circumstances of a similar nature, it is concluded, that thought is a quality or function of the brain, that it is inseparable from the organ in which it resides, and as Mr. Lawrence, after the French physiologists, represents it, that medullary matter thinks.

Now it must certainly be referred from all these circumstances, that there is a close connection between the power of thinking and the brain; but it by no means follows, that they are, therefore, one and the same. Allowing, however, for a moment, the justice of the inference, from the premises which have been stated, we must remember, that we have not as yet taken in all the circumstances of the case. We have watched the body rather than the mind, and that only in a diseased state; and from this partial and imperfect view of the subject, our conclusions have been deduced. Let us take a healthy man in a sound sleep. He lies without sense or feeling, yet no part of his frame is diseased, nor is a single power of his life of vegetation suspended. All within his body is as active as ever. The blood circulates as regularly, and almost as rapidly, in the sleeping as in the waking subject. Digestion, secretion, nutrition, and all the functions of the life of vegetation proceed, and yet the understanding is absent. Sleep, therefore, is an affection of the mind, rather than of the body; and the refreshment which the latter receives from it, is from the suspension of its active and agitating principle. Now if thought was identified with the brain, when the former was suspended, the latter would undergo a proportionate change. Memory, imagination, perception, and all the stupendous powers of the human intellect are absent; and yet the brain is precisely the same, the same in every particle of matter, the same in every animal function. Of not a single organ is the action suspended. When, again, the man awakens, and his senses return, no change is produced by the recovery; the brain, the organs of sense, and all the material parts of his frame remain precisely in the same condition. Dreaming may perhaps be adduced as an exception to this statement. But it is first to be remarked, that this affection is by no means general. There are thousands who never dream at all, and thousands who dream only occasionally. Dreaming therefore, even though it were to be allowed as an exception, could not be admitted to invalidate the rule. And if there be a circumstance, which to any philosophic mind will clearly intimate the independency of thought upon matter, it is the phenomenon of dreaming. Perception, that faculty of the soul which unites it with the external world, is then suspended, and the avenues of sense are closed. All communication with outward objects being thus removed, the soul is transported, as it were, into a world of its own creation. There appears to be an activity in the motions, and a perfection in the faculties, of the mind, when disengaged from the body, and disencumbered of its material organs. The slumber of its external perception seems to be but the awakening of every other power. The memory is far more keen, the fancy far more vivid, in the dreaming than in the waking man. Ideas rise in rapid succession, and are varied in endless combination; so that the judgment, which, next to the perception, depends most upon external objects, is unable to follow the imagination in all its wild and unwearied flights. A better notion of the separate and independent existence of the soul cannot be formed, than that which we derive from our observations on the phenomena of dreaming. Again: when the mind is anxiously engaged in any train of thought, whether in company or alone, it frequently neglects the impressions made upon the external organs. When a man is deeply immersed in meditation, or eagerly engaged in a discussion, he often neither hears a third person when he speaks, nor observes what he does, nor even when gently touched does he feel the pressure. Yet there is no defect either in the ear, the eye, or the nervous system; the brain is not disordered, for if his mind were not so fully occupied, he would perceive every one of those impressions which he now neglects. In this case, therefore, as in sleep, the independence of mind upon the external organ is clearly shown.

But let us take the matter in another point of view. We have observed the action of the brain upon thought, and have seen that when the former is unnaturally compressed, the latter is immediately disordered or lost. Let us now turn our attention to the action of thought upon the brain. A letter is brought to a man containing some afflicting intelligence. He casts his eye upon its contents, and drops down without sense or motion. What is the cause of this sudden affection? It may be said that the vessels have collapsed, that the brain is consequently disordered, and that loss of sense is the natural consequence. But let us take one step backward, and inquire what is the cause of the disorder itself, the effects of which are thus visible. It is produced by a sheet of white paper distinguished by a few black marks. But no one would be absurd enough to suppose, that it was the effect of the paper alone, or of the characters inscribed upon it, unless those characters conveyed some meaning to the understanding. It is thought then which so suddenly agitates and disturbs the brain, and makes its vessels to collapse. From this circumstance alone we discover the amazing influence of thought upon the external organ; of that thought which we can neither hear, nor see, nor touch, which yet produces an affection of the brain fully equal to a blow, a pressure, or any other sensible injury. Now this very action of thought upon the brain clearly shows that the brain does not produce it, while the mutual influence which they possess over each other, as clearly shows that there is a strong connection between them. But it is carefully to be remembered, that connection is not identity. While we acknowledge then, on the one side the mutual connection of the understanding and the brain, we must acknowledge, on the other, their mutual independence. The phenomena which we daily observe lead us of necessity to the recognition of these two important principles. If then from the observations which we are enabled to make on the phenomena of the understanding and of the brain, we are led to infer mutual independence, we shall find our conclusions still farther strengthened by a consideration of the substance and composition of the latter. Not only is the brain a material substance, endowed with all those properties of matter which we have before shown to be inconsistent with thought, but it is a substance, which, in common with the rest of our body, is undergoing a perpetual change. Indeed experiments and observation give us abundant reason for concluding that the brain undergoes within itself precisely the same change with the remainder of the body. A man will fall down in a fit of apoplexy, and be recovered; in a few years he will be attacked by another, which will prove fatal. Upon dissection it will be found that there is a cavity formed by the blood effused from the ruptured vessel, and that a certain action had been going on, which gradually absorbed the coagulated blood. If then an absorbent system exists in the brain, and the organ thereby undergoes, in the course of a certain time, a total change, it is impossible that this flux and variable substance can be endowed with consciousness or thought. If the particles of the brain, either separately or in a mass, were capable of consciousness, then after their removal the consciousness which they produced must for ever cease. The consequence of which would be, that personal identity must be destroyed, and that no man could be the same individual being that he was ten years ago. But our common sense informs us, that as far as our understanding and our moral responsibility are involved, we are the same individual beings that we ever were. If the body alone, or any substance subject to the laws of body, were concerned, personal identity might reasonably be doubted: but it is something beyond the brain that makes the man at every period of his life the same: it is consciousness, that, amidst the perpetual change of our material particles, unites every link of successive being in one indissoluble chain. The body may be gradually changed, and yet by the deposition of new particles, similar to those which absorption has removed, it may preserve the appearance of identity. But in consciousness there is real, not an apparent, individuality, admitting of no change or substitution.

So inconsistent with reason is every attempt which has been made to reduce our thoughts to a material origin, and to identify our understanding with any part of our corporeal frame! The more carefully we observe the operation, both of the mind and of the brain, the more clearly we shall distinguish, and the more forcibly shall we feel, the independence of the one upon the other. We know that the brain is the organ or instrument by which the mind operates on matter, and we know that the brain again is the chain of communication between the mind and the material world. That certain disorders therefore in the chain should either prevent or disturb this communication is reasonably to be expected; but nothing more is proved from thence than we knew before, namely, that the link is imperfect. And when that link is again restored, the mind declares its identity, by its memory of things which preceded the injury or the disease; and where the recovery is rapid, the patient awakes as it were from a disturbed dream. How indeed the brain and the thinking principle are connected, and in what manner they mutually affect each other, is beyond the reach of our faculties to discover. We must, for the present, be contented with our ignorance of the cause, while from the effects we are persuaded both of their connection on the one hand, and of their independence on the other.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary