The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

combination of single events relating to extensities, and thence it follows by analogy that the behaviour of the bodies of other men will also not be explainable in such a way, that to account for it a sort of intensive manifoldness, an entelechy or psychoid, must also be introduced. So we reach quite the same conclusion, by our new and direct method, as we have reached already indirectly, by analysing action as a natural phenomenon. The next step leads from men to higher animals which show at least some similarities in behaviour, and we even may be led to the lowest organisms in this way as far as their behaviour in acting is concerned. But, of course, such a method of demonstration would fail as soon as phenomena of the instinctive or metabolical or morphogenetic kind are studied, and it is here that the indirect proof, as applied by us in so many of the previous lectures, is the only one admissible.

The present rather subtle discussions have not been undertaken with the object merely of proving vitalism as a fact of theoretical biology ; I hope at least that this has been done sufficiently by our previous analytical researches. Our object is philosophical in this section and not merely scientific: we did not want here to prove vitalism but to prepare its epistemological justification, which is much more. If in fact we have got a direct sort of proof of the autonomy of life-phenomena, or at least of some of them, by a mere analysis of phenomenological Givenness, by an analysis of the complete series of conscious events as such, by an analysis of self-consciousness, in other words, we can fairly claim

that now we understand vitalistic becoming on the basis of our most intimate psychological experience. The Ego feels itself to be the vitalistic agent. So the common view asserts, and so our analysis has shown. This " self-feeling " and " understanding " will form the starting-point of what is to follow. In fact, the common opinion about life-phenomena, which of course is neither analytical nor theoretical in any sense, claims that " I " can move my body by my " will," and that every living being has a so-called " soul " by which it can do the same. This view, suggested by ordinary unscientific experience, can now be said to have been transferred from a non-analytical and non-theoretical to an analytical and theoretical sphere, and to have been proved aftd psychologically justified in this sphere. In fact, " I " am a link in the univocally determined series of pheno mena, so far as I " will " ; my volition is both influenced and influencing.

I am conscious of this faculty of my willing in quite an immediate manner, not through experiences but only on the occasion of experience. And this experience, which, so to say, awakes my knowledge of willing, is always of a very peculiar sort. Whenever any state of the phenomenological reality is either liked or disliked, my volition comes into action as far as seems suitable in this particular case. And I am conscious of yet more concerning my power of willing : I know that by my will there can result external events which end in typical complications of elemental realities, and that these complications are not referable in any way to other complications pre-existing in space.

a priori means of my consciousness by which I am able to understand how the happening of specific complicated results without pre-existing external specifying causes is possible. It has often been remarked already that certain other most general terms relating to what is given have a similar origin. For instance, I only understand " causality " as the necessary relation between a certain earlier and a certain later state of events in space, because I am able, so to speak, to feel causality, or, in particular, " force." Again, I " understand " reality in the form of " substance and in herence " only because I feel the permanence of my Ego in spite of its varying states. In exactly the same sense I feel that I am a willing agent as far as the origin of the Complicated out of the Non-complicated is concerned.

At this point our analysis will be resumed in the next chapter. But at first we must leave pure analysis, and must enter into very important discussions of a polemical nature. The theory of so-called psycho -physical parallelism negates what we believe we have proved. It asserts that as in any and every natural phenomenon so in man's actions also there is an unbroken series of bodily, of physico-chemical causality ; that there is no non-bodily part of events filling the gap between two bodily parts ; that mechanical causality runs throughout the brain as a bodily, i.e. material system.

Parallelism has assumed two chief forms, one of them decidedly realistic and metaphysical, the other pseudoidealistic, The first form goes back to Spinoza. One unknowable reality manifests itself in two unbroken independent but parallel series of events, the psychical and the physical series. Both of them are complete in themselves, there is no interaction between them. It affects the complete ness of the psychical side, though not the unbrokenness

and completeness of the physical series, if a certain con cession to metaphysical materialism is made by regarding the psychical as a mere " epiphenomenon " of the physical. This form of parallelism, of course, being metaphysical throughout, cannot be refuted by an immanent introspective psychological analysis like ours, but can only be refuted by general considerations, or by showing on the basis of socalled objective happening that the completeness of the physical series does not exist. By the latter means we have already refuted parallelism in our analysis of action.

As to general anti-parallelistic arguments, let me add in the first place to what was said before l Lotze's argument that it is impossible to regard the " soul " as a parallel resultant of single mechanical events, since a " resultant " in the clear, i.e. mechanical meaning of the term always relates to the effect of forces acting upon one and the same material ele ment. Besides this the strict parallelistic theory, maintain ing the completeness of both its " sides " or " aspects " of the Eeal, may be refuted by showing that it leads to absurdities of a very remarkable kind. Only the psychical acts upon the psychical, only the physical upon the physical, so the theory advocates. But this implies that any and every inorganic event or state has its " psychical " counterpart, which, of course, is simply absurd. Kickert 2 has well observed against parallelism that, according to this theory, the effect of alcohol on the human mind would be not the effect of C2H60 but of the " psychical " that " corresponds " to C2H60. C2H60 as such would only act upon the human body. It seems to me that there is no reason whatever to assume that every inorganic event or state " represents "

something psychical. Inorganic events, to a certain extent at least, always are sums ; but psychical events are not. This alone, it seems to me, overthrows strict parallelism and may even be regarded as refuting every kind of paral lelism. It is not in any way intelligible how the move ments or changes of the parts of a mechanical or energetical system, that is, of a system which is notoriously a mere aggregation of its parts, could be " accompanied " by a something, or could be the " Erscheinung " of a something that is quite certainly not an aggregate. There is nothing like " wholeness " in any mechanical system except in a purely formal geometrical sense. On the contrary, it is the chief characteristic of an energetical or mechanical system that every event occurring in it is independent of the whole, and only dependent on its own immediate conditions and cause. If part of a machine of any kind whatever is broken or disturbed, single events may go on well and typically in the unbroken and undisturbed part. For this reason a mechanical or energetical system — a "machine" — though it may well be the result of the manifestation of an in tensively manifold whole, can never be its parallel or " Erscheinung."

The second form of parallelism pretends to be idealistic, but is, in fact, realistic and metaphysical also. All socalled reality is regarded as being phenomenological, as " being " only with regard to a subject. But this subject is not identified with "my Ego" exclusively, but an indefinite number of possible subjects is assumed to exist. The parallelistic statement then is as follows : What are perceptions of things or conceptions of any kind whatever for myself, that is to say for subject A, are movements or changes of energy and potentials in the mechanical or physico-chemical system called the brain for subjects B, C, D, and so on.

Strict idealistic criticism must object to this doctrine, that nothing about the real and absolute existence of the subjects B, C, D and so on is known or even knowable. Thus the theory fails as an " idealistic " one. Besides that there is one very remarkable difficulty in this doctrine, which may best be formulated shortly in the following way. A sees a lamp, B sees the corresponding movements in the brain of A which are supposed to be parallel to A's seeing ; but B's act of seeing must have a corresponding parallel itself in the brain of B\ this movement in the brain of B may be seen by A again ; then this new act of A's seeing must have a cerebral correspondence which only "is" as far as it is seen, say by B ; and so on, ad inftnitum. In short, pseudo-idealistic parallelism, granting that reality is throughout phenomenological, but at the same time maintaining the " existence " of different subjects, is driven into absurdities. A new "psychical" parallel is always found to be wanted on going to the bottom of the matter, and this want of a new parallel never ends.

In this respect the plain metaphysical parallelism is clearer, operating as it does with the Physical and the Psychical as two types of manifestations of the Keal. Let us now return to the sphere of strict idealism, chosen as our basis of analysis, and let us see whether there be any possibility whatever of the parallelistic doctrine on such a foundation. We simply ask : is it imaginable or thinkable in any fashion that to my " seeing a lamp " or to my " thinking (a + &)2 " there corresponds parallelly a movement or a change of energetical intensities in my brain ? To " correspond parallelly " means to " be simultaneous with " ; to " be," on the other hand, means " being perceived by, or at least being perceivable to myself," if strict idealism is maintained. We know already that in principle at least my brain as a whole may rank among the things perceivable.

Then we have the following chain of events as postulated by the parallelistic doctrine, each link being checked by idealism. I see the lamp ; at the very same moment, I either see or touch a specific fact in the brain as my object. But this " perceived fact " is most obviously not my " perceiving the fact " ; * for the latter a new perceiv able fact or change in the brain is required, the perceiving of which requires another fact or change, and so on — just as in our analysis of parallelism founded on a pseudoidealistic basis. There is a series of postulates with regard to " parallels " which never ends.

We can express the whole problem still a little differently. I see the lamp after the occurrence of all the changes in the retina, the optic nerve, and the brain that I have 1 The "perceived fact" may be green, but my "perceiving the fact" is •certainly not green. perceived, let us say tactually, before. But / know that, before I could perceive in any form the cerebral parallelism that is supposed to accompany my seeing the lamp, there must first have been a perceivable change in the retina and nerves, or the tactile skin and nerves. These must be changed before I can perceive the cerebral change that corresponds to my seeing the lamp. Thus the so-called parallel effects would always be late with regard to that to which they are said to be " parallel " — in other words, there would be no parallelism at all.

Thus on the basis of strict idealism the parallelistic theory is a simple impossibility.1 Idealism therefore strictly implies that the series of 'bodily causality with regard to my body when I am acting is broken. In other words : Idealism implies vitalism in a certain field of reality. We repeat : it is for this reason and for no other that we " understand " vitalism.2 We have shown by an analysis which was free from any metaphysical prepossessions whatever that the willing " Ego " plays its elemental part in my acting, and we have now proved by another analysis, similar to the first but polemical, that any kind of " parallelism " is impossible on the basis of idealism, pure or impure. Our arguments, of course, hold good on an idealistic basis

1 There are many authors that have not realised this truth. Verworn, for instance, in his Allgemeine Physiologic begins by establishing pure idealism, then concludes wrongly that all science is psychology (comp. page 283, note 1)— as he does not see that the Given consists of two parts, only one of which is objectified in space — and at the end, strange to say, rejects vitalism and advocates the physico-chemical explanation of life most emphatically.

2 Compare the various writings of H. Bergson (Essai sur les donnees immtdiates de la Conscience, 5th ed., Paris, 1906 ; Matiere et Mdmoire, 1896). There are many points of contact between his and my way of regarding, reality and life in particular. exclusively ; that is to say, they only hold good if " being " is regarded as equivalent to " being perceived or concerned by a conscious subject." As soon as any metaphysical concessions with regard to absolute or independent being are made — and we ourselves shall make them anon — our arguments fall to the ground. But in that case our analysis of action takes their place.

If finally we turn back to the part which " my body " and its " psychoid " play in objectified nature, that is to say the part which they play as the objects of natural science, we are met at the first glance by a rather strange difficulty, or rather ambiguity. My body and the part played by it were first considered as phenomena to the Ego only, just like volition, judging, etc. ; afterwards my body was understood as belonging to objectified nature, though also within the bounds of idealism. What was the intra-psychical series in the first case became the psychoid in the second. Of course, the intra-psychical series was an immediate experience of consciousness, whilst the psychoid is only a concept, or better still a conceived factor in nature, created to fill a gap in the chain of events, which otherwise might exist in objectified nature, as has now been proved both indirectly and directly. The direct proof of its " existence," in the sense of phenomenal objectification, has been based in part upon the impossibility of the parallelistic doctrine — and now apparently our discussion ends in a sort of parallelism again ! For there can be no doubt that the immediate conscious experience of the

intra-psychical series is " parallel " to the part played by the psychoid. But, in fact, this " parallelism " is quite different from what is called so in common practice. We regard it as impossible to accept parallelism in its common form, namely, in the sense that the intra-psychical series might be paralleled by a series of events composed of single conscious acts of the type of so-called sensations, or, speaking objectively, by events of the mechanical or energetical class. But our new sort of parallelism does not assert anything of the kind. If for once we allow ourselves an excursion into metaphysics, i.e. an assertion about the hypothetic character of absoluteness — as in fact we shall do to the full extent at the end of this book — we may say that the intra-psychical series, or briefly "the Psychical," " the Conscious," is parallel to, or rather an epiphenomenon of a certain metaphysical happening (unexplainable in detail, but most certainly not resembling anything mechanical, not even by analogy) which interferes with the meta physical correlate of so-called mechanical reality.

Among all the living bodies in Nature there is certainly one whose vitalistic autonomy can be proved directly, viz. " my body " ; its " psychoid " being the immediate correlate of the intra-psychical series, as soon as the introspective point of view is changed for the point of view of natural science. In these words the chief results of the present chapter are summarised. of parallelism and establishing the discontinuity of material causality by idealistic introspection, though it occurred to me independently before I had any knowledge of the existing literature, cannot claim to be quite new. You will find it in a somewhat different form in Busse's work entitled, Geist und Korper, SeeU und Leib, where the whole problem of parallelism is discussed critically at great length, with reference to the opinions of the majority of psychologists and philosophers ; and you will also find it in the writings of Leclair1 and Bergson,2 not mentioned by Busse.

But what is new, I believe, is my connexion of the direct refutation of parallelism on the idealistic basis with vitalism as a general doctrine. By refuting parallelism, and ly establishing the Ego as acting by its will, vitalism is established, at least for one natural body — my own. Let us carefully note that to refute the parallelistic doctrine is by no means to establish the independence of the Ego's willing or of the psychoid's manifestations of mechanical or energetical constellations in the brain. On the contrary, we know that a very close mutual dependence exists here, and we have tried to discover what it is. But dependence and parallelism are two absolutely different things.

And now we are prepared to pass from psychology to epistemology. I " UNDERSTAND " vitalism, for " I " am a vitalistic factor myself. In the same way I understand causality in Nature, and pushing and pulling in particular ; for I can accomplish pushing and pulling in Nature with parts of my own body. And I understand what an unchangeable substance is, with its changeable attributes, since I feel myself such an unchangeable enduring substance in spite of the changeable phenomena present to my consciousness.

So far vitalism would seem to be psychologically justified, and it would only require some further analysis to realise what my understanding of vitalism really implies. Is any other kind of direct and positive justification of vitalism possible ? Mere psychological self-analysis can only afford a rather uncertain and doubtful conviction, it seems to me, with regard to what happens in " Nature " irrespective of my own acting. It is true, what I immediately feel whilst acting gives me a clue to understand certain phenomena observed in Nature, but that would always remain an understanding

by mere analogy, and there might be very many types of phenomena in Nature which would be unintelligible by this means. You all know what an ontological category is. A cate gory is a constituent of the irreducible conceptual scheme according to which reality becomes the object of human consciousness. Whilst Aristotle and the medieval logicians regarded categories as the unchangeable characteristics of absolute objectivity, Leibnitz, Locke, Hume, and Kant put the conceiving mind in the place of that objectivity, and thus brought the whole question into the subjective sphere.

Of course we can only say a few words here about the different problems — by no means solved to universal satisfaction at the present day — which relate to the epistemological nature of categories. A category is a certain concept or proposition which is applied in any attempt to understand the Given. It seems to me that there is hardly any doubt with regard to the mere presence of such categories in the human mind. Even Hume and his modern disciples would not deny it, though they see nothing more in the categorical system than the mere effect of a " habit " or an " economy " of the mind, which may be strengthened by " inheritance." We our selves do not believe that individual habit or economy would have been able to endow the categories with the character of absolute validity which they undoubtedly possess— at least with regard to the subject ; and to admit any kind of " inheritance " with regard to them would seem to us both metaphysical and self-contradictory, for the concept of inheritance is itself a result of categorical

At this point we are led to some rather difficult con siderations. The categories allow of statements regarding so-called objectivity which cannot be denied, which must be admitted as soon as their meaning is understood : in this logical sense they are a priori, i.e. prior to ordinary experience. Even the concept of objectivity itself, with its relation to subjectivity, is due to them. But the categories are not prior to ordinary experience in the temporal sense : they are awaked during the process of conscious experience, but are logically a priori, since they are " awaked " only and are not induced or inferred. They are independent of the amount of ordinary experience.

So far there is hardly any difficulty of a serious character. The question now arises : Are the categories properties which are inherent in the conscious Ego in such a way that the Ego is forced to conceive Givenness with their aid exclusively ? Is the Ego in possession of certain innate properties ? This view, recently styled rather inappropri ately the theory of " psychologism," x was held by many of Kant's successors ; it is much in vogue nowadays, and Kant himself must be said to have made certain concessions to it, at least in the first edition of the Kritik, though his chief intentions went in another direction.

Without any doubt I feel forced to apply the categorical system when I conceive the Given and in particular Nature ; 1 This name would be good with reference to ordinary psychology as an inductive science. But it is a little ambiguous, as the name "psychology '" also might be used in a very wide sense, embracing the knowledge of every thing that is related to mental life in any sense, including epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. I feel convinced that there would be no experience about Nature at all without my possessing this system. And yet so-called " psychologism," as the ultimate foundation of the categories, it seems to me, is wrong.1

It is wrong, but not (as Kant himself supposed in the second edition of the Kritik of Pure Reason, and as many of his modern followers say) because on a mere psychological basis of apriorism the character of objective and universal validity would be wanting to our aprioristic statements. Objective and universal validity in an absolute form is in fact quite unattainable by the human mind, to which "universal" validity will always remain a question of its subjective conviction controlled by what the majority agree to.2 The categories therefore, though they " objectify," do not guarantee " objectivity " in an absolute sense ; these two derivates of the word " objective " have been very often confused. But any " psychological " basis of apriorism, that is to say, any foundation of the categories that rested upon ordinary " psychology " in any sense is in fact not sufficient ; nay, more, it is illogical throughout, because all ordinary psychology itself rests upon the categories. To say that a something called " my Ego " is forced to apply its