interestedly. If I am to deal with my friend or enemy at close range, it is clear that I must think with him, or Mental Content always to some extent traverse with him as Identified by the objects in his field of view. Upon higher Interested Action planes of intercourse, in narrative, in straightforward and companionable discussion, another's mind consists more of objects than anything else. Its bodily aspect falls away, and even its impelling interest tends to be neglected. But it needs only a shifting of the attention to correct the perspective. I may deliberately take pains to discover and supply a mind's objects. To do so I have only to observe what the mind selects from its environment. Is this not what is done, for example, by the student of the animal mind? We are told that the amoeba has four general reactions of the organic type. One of these is described as positive: "a pseudo-podium is pushed forward in the direction of the stimulus, and the animal moves towards the solid." The solidity of bodies enters into this animal's practical economy: "the positive reaction is useful in securing contact with a support on which to creep." Here is an element of the environment that is marked and isolated by a response which expresses the organism's self-preservative impulse. Do we, then, not know the content of the amoeba's mind? Should I ever understand the matter better by contracting my own mind to amoeba-like proportions? I grant that as I have loosely described the matter, much doubt exists as to how far the amœba's discrimination goes, but in his studies of sensory discrimination the comparative psychologist has already devised methods which open the way to greater exactness.* Conditions may be contrived which make it to the animal's interest to notice differences, and these may be progressively refined until the animal is pressed to the limit of his sensibility. When after such tests the conclusion is reached that the animal feels the solid or sees blue, what remains to be Cf. ibid., Ch. IV. 1 Washburn, op. cit., p. 40. The amoeba does not, Therefore let us observe say how we should feel said by way of "interpretation?" it is true, feel the solid as we do. the amaba, and not undertake to if we were amœbæ. We shall then find that which is presented to the amoeba to be distinguished from the fuller environment that lies before us, by the amaba's interested action. There will still persist, I feel sure, a belief to the effect that mental content can never be known in this way. Such belief appears to me to be due, at least in part, to a curiously perverse habit of thought. It is customary to look for the content within the body, and then solemnly declare that it is not to be found. Though long since theoretically discredited, the 'subcutaneous' mind still haunts the imagination of every one who deals with this problem. But why not look for the object where it belongs, and where it is easily accessible — namely, in the environment? Is it not in truth the environment which the amoeba or any other organism is sensing? If, then, we are in search of content, why take so much pains to turn our backs on it, and look for it where by definition it must escape use. Such procedure is due, I think, simply to a failure to group together behavior, and those elements of the environment selected by the behavior-the reaction, and the stimulus. It is true that neither behavior, nor even conduct, is mind; but only because mind is behavior, or conduct, together with the objects which these employ and isolate. § 15. In conclusion let me briefly summarize the parts of mind which the analysis has revealed. (1) In the first place, a mind is a complex so organized 1 I have reference here to such statements of method as the following: "Knowledge regarding the animal mind, like knowledge of human minds other than our own, must come by way of inference from behavior. Two fundamental questions then confront the comparative psychologist. First, by what method shall he find out how an animal behaves? Second, how shall he interpret the conscious aspect of that behavior?" (The italics are mine.) Ibid., p. 4. A Summary Mind as to act desideratively or interestedly. I mean here to indicate that character which distinguishes the living organism, having originally the instinct of selfpreservation, and acquiring in the course of its development a variety of special interests. I use the term interest primarily in its biological rather than in its psychological sense. Certain natural processes act consistently in such wise as to isolate, protect, and renew themselves. (2) But such processes, interested in their general form, possess characteristic instrumentalities, notably a bodily nervous system which localizes the interest and conditions the refinement and range of its intercourse with its environment. (3) Finally, a mind embraces certain contents or parts of the environment, with which it deals through its instrumentalities and in behalf of its interests. The natural mind, as here and now existing, is thus an organization possessing as distinguishable, but complementary, aspects, interest, nervous system, and contents. Or, if interest and nervous system be taken together as constituting the action of mind, we may summarize mind as action and contents. The evolution of mind appears on the one hand in the multiplication and coördination of the interests which govern it, and on the other hand in its enrichment of content through gain in discrimination and range. The latter, in turn, means the increase of that proportion of the environment of which its improved capacities enable it to take account. The human mind is preeminent in respect both of discrimination and range. In other words, it acts on abstractions and principles, on an innumerable variety of complex objects, and on remote regions of space and time; all of which lie outside the practical economy of animals comparatively deficient in sense, memory, imagination, and thought. It is only just to admit that mind as observed introspectively differs characteristically from mind as observed E in nature and society. But this does not prove that in either case it is not directly known, or that what is known is not the real mind. Every complex object presents its parts in a different order when approached in different ways, but in the object as wholly known these parts fit and supplement one another. As introspection obscures the instrumental and action factors of mind, so general observation obscures its content factor. But when these factors are united, they compose a whole mind, having a structure and a function that may be known by any knower, whatever his initial bias. [NOTE (see p. 299). — Since this book was written Professor E. B. Holt's views to which the author had already been indebted, have been published. Holt's Concept of Consciousness, and "Response and Cognition" in Jour. of Phil., Psych., and Scientific Methods, Vol. XII, Nos. 14 and 15, now constitute the most able statement of the above theory with special emphasis on its physiological aspects.] CHAPTER XIII A REALISTIC THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE The Old Realism and the New I. THE THEORY OF IMMANENCE 1. THE new realism is a revival of what has been referred to as the "antiquated metaphysics, which talks about existence per se, out of all relation to minds." But lest it be thought that this theory is altogether antiquated, it is important to point out its precise relation to earlier forms of realism. The most remarkable parallel which the past affords is to be found in a theory which Hume entertained provisionally as a natural sequel to his analysis of mind. This parallel is so instructive as to warrant its being quoted in full. "We may observe," writes Hume, "that what we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and suppos'd, tho' falsely, to be endow'd with a perfect simplicity and identity. Now as every perception is distinguishable from another, and may be consider'd as separately existent; it evidently follows, that there is no absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind; that is, in breaking off all its relations, with that connected mass of perceptions, which constitute a thinking being. If the name of perception renders not this separation from a mind absurd and contradictory, the name of object, standing for the very same thing, can never render their conjunction impossible. External objects are seen, and felt, and become present to the mind; that is, they acquire such a relation to a connected heap of perceptions, as to influence them very considerably in augmenting their 1 G. H. Howison: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, p. 21. |