Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/353

 to contradict ourselves, to treat the soul as a mere adjective not influencing the body. And to accept, on the other hand, two coinciding and parallel series is to adopt a conclusion opposed to the main bulk of appearance. Nor for such a desertion of probability can I find any warrant. The common view, that soul and body make a difference to one another, is in the end proof against objection. And I will endeavour now to set it out in a defensible form.

Let me say at once that, by a causal connection of mind with matter, I do not mean that one influences the other when bare. I do not mean that soul by itself ever acts upon body, or that mere bodily states have an action on bare soul. Whether anything of the kind is possible, I shall enquire lower down; but I certainly see no reason to regard it as actual. I understand that, normally, we have an event with two sides, and that these two sides, taken together, are the inseparable cause of the event which succeeds. What is the effect? It is a state of soul going along with a state of body, or rather with a state of those parts of our organism which are considered to be in immediate relation with mind. And what are we to say is the cause? It is a double event of the same kind, and the two sides of it, both in union, produce the effect. The alteration of mind, which results, is not the effect of mind or body, acting singly or alone, but of both working at once. And the state of body, which accompanies it, is again the product of two influences. It is brought about neither by bare body, nor yet again