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 PARALLELISM

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PARALLELISM

III. Synthetic ParalliUsin. — The theme is worked up by the biiiliiing of thought upon siinihir thought:

(a) Mightier than the voices of many waters, Mightier than the breakers of the oeean In the high plaec is Jahweh.

Ps., xcii. 4 (Hebrew, xciii).

(b) Know ye that Jahweh he is the Lord, He hath made us; his we are;

liis folk are we, yea, the flock of His pasture. Ps., xcix, 1 (Hebrew, e).

IV. Iniroverted Parallelism (named by Jebb, in "Sacred Literature", sec. 4). The thought veers from the main theme and then returns thereto.

Only in God be still, my soul.

From Him is my life; Only He is my rock, my salvation,

My fortress. I totter not.

How long will ye set upon a man, —

Will ye dash upon him, all of you? Only to thrust me from my height they plan,

As from a toppling wall. They love the lie: they bless with the lips; And in their hearts they curse. Only in God be still, my soul.

From Him is my hfe; Only He is my rock, my salvation, My fortress. I totter not.

Ps. Ixi, 2-7 (Hebrew, Ixii).

V. Stair-like Parallelism. — The thought is repeated, in pretty much the same words, and is developed still further:

Jahweh shall guard thee from all evil, Jahweh shall guard thy soul; Jahweh shall guard thy coming and thy going From now for ever more.

Ps. c.xx, 7-8 (Hebrew, cxxi).

VI. Emhlemalic Parallelism. — The building up of a thought by u.se of simile:

Jahweh, my God, early I seek Thee;

My soul doth faim for Thee;

My flesh doth faint for Thee;

Like a land of drought it thirsts for Thee.

Ps. Ixii, 2, 3 (Hebrew, Ixiii). Parallelism may be seen in distichs or tristichs. In fact, scholars are now coming round to the theory that the principle of balance and counterbalance is far more comprehensive in Hebrew poetry than are the above-named parallelisms. Each individual line is a unit of sense, and combines with other such units to form larger units of sense. Recent scholars, like Zenner, have found an almost endless variety of balance and counterbalance of words with words; of hues with lines, either of the same strophe or of an antistrophe; of strophe with antistrophe or with another strophe etc. In fact, this wider application of the principle of parallelism or balance in the study of Hebrew poetry has enabled modern scholars to go far in their efforts to reconstruct the metres of the sacred writers.

Sf:nijaau DeremetricavHfrum Ilehrfrorum (Vienna. 1890); DoL- LEB. Rhtfthymus, Metrilc und Strophik in tier Biblisch-H ebr&ischen Poetie (Padcrborn. 1899); Grimmb, Grundzuiie der Hebraiscken Akzent-unrl Vocallehre (Yfxhotirg, 1896); Zenner, Die CAorffesanffe im Buck der Pmlmm (Freiburg im Br.. 1896) ; Zenner and Wies- MASN, Die Paalmen nach dem Urlexl (Munater, 1906); Kactzsch, Die Poesie und die poelixehen Backer dea Alien Testaments (Leip- zig, 1902); Brioos. Pmlrm (New York. 1906); Bickell. Melriccs bibl. rea. exempt, illwtrat. (Innsbruck. 1882), Carmina V. T. me- Irice (Innsbruck, 1882); Gietmann, De re metrica Hebrceorum (Freiburg im Br., 1880).

Walter Drum.

Parallelism, PsYcno-PnYsiCAL, a doctrine which states that the relation between mental processes, on the one hand, and physical, physiological, or cerebral processes on the other, is one merely of invariable concomitance: each psychical change or psychical state, each psychosis, involves a corresponding neural change or neural state, neurosis, and vice versa. It

denies the possibility of interaction between body and mind. At most there can be a certain point-for- point correlation such that, given any process in the nervous system, a definite mental process is its in- variable accompaniment; and, given ririy particular l)rocess in consciousness, a corresponding brain-state or neurosis will invariably be present.

The fundamental principles of P.sycho-physical Parallelism are based (1) upon the f:u't tliMt .-Ul psy- chical processes presuppose as 1 heir (■(nidilidn .■niic qua lion processes of a physical chaniclcr in I he mrvous organism; (2) upon the principle of tin- cun.sciAHtionof energy; and (3) upon the assuiiiptioii that mind and matter are so utterly unlike and so uttciiy opposed in character that interaction between them is ini|Missible.

The psychological data upon which the theory rests we may in general grant. The nuidrrn scieiicc of p.sy- chophysics (q. v.) aided by cerebral anatomy, cerebral physiology, and pathology, proves fairly conclusively that (1) sensation and perception are conditioned by nervous processes in the brain and in the peripheral end-organs of sense, depending in part at least upon external stimuli; (2) that memory and imagination likewise presuppose, and are conditioned by, cerebral connexions and cerebral activity; and (3) that this is also to some extent the case with regard to intellect- ual operations and rational volition.

We have so far little more than an experimental verification of two Scholastic principles: (1) that sen- sation is an act of the composite organism, and (2) that intellectual activity is conditioned by phantas- mata, and indirectly by nervous processes. In truth the data scarcely warrant us in going further than this. But the parallelist goes further. He asserts that intellectual operations have an exact physiolog- ical counterpart, which is more than he can prove. An image has doubtless its counterpart, physiologi- cally in the brain and physically in the outside world. The association of ideas is conditioned by, and in a sense is the psychical parallel of, the simul- taneous or successive activity of different parts of the brain, between which there is a physical and func- tional connexion; and without such association of ideas intellectual operations are impossible — so long, that is, as soul and body are united in one being. But that intellectual operations proper — judgment, logi- cal inference, general concepts, vast and far-reaching as they are in their significance, should have an exact counterpart in the activity of brain-cells and their neu- ronic connexions, is a hypothesis which the known facts of psycho-physics fail to bear out, and which is also inconceivable. How, for instance, can a general con- cept, referring as it does to objective reality and em- bracing schematically in a single act many diverse notes, bear any resemblance to the disturbance of nervous equilibrium that accompanies it, a disturb- ance which has no unity at all except that it occurs in different parts of the same brain more or less simul- taneously? Or, how can cerebral processes of a pe- culiarly unstable and almost haphazard type be, as they are alleged to be, the physiological counterpart of processes of reasoning, rigid, exact, logical, necessary?

The assertion that all psychical processes have a physiological "parallel" is unwarranted, and scarcely less unwarranted is the assertion that all physiolo- gical processes have a psychical "parallel". This latter point can be established only by appeal to the fiction of "subliminal" or "subconscious" con- sciousness. The existence of a "threshold of con- sciousness", or, in other words, of a limit of intensity which must be exceeded by the stimulus, as also by the nervous impulse which results, before the latter can affect our consciousness, has been experi- mentally proved, and tlJs fact cannot be accounted for by the parallelist except on the assumption that there are states of consciousness of which we are wholly unconscious.