Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/148

 136 H. MAUDSLEY'S BODY AND WILL. for whatever the author happens to dislike. One or two import- ant points, however, are clear. Metaphysicians, it seems, deny, and non-metaphysicians assert, that mind is a function of speci- ally organised matter. The metaphysician proceeds by pure intro- spection, the non-metaphysician by the positive method of obser- vation and induction. The metaphysical stronghold is the freedom of a spiritual will ; if once this airy citadel be carried, the cham- pions of " high mental philosophy " will be able to hold out no more. To this fortress Dr. Maudsley lays siege with all his powers. The attack is conducted from three separate quarters, represented by the three parts into which his work is divided. Part i., treating of " Will in its Metaphysical Aspect," discusses the difficulties involved in the theory of free-will, and the value of the arguments adduced in support of it. Part ii., treating of " Will in its Physiological, Social and Evolutional Eelations," strives to expound and enforce the author's own view. Part hi., treating of " Will in its Pathological Relations," shows that we cannot choose but descend from the barren heights of speculation, when we have to deal with " mind in its concrete human embodi- ments". The practical considerations presented to the reader in Part iii. seem to have had most influence on the author's own mind. In discussing the " metaphysical aspect," he is compelled, according to his own confession, to employ methods in which he has no " proper faith," and language to which he attaches no " clear and definite ideas ". As a natural consequence, he is per- petually playing at cross purposes with his opponents. Indeed the whole discussion would seem to arise from a misunderstanding. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that the man of science qua man of science has any ground of quarrel with the philoso- pher qua philosopher. Only by becoming a metaphysician himself can the practical observer enter the lists against metaphysicians. And this seems to be precisely what Dr. Maudsley has done, without being very distinctly aware of it. With physiological facts which have been, or may be, inductively established he mixes up, as if they rested on the same kind of evidence, the most purely speculative theories. It will scarcely be denied that deter- minism is such a theory, no less than the doctrine of free-will. We cannot prove by the method of induction that all events are entirely determined, simply because we beg the question in assuming this method to be applicable to all events in all their aspects. This fallacy seems to vitiate Dr. Maudsley's argument in chapter 1, which may be stated thus in syllogistic form : True doctrine is the explicit declaration of what is implicit in the constitution and experience of mankind ; Within human experience causation is universal ; .-. The doctrine of universal causation is true. Here, according to the libertarian, the major premiss holds good without limitation, whereas the minor, though true of intellectual, is untrue of moral experience.