Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/150

 138 H. MAUDSLEY'S BODY AND WILL. On the whole Dr. Maudsley's polemic against the spiritual self cannot be considered adequate or conclusive. His examination of the testimony of consciousness concerning freedom is hardly more satisfactory. The point mainly insisted on is the incompetence of introspection to take cognisance of anything beyond the mental state of the moment. Now (1) this cannot be quite true, else no man could have any knowledge of his past history ; (2) it makes no difference whether it be true or false, since every result is entirely determined by its proximate antecedents, which are continued into it in such wise that we cannot fix a point at which they cease and it ^begins ; (3) though we cannot be sepa- rately conscious of each of the determining causes, yet we may become aware of the intervention of some new factor differing from any of them. Chapter 3 considers the relative value of our knowledge of mental states through self -consciousness, as compared with " our knowledge of external objects through the senses." It is pointed out that in both cases we have immediately given a state of con- sciousness, and immediately infer, in the one case, external con- ditions of sensations, in the other a something which feels a sensation. " This something," we are told, " is far more difficult to know in itself than the external object, being no more than it within the compass of introspective intuition, and unlike it, not being within the compass of objective observation. It appears, then, that because the mental self is not given in introspection, but inferred, it does not come within the compass of introspection, whereas the " external object," though it is admittedly not given in objective observation, but only inferred, nevertheless comes within the compass of objective observation. This may serve as a slight sample of the indulgence which Dr. Maudsley lavishes upon his favourites. He evidently here identifies the " external object " with the physical conditions of sensation, and figures these as immediately present to the consciousness of an onlooker. From this point of view it seems perfectly self-evident that consciousness is not the " function of a particular bodily struc- ture " objectively observed. If it were, each man's conscious experience would be a " function " of a small portion of the con- scious experience of other men. Accordingly, in order to give plausibility to his thesis, that mental experience is really bodily experience, our author unconsciously changes the meaning of the words, body, object, organism, &c. We are now informed that the same thing becomes objective or subjective, according to the special channel through which it is presented. " It certainly is impossible to think the transformation of that which we perceive objectively as movement into that which we are conscious of sub- jectively as thought ; to say so is equivalent to saying that light cannot be heard or sound seen." Again (p. 100) " the same object the functioning brain must neces- sarily produce a very different impression upon the internal sense of con- sciousness from that which it produces on the sense of an observer."