Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/516

500 answers to thought and feeling to feeling. The genesis of a personal being consists, then, not in the transmutation of physical force into psychic states, as materialism represents, but in the concentration and unification of pre-existing psychic elements, which in their isolation are unconscious, into a conscious individual. Now my thesis is simply this:

Consciousness is a complex phenomenon, not a simple state. It is made up of elements or factors which become consciousness in their union, but are not consciousness in their isolation. A single ray of light does not produce a visual image, but a great number of rays of light, arranged in a given order, do produce such an image. In like manner, the psychic aspect of a single brain-cell is not a consciousness, but the psychic aspects of a great many cerebral cells, unified through the organic unity of an organized brain,, become a consciousness. This is accomplished through the biological processes which build up the living organism. The whole significance of a nervous system consists in this, that it focusses energy in such a manner that its psychic concomitants acquire unity. The incarrying nerves furnish appropriate conductors for those modes of molecular energy which stimulate the several senses; so that light, sound, and impact are brought to consciousness at the centres where they are converged. Thus man becomes a microcosm in which the extended world mirrors itself within the limits which are set by his present constitution. Thus also he becomes not only the interpreter, but the interpretation of the world.

If this theory be regarded as merely an assumption, it stands upon no lower plane than all rival theories. The materialistic view, that matter becomes conscious without containing psychic elements, is an assumption without proof and without logical consistency. The idealistic view, that the world of objects is simply a fiction of conscious mind, is equally devoid of proof and probability. But the crucial question is, which assumption is most harmonious with the whole body of facts? If we carry back