Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/159

Rh concomitants. This means that a given idea can not exist unless there is a certain brain-change. But it also means that the brain-change in question can not possibly exist unless the corresponding idea exists. The relation between the two is not conceived to be an accidental one. For reasons which have been indicated, the parallelist objects to calling it a causal relation, and prefers the word 'concomitance.' Nevertheless, he regards the relation as one on which we may depend absolutely—as absolutely as we can depend upon the relation between a physical cause and its effect.

But, if this is so, the plain man may perfectly well become a parallelist and yet go on talking as though certain results could not be brought about in the absence of minds. He is quite justified in maintaining that no clever book could ever be written, no such day as his has been ever lived through, by a creature without a mind. He may, if he choose, leave to the scholar by profession the question whether the word 'cause' is not somewhat loosely used in common life. What he cares about stands firm on any hypothesis: ideas are significant; if he can work out a satisfactory plan in his mind, desirable results will be achieved; if he has not the ideas, the results will *D.ot follow.

Now for the last point. Should the parallelist abandon our usual ways of thinking and speaking about ourselves and others? It must be admitted that the words used by some parallelists suggest, at least, that he should do so.

" An automaton is a thing that goes by itself when it is wound up, and we go by ourselves when we have had food." The suggestion certainly is that, if we want men to function, we should feed them.

It has been known, of course, from time immemorial, and in every country under heaven, that men who get no food at all will soon cease to go; and it has been known also that men who get too much drink will first go irregularly and then not at all. It is an old secret that what goes into the mouth of a man is not a matter of indifference.

But did any man, parallelist or interactionist, ever try to control the actions of his fellow man in detail by the giving of food? or try to explain why Mrs. Smith visits Mrs. Brown and neglects Mrs. Jones, by investigating the diet of that discriminating lady? We can not explain her taking the longer walk through the park rather than the shorter one along the street, by pointing out that she has legs. If she were unprovided with these members, she would undoubtedly not walk at all; but her having them does not enlighten us as to her choice of a walk, nor does it give any key to the control of her actions.

Clifford himself never tried to make men e go 'by the administration of food; he wound them up by public lectures and by printed essays, when he wanted them to think as he did and to act as he wished