Page:Russell - An outline of philosophy.pdf/40

28 knowledge (perception), while our reaction to the environment constituted volition. These were, in each case, "mental" occurrences, and their connection with nerves and brain remained entirely mysterious. I think the mystery can be eliminated, and the subject removed from the realm of guesswork, by starting with the whole cycle from stimulus to bodily movement. In this way, knowing becomes something active, not something contemplative. Knowing and willing, in fact, are merely aspects of the one cycle, which must be considered in its entirety if it is to be rightly understood.

A few words must be said about the human body as a mechanism. It is an inconceivably complicated mechanism, and some men of science think that it is not explicable in terms of physics and chemistry, but is regulated by some "vital principle" which makes its laws different from those of dead matter. These men are called "vitalists". I do not myself see any reason to accept their view, but at the same time our knowledge is not sufficient to enable us to reject it definitely. What we can say is that their case is not proved, and that the opposite view is, scientifically, a more fruitful working hypothesis. It is better to look for physical and chemical explanations where we can, since we know of many processes in the human body which can be accounted for in this way, and of none which certainly cannot. To invoke a "vital principle" is to give an excuse for laziness, when perhaps more diligent research would have enabled us to do without it. I shall therefore assume, as a working hypothesis, that the human body acts according to the same laws of physics and chemistry as those which govern dead matter, and that it differs from dead matter, not by its laws, but by the extraordinary complexity of its structure.

The movements of the human body may, none the less, be divided into two classes, which we may call respectively "mechanical" and "vital". As an example of the former, I should give the movement of a man falling from a cliff into the sea. To explain this, in its broad features, it is