Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/209

* MATERIALISM. 181 MATERIALISM. MATERIALISM (from mulirln!, from Lat. malcridlis, rolatiiij,' to matter, from mutcria, matter). Usually, detined as the philosophical view which resolves all existence into matter or into an attribute or merely an effect of matter. It makes matter the central ultimate reality, and makes everything else, consciousness in- cluded, a derivative appearance, which is then sonielimes treated as illusory. When conscious- ness is treated as illusory, materialism is sui- cidal, for the simple reason that materialism can have meaning only for a conscious being, and if consciousness is treated as a vain show ma- terialism can consistently be regarded only as one of the varieties in the show. But such an attitude toward consciousness is not to be con- sistently maintained (see Knowledge, Theory of) ; hence the only forms of materialism we need here consider are those that regard con- sciousness as an effect or as an attribute of matter, which, following Kiilpe, we shall call the causal and the attriliutive forms of materialism. The attributive form assumes that substance is ') what the etymology' of the word would suggest — namely, a permanent unchanging entity which fur- nishes tlie support for various appearances; these appearances, as referable to the substance, are called its attributes. Materialism of this type regards this substance as an extended, impene- trable, movable entity, which in some way has 'inhering' in it or resting upon it or referable to it the attribute of consciousness, which may be treated as either a separable or an inseparable mark. This method of dealing with the relation of matter and consciousness is charmingly simple, but it is the simplicity of uncritical thought. It must be discarded along with the notion of substance (q.v. ) interpreted as substrata. Sub- stance is, properly speaking, nothing but the luiitary complex of qualities called attributes. Instead of being sim])le, substance has a com- plexity measurable only by the number of attri- butes it possesses. Not that it is a mere com- pound; it is unitary in the sense that all the ! attributes organize themselves simiiltaneously or ' successive!}' into a single differentiable object. I Now, if any substance has consciousness as an [ attribiite, that substance is by that token a con- I scions substance, and to call it merely material I is to be blind to the fact that materiality is as I much an attribute as color or duration. At- ■ tributive materialism does not deny the existence of consciousness. Causal materialism is true or false according I to the interpretation put upon cause; but even I when that interpretation is true materialism is I only a half truth, for in that case matter is as dependent on mind as mind is on matter. If by cause is meant anything but the invariable con- dition of an event, causal materialism is false, for there is no reason to suppose there is any such cause. (See Cavs.lity. ) But if by cause is meant an invariable condition, then all experi- ence warrants us in saying that a certain organi- zation of matter is cause of consciousness. Such a statement, however, says nothing about the nature of consciousness except that it requires, as a condition of its appearance at a certain time, that there should be in existence at that time some sort of nervous organization. If one pro- ceeds to say that the physic,i"l world is not in its turn dependent on the psychical, that statement must be challenged. If "the statement merelv means that some form uf physical existence pre- ceded in time any ascertainable form of con- sciousness, no valid objection can be raised; but if it means that the physical can be conceived to exist out of all relation to the psychical, then the assertion is questionable. For every judg- ment is passed upon reality as it appears to the judging consciousness. Reality apart from a judging consciousness is eo ipso unknowable. But this impossibility of the knowledge apart from consciousness is not the impossibility of an exist- ence antedating consciousness. Relation to con- sciousness there must be in any conceivable real- ity; but the relation need not be one of simul- taneity. It is indubitable that we can know things which do not exist at the time we know them. But if there can be knowledge of things which antedate the knower, there is nothing im- possible in the supposition that knowable, if not known, objects Avere themselves the causes of the succeeding knowledge. But if they were causes of the succeeding knowledge, then the succeeding knowledge is a determining elemejit in the sys- tem of which the cause is likewise a determining element. In other words, effect conditions cause as truly as cause conditions effect. This is not to say that the effect is the cause of its cause, for cause means indispensable antecedent, and that is what the effect, as effect, is not. But it is indispensable nevertheless. For instance, if the universe is of such a nature that the interposi- tion of an opaque body between a luminous body and an eye means an eclipse of the luminous body, the absence of such an eclipse carries with it the absence of such an interposition. This same principle would make consciousness, which is the result of physical conditions, it.self an in- dispensable element in the universe, in which its causes existed. One cannot conceive the ex- istence of the physical cause without conceiving the existence of the psychic effect. In other words, even if it were possible to imagine con- sciousness absolutely absent from the universe, we could not think away consciousness from its place in the universe without so completely disrupting and disintegrating the unit}' of the system of reality we know that it would be utterly unsafe to say whether matter would be left unchanged by the removal. Now the materialist who makes consciousness an effect of matter, but not itself an indispen- sable element in the universe, fails to see this logical interrelation of' effect and cause, A materialist who recognizes this interdependence ceases thereby to be a materialist, for now in his theory matter is as much conditioned by mind as mind is by matter. Neither is independent, although one may be prior. The materialist looks at the priority and overlooks the interdepen- dence. One consequence of overlooking this inter- dependence is the assumption that the laws of matter are the only natural laws. Consciousness is regarded as running its course in accordance with mechanical principles. Hence will is of no determining value. It is this corollary from materialism that has made the doctrine so dis- tasteful to the ordinary thinker. For this corol- lary means the denial of moral responsibility. But the results of the renewed study of psychol- ogy' within recent years have made it quite im- possible to assert that the laws of consciousness are meclMnical laws. Materialism is an old view; all the Ionic