The Mind and the Brain | Page 2

and body stated--Axiom of heterogeneity
must be rejected--Phenomena of consciousness incomplete--Aristotle's
relatum and correlatum applied to the terms mind and matter

CHAPTER II
SPIRITUALISM AND IDEALISM
Spiritualist view that death cuts link between soul and
body--Explanation of link fatal to system--Consciousness cannot
exercise functions without objects of cognition--Idealism a
kaleidoscopic system--Four affirmations of idealism: their
inconsistency--Advantages of historical method
CHAPTER III
MATERIALISM AND PARALLELISM
Materialism oldest doctrine of all: many patristic authors lean towards
it--Modern form of, receives impulse from advance of physical
science--Karl Vogt's comparison of secretions of brain with that of
kidneys--All materialist doctrines opposed to principle of
heterogeneity--Modern materialism would make object generate
consciousness--Materialists cannot demonstrate how molecular
vibrations can be transformed into objects--Parallelism avoids issue by
declaring mind to be function of brain--Parallelists declare physical and
psychical life to be two parallel currents--Bain's support of
this--Objections to: most important that it postulates consciousness as a
complete whole
CHAPTER IV
MODERN THEORIES
Berkeley's idealism revived by Bergson, though with different
standpoint--Admirable nature of Bergson's exposition--Fallacy of, part
assigned to sensory nerves--Conscious sensations must be subsequent
to excitement of sensory nerves and dependent on their integrity
CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION
Author's own theory only a hypothesis--Important conditions for
solution of problem--Manifestations of consciousness conditioned by
brain, but this last unconscious--Consciousness perceives only external
object--Specificity of nerves not absolute--Why repeated excitements
of nerve tend to become unconscious--Formation of habit and
"instinct"--Resemblance to and distinction of this from
parallelism--Advantages of new theory
CHAPTER VI
RECAPITULATION
Description of matter--Definition of mind--Objections to,
answered--Incomplete existence of mind--Other theories--Nervous
system must add its own effect to that of its excitant

BOOK I
THE DEFINITION OF MATTER

THE MIND AND THE BRAIN[1]
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This book is a prolonged effort to establish a distinction between what
is called mind and what is called matter. Nothing is more simple than to
realise this distinction when you do not go deeply into it; nothing is
more difficult when you analyse it a little. At first sight, it seems
impossible to confuse things so far apart as a thought and a block of
stone; but on reflection this great contrast vanishes, and other
differences have to be sought which are less apparent and of which one

has not hitherto dreamed.
First let us say how the question presents itself to us. The fact which we
must take as a starting point, for it is independent of every kind of
theory, is that there exists something which is "knowable." Not only
science, but ordinary life and our everyday conversation, imply that
there are things that we know. It is with regard to these things that we
have to ask ourselves if some belong to what we call the mind and
others to what we call matter.
Let us suppose, by way of hypothesis, the knowable to be entirely and
absolutely homogeneous. In that case we should be obliged to set aside
the question as one already decided. Where everything is homogeneous,
there is no distinction to be drawn. But this hypothesis is, as we all
know, falsified by observation. The whole body of the knowable is
formed from an agglomeration of extremely varied elements, amongst
which it is easy to distinguish a large number of divisions. Things may
be classified according to their colour, their shape, their weight, the
pleasure they give us, their quality of being alive or dead, and so on;
one much given to classification would only be troubled by the number
of possible distinctions.
Since so many divisions are possible, at which shall we stop and say:
this is the one which corresponds exactly to the opposition of mind and
matter? The choice is not easy to make; for we shall see that certain
authors put the distinction between the physical and the mental in one
thing, others in another. Thus there have been a very large number of
distinctions proposed, and their number is much greater than is
generally thought. Since we propose to make ourselves judges of these
distinctions, since, in fact, we shall reject most of them in order to
suggest entirely new ones, it must be supposed that we shall do so by
means of a criterion. Otherwise, we should only be acting fantastically.
We should be saying peremptorily, "In my opinion this is mental," and
there would be no more ground for discussion than, if the assertion
were "I prefer the Romanticists to the Classicists," or "I consider prose
superior to poetry."
The criterion which I have employed, and which I did not analyse until

the unconscious use I had made of it revealed its existence to me, is
based on the two following rules:--
1. A Rule of Method.--The distinction between mind and matter must
not only apply to the whole of the knowable, but must be the deepest
which