The Mind and the Brain | Page 3

can divide the knowable, and must further be one of a permanent
character. A priori, there is nothing to prove the existence of such a
distinction; it must be sought for and, when found, closely examined.
2. An Indication of the Direction in which the Search must be
Made.--Taking into account the position already taken up by the
majority of philosophers, the manifestation of mind, if it exists, must be
looked for in the domain of facts dealt with by psychology, and the
manifestation of matter in the domain explored by physicists.
I do not conceal from myself that there may be much that is arbitrary in
my own criterion; but this does not seem to me possible to avoid. We
must therefore appeal to psychology, and ask whether it is cognisant of
any phenomenon offering a violent, lasting, and ineffaceable contrast
with all the rest of the knowable.
The Method of Concepts and the Method of Enumeration.--Many
authors are already engaged in this research, and employ a method
which I consider very bad and very dangerous--the method of concepts.
This consists in looking at real and concrete phenomena in their most
abstract form. For example, in studying the mind, they use this word
"mind" as a general idea which is supposed to contain all the
characteristics of psychical phenomena; but they do not wait to
enumerate these characteristics or to realise them, and they remain
satisfied with the extremely vague idea springing from an unanalysed
concept. Consequently they use the word "mind" with the imprudence
of a banker who should discount a trade bill without ascertaining
whether the payment of that particular piece of paper had been
provided for. This amounts to saying that the discussion of
philosophical problems takes especially a verbal aspect; and the more
complex the phenomena a concept thus handled, contains, the more
dangerous it is. A concept of the colour red has but a very simple
content, and by using it, this content can be very clearly represented.

But how can the immense meaning of the word "mind" be realised
every time that it is used? For example, to define mind and to separate
it from the rest of the knowable which is called matter, the general
mode of reasoning is as follows: all the knowable which is apparent to
our senses is essentially reduced to motion; "mind," that something
which lives, feels, and judges, is reduced to "thought." To understand
the difference between matter and mind, it is necessary to ask one's self
whether there exists any analogy in nature between motion and thought.
Now this analogy does not exist, and what we comprehend, on the
contrary, is their absolute opposition. Thought is not a movement, and
has nothing in common with a movement. A movement is never
anything else but a displacement, a transfer, a change of place
undergone by a particle of matter. What relation of similarity exists
between this geometrical fact and a desire, an emotion, a sensation of
bitterness? Far from being identical, these two facts are as distinct as
any facts can be, and their distinction is so deep that it should be raised
to the height of a principle, the principle of heterogeneity.
This is almost exactly the reasoning that numbers of philosophers have
repeated for several years without giving proof of much originality.
This is what I term the metaphysics of concept, for it is a speculation
which consists in juggling with abstract ideas. The moment that a
philosopher opposes thought to movement, I ask myself under what
form he can think of a "thought," I suppose he must very poetically and
very vaguely represent to himself something light and subtle which
contrasts with the weight and grossness of material bodies. And thus
our philosopher is punished in the sinning part; his contempt of the
earthly has led him into an abuse of abstract reasoning, and this abuse
has made him the dupe of a very naïve physical metaphor.
At bottom I have not much faith in the nobility of many of our abstract
ideas. In a former psychological study[2] I have shown that many of
our abstractions are nothing else than embryonic, and, above all,
loosely defined concrete ideas, which can satisfy only an indolent mind,
and are, consequently, full of snares.
The opposition between mind and matter appears to me to assume a

very different meaning if, instead of repeating ready-made formulas
and wasting time on the game of setting concept against concept, we
take the trouble to return to the study of nature, and begin by drawing
up an inventory of the respective phenomena of mind and matter,
examining with each of these phenomena the characteristics in which
the first-named differ from the second. It is this last method, more slow
but more sure than