CHAPTER VI.

HOW ARE MIND AND BODY UNITED ?

A VAST deal of speculation has been expended as to the manner of union of Mind and Body. The majority of persons are disposed to treat the question as insoluble, as unsuited to our faculties, as what is termed a "mystery."

This word "mystery" is itself greatly misconceived. Such was the opinion of one of the ablest of biblical critics-Principal George Campbell-as to the employment of the word in religious doctrine. In Campbell's view “μvorýpιov" means simply what we call a secret—a thing for the time concealed, but afterwards to be made known. It is the correlative term to "Revelation," which disclosed what had previously been hidden.

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In another acceptation, Mystery is correlated to Explanation; it means something intelligible enough as a fact, but not accounted for, not reduced to any law, principle, or reason. The ebb and flow of the Tides, the motion of the Planets, Satellites, and Comets, were understood as facts at all times; but they were regarded as mysteries until Newton brought them under the Laws of Motion and of Gravity. Earthquakes and volcanoes are still mysterious; their explanation is not yet fully made out. The imme

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diate derivation of muscular power and of animal heat is unknown, which renders these phenomena mysterious.

The meaning of the correlative couple-Mystery, Explanation has been rendered precise by the march of physical science since the age of Newton. Mystery is the isolation of a fact from all others. Explanation is the discerning of agreement among facts remotely placed: it is essentially the generalizing process, whereby many widely scattered appearances are shown to come under one commanding principle or law. The fall of a stone, the flow of rivers, the retention of the moon in her circuit, are all expressed by the single law of Gravity. This generalizing sweep is a real advance in our knowledge, an ascent in the scale of intelligence, a step towards the centralization of the empire of science; and it is the only real meaning of Explanation. A difficulty is solved, a mystery is unriddled, according as the mysterious fact can be shown to resemble other facts. Mystery is solitariness, exception, or it may be apparent contradiction; the resolution of the mystery is found in assimilation, identity, fraternity. When all natural operations are assimilated, as far as assimilation can go, as far as likeness holds, there is an end to explanation, and to the necessity for it; there is an end to what the mind can intelligently desire; perfect vision is consummated.

But, say many persons, after resolving the fall of a stone and the sun's attraction into one force called

gravity, there still remains the mystery—what is gravity ? Even Newton sought to explain gravity itself. Well, if you must go farther, find some other force to assimilate with gravity; you will then make a new generalizing stride, and achieve a farther step of explanation. If, however, there is no other force to be assimilated, gravity is the final term of explanation, the full revelation of the mystery. There is nothing farther to be done; nothing farther to be desired. Nor have we here any reason to be dissatisfied with this position, to complain of baulked satisfaction, or of being on a lower platform than we might possibly occupy. Our intelligence is fully honoured, fully implemented, by the possession of a principle as wide in its sweep as the phenomenon itself.

Apply all this to the union of Mind and Body. These two phenomena have very little in common; they participate only in the most general attributes, namely, Quantity, Co-existence, and Succession, and even as regards these their participation is limited.

As to Quantity, Degree, or distinction of More and Less, there is no exemption on the part of either. The properties of every material body are distinguished as more or less; magnitude, weight, colour, hardness, &c., have assignable degrees or amounts specific to each substance. So also are the mental properties distinguished as more or less; our pleasures, our pains, our thoughts, may be numbered and measured, although the grades of

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intensity of the feelings cannot be assigned with the same minute precision that belongs to the leading material properties, such as size, weight, or tenacity. Again, material properties co-exist; a plurality may concur in the same object; a diamond has size, form, transparency, and other qualities, all co-inhering in the same unity. So mental attributes co-inhere, are attached to a common subject; the same mind feels, wills, and thinks. Lastly, Material phenomena are in a state of change or mutation; they show successive phases; and in their succession we recognise the peculiar and remarkable bond termed Causation, or Cause and Effect. A spark falls into water, it is extinguished; it falls on gunpowder, there is an explosion. The same fluctuation, mutation, succession, and causation, may be traced in the workings of mind; a pain suddenly ceasing, is followed by a re-action of pleasure.

The one feature usually signalized as present in all material phenomena, and absent from all states of the conscious mind, is that mode of Co-existence called Order in Place, EXTENSION. A building or a tree is named as an extended thing; a pleasure, a pain, a recollection, is not felt to be extended; there is an incompatibility between a feeling and a perception of extended magnitude. While we are mentally occupied or engrossed with a genial warmth, we are not able to entertain the perception of a room, or a fire, as occupying space.

Bodily facts and mental facts are in themselves equally

conceivable, equally intelligible. When we see a table we perceive it in the way suited to our faculties; there is no reservation or mystery attached to it as a table. When we feel a warm surface, we have a sufficient notion of what warmth is. There is a marked difference of nature between these two feelings; they differ much more than a table differs from a house, or the taste of sugar from the sound of an Eolian harp. Yet difference does not interfere with knowledge, but on the contrary adds to it; every new difference is the revelation of a new quality.

I repeat, what a piece of matter is, what an operation of mind is, we know equally well; we see that they both agree and differ from other kinds of matter, and from other operations of mind. There is a much closer kindred between material facts among themselves, and between mental facts among themselves, than between material facts generally and mental facts generally. Hence, we resolve all the facts of nature ultimately into two kindsmatter and mind; and we do not resolve these into anything higher. We come upon a wider contrast at this point than we had in any prior stage of our generalizing movement. The Plants and the Animals differ widely in their details; both differ still more widely from Inanimate Matter. Yet they agree in all the principal features of material bodies; and are in total opposition to mind, which has neither the distinctive features of either, nor the common attributes of both. The inanimate and the animate are not so different as body and mind.