If we thus unite in a higher synthesis the elements both of spiritualism
and of materialism, we obtain a product which satisfies every fact of
feeling on the one hand, and of observation on the other. We have only
to suppose that the antithesis between mind and motion--subject and
object--is itself phenomenal or apparent: not absolute or real. We have
only to suppose that the seeming duality is relative to our modes of
apprehension: and, therefore, that any change taking place in the mind,
and any corresponding change taking place in the brain, are really not
two changes, but one change. When a violin is played upon we hear a
musical sound, and at the same time we see a vibration of the strings.
Relatively to our consciousness, therefore, we have here two sets of
changes, which appear to be very different in kind; yet we know that in
an absolute sense they are one and the same: we know that the diversity
in consciousness is created only by the difference in our mode of
perceiving the same events--whether we see or whether we hear the
vibration of the strings. Similarly, we may suppose that a vibration of
nerve-strings and a process of thought are really one and the same
event, which is dual or diverse only in relation to our modes of
perceiving it.
Or, to take another and a better illustration, in an Edison lamp the
light which is emitted from the burner may be said indifferently to be
caused by the number of vibrations per second going on in the carbon, or
by the temperature of the carbon; for this rate of vibration could not
take place in the carbon without constituting that degree of temperature
which affects our eyes as luminous. Similarly, a train of thought may be
said indifferently to be caused by brain-action or by mind-action; for,
_ex hypothesi_, the one could not take place without the other. Now when
we contemplate the phenomena of volition by themselves, it is as though
we were contemplating the phenomena of light by themselves: volition is
produced by mind in brain, just as light is produced by temperature in
carbon. And just as we may correctly speak of light as the cause, say,
of a photograph, so we may correctly speak of volition as the cause of
bodily movement. That particular kind of physical activity which takes
place in the carbon could not take place without the light which causes
a photograph; and, similarly, that particular kind of physical activity
which takes place in the brain could not take place without the volition
which causes a bodily movement. So that volition is as truly a cause of
bodily movement as is the physical activity of the brain; seeing that,
in an absolute sense, the cause is one and the same. But if we once
clearly perceive that what in a relative sense we know as volition is,
in a similar sense, the cause of bodily movement, we terminate the
question touching the freedom of the will. It thus becomes a mere matter
of phraseology whether we speak of the will determining, or being
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