The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
The objection is made from materialistic quarters: “What is the world
as a whole but the sum of all atoms!” This is an error. The world is
not merely the sum of all its atoms; the universe does not consist of
innumerable little particles which in their combination form the All. On
the contrary: the world as a whole, existence in its oneness, or speaking
religiously God, is alone the only true reality; all other things and
beings are parts of him. Atoms are abstract concepts; the existence of
an atom and of its actions presupposes the existence of the great whole
of which it is a part, and without which it would have no reality. There
are no atoms in themselves. Atoms regarded as things in themselves are a
scientific superstition.
Professor Romanes advances the proposition, that cosmical events, being
as highly complex as nervous phenomena, might be possessed of a similar
subjectivity. The nervous phenomena which constitute the physiological
action of mind in the province of objectivity are, it is true, very
complex, but complexity does not constitute that characteristic feature
on the presence of which depends the origin of mind.
Professor Romanes says:
“Both mind and matter in motion admit of degrees: first as to
quantity, next as to velocity, and lastly as to _complexity_.
But the degrees of matter in motion are found, in point
of observable fact, not to correspond with those of mind,
save in the last particular of complexity, where there is
unquestionably an evident correspondence.
“Now, if we fix our attention merely on this subject-matter
of complexity, and refuse to be led astray by obviously false
analogies of a more special kind, I think that there can be
no question that the macrocosm does furnish amply sufficient
opportunity, as it were, for the presence of subjectivity, even
if it be assumed that subjectivity can only be yielded by an
order of complexity analogous to that of a nervous system. For,
considering the natural and dynamical system of the universe as
a whole, it is obvious that the complexity presented is greater
than any of its parts. Not only is it true that all these parts
are included in the whole, and that even the visible sidereal
system alone presents movements of enormous intricacy, but we
find, for instance, that even within the limits of this small
planet there is presented to actual observation a peculiar
form of circumscribed complex, fully comparable to that of the
individual brain, and yet external to each individual brain.
For the so-called ‘social organism,’ although composed of
innumerable individual personalities, is, with regard to each
of its constituent units, a part of the objective world—just as
the human brain would be, were each of its constituent cells
of a construction sufficiently complex to yield a separate
personality.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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