The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
So we seem not only to have ascertained the unintelligibility of the
notion that a mental fact can be two things at once, and that what
seems like one feeling, of blueness for example, or of hatred, may
really and 'unconsciously' be ten thousand elementary feelings which
do not resemble blueness or hatred at all, but we find that we can
express all the observed facts in other ways. The mind-stuff theory,
however, though scotched, is, we may be sure, not killed. If we ascribe
consciousness to unicellular animalcules, then single cells can have
it, and analogy should make us ascribe it to the several cells of the
brain, each individually taken. And what a convenience would it not
be for the psychologist if, by the adding together of various doses
of this separate-cell-consciousness, he could treat thought as a kind
of stuff or material, to be measured out in great or small amount,
increased and subtracted from, and baled about at will! He feels an
imperious craving to be allowed to _construct_ synthetically the
successive mental states which he describes. The mind-stuff theory so
easily admits of the construction being made, that it seems certain
that 'man's unconquerable mind' will devote much future pertinacity and
ingenuity to setting it on its legs again and getting it into some sort
of plausible working-order. I will therefore conclude the chapter with
some consideration of the remaining difficulties which beset the matter
as it at present stands.
DIFFICULTY OF STATING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MIND AND BRAIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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