Some Difficulties of Modern Materialism [pp. 344-372]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIE W.
understand how it may be produced by the brain. There is no
unlikeness between the antecedent and the consequent. The
difficulty with this view is that it is nonsense, not that it is unintelligible. But when thought is viewed as immaterial, it is
hard to understand the sense in which it is a product of material activities. The difficulty with this view is that it is unintelligible, and it may also be nonsense. The trouble here arises
from the laws of energy and continuity. The conservation of
energy demands that no energy shall be lost; and as nerves
consume energy in performing their functions, thought must
represent a certain amount of energy consumed in its production. If physical energy is spent in producing thought as
thought, it must lay aside all its distinctive features and disappear in the mental realm. But in that case either physical
energy would be lost or mental energy would be as real as
physical energy. The physical realm would be in interaction
with the mental realm, and thought, feeling, and volition would
count in the course of events as well as the physical forces. It
would even be possible in that case to view the mental side of
matter as basal, and the physical side as appearance. Of
course the materialist will not accept this view. For him
the physical series is the abiding and independent fact. As
such it is controlled only by the laws of force and motion. The
thought-series is effect only, and never cause. But in order to
make it effect only we must deny that physical energy is ever
expended in producing thought as thought. It must be spent
only in producing those physical states which have thoughts for
their inner face; and these thoughts, as thoughts, must be
powerless. They can affect the physical series not as thoughts,
but only as having physical states for their outer face. Any
other conception would bring us into collision with the conservation of energy; for under this law there can be no effect which
is not reciprocally a cause.
These considerations have gradually led the more logical materialists to the following view: The physical series is
self-contained and independent. It suffers no loss and no
irruption. Both energy and continuity are absolutely conserved. Each physical antecedent is entirely exhausted in its
physical consequent; and, conversely, each physical consequent
346