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

SOME DIEFICULTIES OF MODERN MA TERIALISM. 351
and groundless addition to various parts of the thing-series.
Thus the same logic which brought us hither takes us farther.
It is a break of continuity to assume that the thought-series can
determine the thing-series. It is equally a break of continuity
to assume that the thing-series can determine the thought-series
as such. What, then, is the relation of the two? We cannot
call it occasionalism, for occasionalism would imply a cause
apart from the thing-series which adjusted the thought-series to
it. It is occasionalism in the sense that the physical series does
not produce thoughts, but occasions them; but as it occasions
them without becoming them or expending energy upon them,
the relation between the two series is that of pure magic. The
materialist cannot admit the efficiency of thought as thought;
hence he is shut up to affirming either the materiality of thought
or a magical occasionalism. Either we must allow that certain
molecular groupings are not merely attended by thoughts,.but
are thoughts, or we must take refuge in magic. The first view
is intelligible, but nonsensical; the second view is not intelligible, and hence it is difficult to say whether it is nonsense or not.
Thus we see that while the. materialistic doctrine seems very
clear, it is fundamentally unclear not merely in its possibility
but primarily in its meaning.
Few materialists would accept this conclusion, owing to the
little attention they have bestowed upon the problem. In particular they would repudiate occasionalism, even in its unmagical form, as a moth-eaten relic of metaphysics. But when it
comes to telling in what sense thought is caused by matter, or
how the impotence and immateriality of thought can be reconciled with the laws of continuity and conservation, they implicitly take refuge in a magical occasionalism. Every physical
effect is a new condition of matter; and as thought is not
matter in any condition, it is put outside of all physical effects.
One distinguished writer upon the new philosophy assures us
that no study of the physical series would give us any hint of
the thought-series which attends it. The latter is always there
when summoned; but it sits apart from the moving matter.
This would be quite intelligible if there were a mind outside of
the physical series, but it is quite magical on any other theory.
When heat and light are "summoned," energy is always spent