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

SOME DIFFICULTIES OF MODERN MA TERIALISM. 369
gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an'twere any nightingale." At times the advanced thinkers flirt with instinct and
impulse in the old common-sense fashion; and once in a while
they even go so far as to blaspheme logic and logical consequences. Especially do they turn a deaf ear to demands for
consistency, and practise the old theological eclecticism. One
professor, in the very lecture in which he proved that we are in
all respects what the viscera and nerves make us, urged us to do
the duty which lies next to us, as if an automaton could have
duties. Our advanced teachers abound in moral exhortation.
Many of their performances in this direction are as edifying as
the old manuals of devotion. Assuming logic to be valid and
logical reasoning to be possible, we feel insulted by such exhortation. We have a feeling that our teachers are poking fun at
us. But all our trouble arises from the fancy that logical
reasoning is still possible; and all our difficulties vanish when
we abandon this pestilent heresy. Reasoning is only the inner
side of a nerve-process. Consistency might be expected of free
minds; but who would expect consistency of nerves? From
this standpoint, the abiding wonder is not that the nerves
reason badly now and then, but that they ever reason well. If,
then, a clump of advanced thoughts fall into irrelevant and inconsistent moral exhortation, it only means that the nerves have
wrought in that direction. If such a clump show a remarkable
backwardness in drawing a conclusion, the reason is that the
nerves are set in another way. The amiable commonplace, the
mild religiosity, the occasional attacks of fierce morality, which
are the chief components of an advanced thinker, are no indications of personal character, but represent only the droll ways
of the nervous plexuses and their nascent motor excitations
Matter plays hide-and-seek with us, that is all. If the advanced
thinker were a person and were free to think rationally, we
should insist on logic; but as this is not the case, the nerves
must be left to their own devices. Anything good which they
may grind out is so much clear gain; their illogicality and frequent errors must be reckoned to the misery of being.
Looking, then, at the world-system with materialistic eyes,
we see a perpetual and necessary kaleidoscopic process. Parts
of this process are attended by thoughts partly true but mostly
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