Some Recent Views Upon Mind [pp. 747-756]

i8Si.] SOME RE~NT ViEws UPON MIND. 755
gotten knowledge, neither does Dr. Bastian, but of actual know.
ledge now possessed; and we have no hesitation in saying that it
is supremely absurd to say that we are actually knowing and not
knowing that we know. All that Dr. Bastian has any warrant
in the facts for stating is that certain previous nervous conditions
may determine subsequent conscious states, and that a very close
relationship exists between the two; but his extreme desire to
identify them has led him to strain the truth and reason beyond~
the premises.
The following sentence will furnish a specimen of such reasoning, while it will at the same time serve as an introduction to
the consideration of so-called unconscious cerebration, on which
materialistic physiologists mainly rely for their conclusions:
"We are frequently conscious," writes Dr. Bastian, "of the
first term of some process of thought, and we become aware of
the last, whilst those whick intervene, numerous thougk they may be,
do not in the least reveal themselves in consciousness." Now, those
words which we have italicized are an open begging of the question. How do we know that processes of thought intervene,
especially since they do not reveal themselves in consciousness?
And if, as is evidently meant by Dr. Bastian, nerve-changes do
occur between the first and last term of some process of thought,
on what grounds can these be called processes of thought? The
facts of unconscious cerebration, to which Dr. Bastian appeals in
support of his view, certainly show that some nerve-changes do
intervene between processes of thought, but that ~ll they do
show. We endeavor to recall a name or word, but to no purpose; memory will not respond to the efforts of the will, and the
attempt is abandoned, when suddenly, and without any effort, the
word presents itself to the mind. "Now, it is difficult," says Dr.
Carpenter, "if not impossible, to account for this fact upon any
other supposition than that a certain train of action has been set
going in the cerebrum by the voluntary exertion which we at
first made; and that this train continues in movement after our
attention has been fixed upon some other object of thought, so
that it goes on to the evolution of its result, not only without
any continued exertion on our part, but also without our consciousness of any continued activity." Impressed by this and
similar facts pointing to the close dependence of mental processes
upon nerve-function, Mr. Mill says: "If we admit (what physi.
~ ology is rendering more and more probable) that our mental
feelings as well as our sensations have for their physical antecedents particular states of nerves, it may well be believed that