The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-28 00:00:00

EVERY EVENING.

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 28.

PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON PHYSICAL AND
MORAL SCIENCE.

Ix his opening address as President of the Ma-
thematical and Physical Sciences Section of the
British Association, Professor TYNDALL discussed
with singular ability a subject that is occupying
many able thinkers and agitating many earnest
minds at the present moment—the relation be-
tween the physical and moral sciences, which in
its higher aspects includes the general relation of
science to religion. While Professor TYNDALL
naturally looks at the question mainly from a
scientific point of view, his treatment of it is at
the same time marked by a bseadth and compre-
hensiveness that will probably surprise many, and
which we ourselves were scarcely prepared to ex-
pect. In this respect, however, he follows the ex-
cellent example set by the President, Dr. Room, in
his noble inaugural discourse. In some respects,
indeed, Dr. TYNDALL'S statement of the relations
between these two groat branches of inquiry is
wider and more accurate. For Dr. 11001[111,
while urging that both branches should be dili-
gently pursued, suggested, or seemed to suggest,
that the facts of the one rested on a more solid
and satisfactory basis than those of the other, that
physical evidence was better than moral evidence.
Dr. TYNDALL TOCOgintiee DO such inferiority in the
relative authenticity and directness of the ulti-
mate data on which the physical and moral
sciences respectively build. He asserts distinctly
not only that they are co-ordinate and independent
branches of knowledge, but that they must always
remain so, that the one cannot be resolved into or
absorbed by the other. He draws a sharp line be-
tween the facts of consciousness and physiological
facts, between thought, feeling, and volition, and
the molecular groupings and motions in the brain
that may constitute their physical :conditions, and
justly maintains that, however invariable may be
their connexion, the one set of facts does not
in any way help to explain the other.
After referring to this connexion, Professor
TYNDALL says :—" Granted, however, that a
" definite thought and a definite molecular
" action of the brain occur simultaneously,
" we do not possess the intellectual organ which
0. would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning
4' from the one phenomenon to the other. They
." appear together, but we do not know why.
g‘ Were our minds and senses so expanded,
"strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to

" see and feet the very molecules of the brain, wore
" we capable of following all their motions, all their
" groupings, all their electrical discharges—if such
"there be—and were we intimately aiximiated
" with the corresponding thought and fooling, we
"should be as far as ever from the solution
"of the problem, How are these physical processes
" connected with the facts of consciousness?' The
" chasm between the two dames of phenomena would
" still remain intellectually impassable." Towards
the close of his address Professor TYNDALL recurs
to the same point, summing up his general exposi-
tion in equally emphatic language. " In affirming
" that thought as exercised by us has its correlative
"in the physics of the brain, I think the position
"of the materialist' is stated as far as that
" position is a tenable one. I think the materialist
"will be able finally to maintain this position
" against all attacks, but I do not think as the
" human mind is at present constituted,
" that he can pass beyond it. I do
" not think he is entitled to say that his mole-
" minr groupings and his molecular motions
" explain everything. In reality they explain
" nothing. The utmost he can affirm is the woo-
" dation of two classes of phenomena of
" whose real bond of union he is in absolute
" ignorance."
This is the language of true science which sepa-
rates things that are distinct, and deeignates dif-
ferent sets of facts by significant and appropriate
terms. Such a clear discrimination of provinces
of inquiry so closely connected in experience, yet
so distinct in their essential characteristics,
contrasts, moreover, very favourably with the
confused phraseology and statements not only
of many physiologists, but of many psychologists
of the narrower and more positive type. In-
quirers of this school not unfrequently attach an
exaggerated value to physiological research. They
imagine that it may not only illuminate conscious-
nees but supersede it, and in the end afford an ade-
quate explanation. the only explanation that can be
given, of mental facts and processes. They fall
into the mistake of supposing that when they
have illustrated in detail the familiar proposi-
tion that the brain, or rather the nervous system
is the organ of the mind, they have explained the
mystery of thought. Hence the abundant and
licentious use of physiological terms in describing
mental facts, the constant and confusing employ-
ment of such phrases as " nerve currents," " nerve
" waves," " nerve shocks," the volume and
density of an emotion, the momentum and impact
of an idea. Were such phrases employed simply
as metaphors, though still open to criticism
on the score of taste, there would indeed be less
objection to their use. We have in com-
mon use a number of effective physical
metaphors for describing moral facts, such
as the term " mass" applied to a body
of individuals. Used loosely to designate a large
aggregate, the metaphor is appropriate enough.
But if interpreted in the sense of an inert body,
acted on from without, and moving in obedience to
some blind force, it would convey a radically false
conception. However united in feeling or conduct
a crowd may be, it is made up of individuals, each
endowed with reason and will. So in mental
science, when physical terms are used metaphori-
cally, there is less ground for serious complaint.
It is only when they are employed, con-
sciously or unconsciously, for the purpose
of confounding two provinces of inquiry
essentially distinct, that the use, or, rather,
the abuse of physiological terms is fairly exposed
to the charge of being unscientific. Professor
TvatiaLL's clear discrimination of the two pro-
vinces emphatically condemns all such confusion
of thought and language. It is due to Mr. J. S.
MILL to say that ho is never guilty of this inexact
and misleading use of terms. He always
deeribes mental facts in psychological terms, and
physical facts in physical terms, and this, of
course, is the only really scientific method. The
reverse of this process, however plausibly dis-
guised, is in reality absurd. It would be
quite as rational to talk of dissect-
ing an emotion, or preserving an idea
in spirits, as to talk of consciously associating
molecular currents, feeling the logical connexion
between two nerve shocks, or perceiving the elec-
tric discharge from contiguous ganglionic centres.
Professor TYNDALL appropriately closed his in-
stinctive distinction between the two great de-
partments of human inquiry, and his exposition
of the little light they threw upon each other, by
pointing out the limits of our knowledge and
the lessons it teaches. " The problem of the
" connexion of body and soul is as in-
" soluble in its modern form as it was in
" the pre-scientific ages. " The attempted
explanation may change from age to age, but the
great facts of thought and life, the realities of
nature and the supernatural, are as fresh and
prolific in their manifestation, as inscrutable in
their depths, as of old. The limits of our know-
ledge feelingly instruct us what we are. Even
scientific ignorance is not simply humiliating.
' The mystery is not without its uses. It
' certainly may be made a power in the human
soul ; but it is a power which has feeling, not
knowledge, for its base. It may be, and will
' be, and we hope is turned to account, both :in
' steadying and strengthening the intellect, and
' in rescuing man from that littleness to which,
in the struggle for existence, or for precedence
in the world, he is continually prone."