Physical fact

“ Remember, in this respect, how the picture of the threefold psycho-physical structure of man, which has proved a master-key for unlocking the most varied scientific problems, was first built up. There, 'body' and 'soul' represented a polarity which is obviously one of the first order. ”

“ When we take a careful survey of the various discussions and diverse theories on this subject, considered metaphysically, and then compare them with the great improvements and discoveries in the physical sciences for the last fifty years bearing upon the same subject, the change or progress looks mainly in one direction, viz., that all true mental science must ultimately be based upon physiology. ”

“ So far, then, as the physical world means the collection of contents that determine in each other certain [Pg 150] regular changes, the whole collection of our appreciative attributes has to be treated as falling outside of it. If we mean by physical nature whatever lies beyond the surface of our bodies, these attributes are inert throughout the whole extent of physical nature. ”

“ Now I am far from pretending that it may not be capable of proof, or that it is not an important addition to our knowledge if proved, that certain motions in the particles of bodies are the conditions of the production of heat or light; that certain assignable physical modifications of the nerves may be the conditions not only of our sensations or emotions, but even of our thoughts; that certain mechanical and chemical conditions may, in the order of nature, be sufficient to determine to action the physiological laws of life. ”

“ When we consider, on one side, the phenomena which are the object of the physical sciences, and those that are the object of the physiological, we see how immense is the space that separates their nature and their essence. ”

“ In these studies of the effects which are continually presenting themselves to the observing eye, and of the phenomena of causes, as far as they are revealed by Science in its search of the physical earth, it will be shown that beneath the beautiful vesture of the external world there exists, like its quickening soul, a pervading power, assuming the most varied aspects, giving to the whole its life and loveliness, and linking every portion of this material mass in a common bond with some great universal principle beyond our knowledge. ”

“ More to the point, at this stage of our inquiry, than a formally precise definition of Nature, is a consideration of the motives which lead us to acknowledge as real the facts that we all call physical, — viz. to acknowledge the existence of matter, the laws of natural processes, and the dependence of our own mental life upon these processes. To this aspect of the problem of Nature we accordingly at once proceed. ”

“ Although what is called my Body is shown to be a group of qualities which are feelings—its color, form, solidity, position, motion—all its physical attributes being what is felt by us in consequence of the laws of our organization ”

“ Now, if we examine the real nature of those two important properties of life, we find that we can trace them, like all physiological functions, to physical and chemical causes, to the properties and the phenomena of motion of those substances of which the bodies of animals and plants consist. ”

“ Let us endeavour to point out and illustrate the deep-seated contradistinction between philosophical and physical science; for the purpose, more particularly, of getting light thrown upon the moral character of our species. ”

“ Of how it is that the soul informs the body, physical science teaches me nothing: consciousness is not explained to my comprehension by all the nerve-paths and “neurones” of the physiologist; nor do I ask of physics how goodness shines in one man’s face, and evil betrays itself in another. But of the construction and growth and working {9} of the body, as of all that is of the earth earthy, physical science is, in my humble opinion, our only teacher and guide18. ”

“ In science we find the elements of the most exalted poetry; and in the mysterious workings of the physical forces we discover connections with the illimitable world of thought,—in which mighty minds delight to try their powers,—as strangely complicated, and as marvellously ordered, as in the psychological phenomena which have, almost exclusively, been the objects of their studies. ”

“ The only rational question is one preserving the integrity of the terms, namely, whether the living, thinking organism presents itself to apprehension under the twofold aspect—now under the modes of Feeling classified as objective or physical ”

“ The study of the mysteries of thought, the 156 discovery of the organs of the soul, the geometry of the forces, the phenomena of its power, the appreciation of the faculty which we seem to possess of moving independently of the body,—in a word, the laws of its dynamics, and those of its physical influence will constitute the coming centuries’ glorious share in science. ”

“ Again, before we can attack these momentous problems with any reasonable hope of success, we shall need to know which among the categories employed by the various sciences dealing with mental life are of fundamental significance, and what is the logical relation of those sciences to the concrete realities of immediate experience, and to the constructions of physical science. ”

“ In the present Book we shall discuss some of the leading characteristics which everyday thought and scientific thought respectively assign to the physical order, and shall ask how these characteristics compare with those we have seen ground to ascribe to Reality, i.e. we shall attempt to form a theory of the place of physical existence in the whole system of Reality. ”

“ The world of sense, or of physical 'things' as we instinctively apprehend them, with such qualities as heat, color, and sound, and such 'forces' as life, chemical affinity, gravity, electricity, all existing as such within or on the surface of the things. ”

“ In later publications he declared physical substance to be “only the constant relation between phenomena connected by association and conjoined by the operations of the universal mind, nature being nothing more than conscious experience. ”

“ But how “mechanical happening” comes to have this marvellous inwardness, which we call sensation, feeling, perception, thought and will, which is neither mechanical nor derivable from anything mechanical; and, further, how physical and psychical can condition one another without doing violence to the law of the conservation of the sum of energy, is an absolute riddle. ”

“ The necessity of inquiring into the nature of these separate elementary bodies,—which constitutes one of the two great departments of physical investigation,—we found to arise from the imperfection of our senses, that are not sufficiently acute to discover, of themselves, the component parts of the masses, which nature everywhere presents to us. ”

“ But though we may see in such writers occasional gleams of physiological thought, the absence of definite physical relations in the speculations thus promulgated was necessarily intolerable to men of sound understanding and scientific tendencies. ”

“ The internal evidence, derived from examination of the fundamental concepts of scientific Mechanism, thus confirms the view we have already adopted on different grounds, that the whole physical order is merely the appearance of a more ultimate reality of a kind akin to our own sentient and purposive life. ”

“ The supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind, in Mindless methods. Divine Science. What are termed Natural Science and Material Laws are rules of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one. ”

“ Living matter also exhibits these properties, and is subject, in great measure, to physical laws. But living bodies are endowed moreover with a set of properties altogether different from these, and contrasting with them very remarkably. ”

“ Physics treats as a unit the whole system of appearances of a piece of matter, whereas psychology is interested in certain of these appearances themselves. Confining ourselves for the moment to the psychology of perceptions, we observe that perceptions are certain of the appearances of physical objects. ”

“ Physics, therefore, are the alpha and omega of our mental history. Concerning what occurs between the physical cause of sensation and the physical result of mental action, two extreme opinions stand opposed. On the one hand, mind is defined as a succession of purely physical phenomena ”

“ So far as the mere movement of objects, even of great weight, in connection with certain persons, is concerned, whether in the phenomena of the so called 'spiritual manifestations,' or out of them, the immediate agent is a physical one, and is identical throughout. ”

“ Both parallelism and materialism maintain that the sequence of physical processes is complete in itself and can be explained in terms of itself. All physical processes! Not only the movements of the stars, the changes in inanimate matter, the origin and evolution of the forms of life, but also what we call actions, for instance the movements of our arms and our legs, and the complicated processes affecting the breathing organs and tongue, which we call “speech.” ”

“ A physical object is the apparent character of its situation. Physical objects are found to be 'material' objects.
61.6 Science now intervenes with the express purpose of exhibiting our perceptions as our awareness of the characters of events and of relations between characters of events. All perceptions are included in the scope of this aim of science, namely, including abnormally perceived sense-objects and delusive perceptual objects. ”

“ Further, the divergence which, in consequence of this distinction, takes place at their very first step, between psychological and physical science is prodigious. In constructing the physical sciences, man occupies the position of a mere observer. ”

“ The influences of human thought on the physical forces which regulate the great phenomena of the universe,—and the operation of the powers of mind, on the material constituents of the planet, which is man's abiding place, form subjects for studies which have a most exalting tendency. ”

“ Since we seek to know what is the physical phenomenon we perceive, we must first enunciate this proposition, which will govern the whole of our discussion: to wit—
Of the outer world we know nothing except our sensations. ”

“ If they should vary the action of the simple physical causes in any degree, I hope it will not call in question the truth of our general propositions, any more than the compound action of physical powers, that are opposed to each other. ”

“ Now,339 must not the same be necessarily true of Nature also? Viewed from the outside by the scientific observer, nothing is seen, nothing can be seen, there is nothing else to be seen, but motions, material phenomena; but behind these, on the other side, on the inside, must not there be in this case also psychical phenomena, consciousness, thought, will; in a word, personality?47 In the only place where we do get behind physical phenomena, viz., in the brain, we find psychical phenomena. Are we not justified, then, in concluding that in all cases the psychical lies behind the physical? ”

“ In the first case the three great properties of physical bodies—weight, number, measure,—in the second the division of created things into the classes of those that have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and goodness of the Triune God. ”

“ Every phenomenon therefore whether physical or mental, is probably connected in an indissoluble manner with some preceding phenomenon, either immediately in point of time, or remotely through some static condition, usually that of stored up power. ”

“ Hence bodies may be discovered, which,—from the imperfections of science,—resisting our means of analysis, must, for a time, be regarded as new elements, whereas they are possibly only altered states of the same substance. ”

“ The powers which are employed in the arrangements of matter are, notwithstanding their subtile character, of far too gross a nature to influence the psychological mysteries which present themselves to the observant mind. ”

“ The power of physical methods applies for the establishment of that truth which can be realised directly through our senses, or through the vast expansion of the perceptive range by means of artificially created organs. ”

“ The physical anatomy of man exhibits very striking illustrations of the influence of corporeal changes upon the mental state, as the mental changes show corresponding influences upon the corporeal state. ”

“ To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which is without—our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibres, are present not in the human body alone: ”

“ Besides the correlation and equivalence between external physical forces, and the mental forces generated by them in us under the form of sensations, there is a correlation and 276equivalence between sensations and those physical forces which, in the shape of bodily actions, result from them. The feelings we distinguish as light, heat, sound, odour, taste, pressure, &.c, do not die away without immediate results; but are invariably followed by other manifestations of force. ”

“ Philip’s Memoirs, will give a general view of the conclusions of that eminent physiologist:—“With respect to the nature of the powers of the living animal which we have been considering, the sensorial and muscular powers, and the powers peculiar to living blood, we have found belong to the living animal alone, all their peculiar properties being the properties of life. ”