Psychology and higher life

Front matter

PSYCHOLOGY AND

HIGHER LIFE

I

Contents

PAGE.

Introduction, 11

I. The Neural Basis of Mind, 15

Chapter I. The Neural Basis Of Mind.*

Mind and Brain Act Together. — Strange indeed is this mind of ours, by means of which we love and hope and desire and despair and know. And yet, what is it? And where is it? You cannot see it or feel it or taste it, or sense it in any other way. It is in the brain, you say. But cut into the brain and what do you find? Merely a few convolutions of flesh -and -blood matter; i. e.t gray and white fibers and cells intermingled with blood vessels — but no mind. So we have to be content with saying that mind, so far as we can know it, is composed simply of activities or processes. Thus, loving, hoping, desiring, knowing, and the like, are mental processes.

We are accustomed to say, however, that the brain is the seat of the mind; and we find much evidence warranting the statement that every mental process has corresponding to it a brain process. By dissecting the human body scientists find a complex nervous system, which consists, roughly speaking, of brain lobes, medulla oblongata, spinal cords, and nerve fibers branching from the brain and spinal cord to every part of the body. Now all this system of nerves is in some way connected with

* For illustrations of mind-body relations, consult the Appendix.

our mental processes; i. e., with what we think and know. While this network of nerves appears to the naked eye to be a comparatively simple structure, a microscopic examination, especially of the brain mass, reveals a wonderfully intricate arrangement of minute fibers and cells. It is estimated that the normal adult human brain con tains four thousand million cells.

Touch the back of your hand with a pencil-point. You say that you feel the pressure of the pencil. What takes place? Simply this: the pencil-point comes in contact with (stimulates) the end (terminus) of the nerve imbedded in the skin, and the nerve quickly transmits the impulse to the brain, where it is recognized. Listen to the ringing of a bell, and while you hear it the nerve ends in the ears are being stimulated by the air vibrations and the effect again reaches the brain over the nerve tracts. A similar thing is true of sight. Light- waves strike the retina as a stimulus, and when the impression reaches the brain we call it sight, or speak of it as something seen.

All Mental States Motor.— There is not only every reason for asserting that every direct sense impression is attended by a nerve process and a brain process as illustrated above, but it is also true that a brain act attends every thought or idea of an abstract nature. Let me illustrate further. Suppose you sit in a perfectly quiet place with eyes closed so that you would not see or hear anything or experience consciously any other sort of contact with the outer world: even under these circumstances your mental process might still go on freely. You could still think of things you had previously seen and felt and tasted, and compare them mentally. In

THE NEURAL BASIS OF MIND. 17

every such instance, while the outer nerve stimulation would be lacking, there would nevertheless be a brain process, a kind of activity among the brain cells, accompanying every thought process.

But what seems stranger yet is the fact that every thought one thinks tends to express itself in an act. To make this statement clear, suppose you meet three good friends on the street-corner, each about to depart in a different direction and each urging you to go with him. You listen to A's plea and feel impelled to go with him, and so afterwards with B and C. But all the time they are talking there keeps coming up in your mind a more impelling thought than either of them can offer; for example, the thought that you promised your mother that you would return home directly. And so you do go directly home, but you no doubt felt, for a moment, an impulse to act on the suggestion of each of your three friends. So it is that every thought tends to express itself in an act, but only one, the one most impelling to action, directs your conduct at any given time. Of the thousands of thoughts that rush through one's mind in the course of a day, comparatively few become realized in actual conduct.

Conscious and Self -Conscious. — When one is aware of his surroundings he is conscious. Consciousness, then, is awareness of what exists or what goes on about one's self. During every waking moment I am conscious of something or other about me. This is simply another way of saying that some kind of mind processes go on all the time while I am awake. Self-conscitiusness is consciousness directed in some way to the self. If one watches himself breathing or listens to his own heart beating, he is in a sense self-conscious. But we are more likely to think of this term as applying to instances wherein there is thought of one's own personal worth, such as vanity or conceit; or lack of worth, such as humility or bashfulness. The question of self-consciousness is an important one for the student, and it will be treated later at more length.

Consciousness Always Active. — Professor James likens consciousness to a flowing stream, and calls it, in an early treatment, "The Stream of Thought." Longfellow in " The Bridge " speaks of a " flood of thoughts. " Fluency of speech" is another more common expression, which really means that there is a rapid flow of ideas. The figure is a good one. Our thoughts do seem to flow like a stream, but like an uneven one. Now the current is deep and strong and now calm and placid. And as the elements of a stream are never in the same relative position twice, neither are two states or processes of consciousness ever precisely the same. Consciousness never repeats itself. Suppose you say, "I am thinking of exactly the same thing that I thought of at this time yesterday, viz., my home." A careful analysis will show that, while this is perhaps true of the object of your thought, the process of thought is a new one. You really have a process of consciousness very different from that of yesterday, and the more you try to make them alike, the wider they differ in their elements or constituent parts. Try this and observe for yourself. Another thing is evident : one cannot sit down and simply cease thinking or think of nothing at all. If one ceases to be conscious he has either gone to sleep or fainted away, or

THE NEURAL BASIS OF MIND. 19

something of the kind, and his brain is in a state of comparative rest.

Varying Moods. — This brings us back to the main thesis of this chapter, viz., that whatever the process of consciousness, there is always corresponding to it an analogous brain process. When one's thoughts "flow freely " there is a comparatively high state of excitability in the brain, and when the thinking is slow and sluggish the brain condition is evidently a more quiescent one. Thinking and the circulation of the blood are closely associated. To think clearly and deeply one must have a considerable amount of good, pure blood flowing to the brain. The heart-beat must be strong and vigorous. To verify this, just notice, in the course of the day, the variation in your ability to study or read with undivided attention. When very hungry one's heart-beat and circulation are enfeebled and the blood lacks certain nourishing elements that the brain must have for its best activity. Under such circumstances clear, forceful thinking is impossible, and to try to study is doubtless injurious both to mind and body. Again, after a full meal the digestive processes for a time require the greater portion of the blood, and an intense degree of brain activity is out of the question. Close application to study at this time is at the expense of digestion.

So one's "moods" vary throughout the day, while a hundred different objects come in contact with the nervous organism without and within and make up a multitude of changing conditions. If it were not for the thing we call habit it would seem impossible to form any such thing as a fixed, stable character. Many people are subject to alternating fits of melancholy and buoyancy of spirit, brought about by little changes in the weather and by other trifling circumstances. Statistics show that more suicides and crimes are committed during gloomy weather than during fair weather. It is also shown that these crimes vary with the time of day. Many agree that it would be harder to do a deed of violence at sunrise on a bright, clear, beautiful morning than during the stormy night. I fully appreciate this sentiment, but there is nearly always a tendency on my part to feel melancholy at about dusk in the evening.

So we observe that consciousness is a sea of shifting, changing moods, never twice presenting the same aspect. It is the part of wisdom, as I shall try to show later, to attempt to control these moods in the interest of stronger character and higher life. "A little stoppage of the galldue t," says Professor James, "a dose of cathartic medicine, a cup of strong coffee, at the proper moment, will entirely overturn for the time a man's views of life."

The Neural Tracts. — Considering the nervous system with reference to its function of transmitting nervous energy, we have (1) the ingoing tracts or fibers; (2) the redirecting brain mass; and (3) the outgoing nerve tracts or fibers. The first are called afferent and the last efferent nerves. The afferent nerves carry the nervous impulses inwardly from the periphery (outside of the body) to the brain, or spinal cord, or smaller nerve centers. These nerve centers constitute the so-called central nervous system, and have the power of redirecting the impulses away from themselves toward the various parts of the body. The efferent nerves transmit these impulses away from the central nerve masses. Of the afferent nerves, those carrying sensations to the brain are called

THE NEURAL BASIS OF MIND. 21

sensory; and of the efferent nerves, those directing the movements of the muscles and limbs are called motory. Some one facetiously illustrates the complete sensory-motory nervous process by means of a fish story. A man in a boat succeeds in harpooning a large fish. Immediately a message, a sensory current, is transmitted to the creature's brain: " Harpoon in tail." Whereupon, a motory message replies: " Jerk tail and upset boat."

The Nerve Termini. — As suggested above, the nerve tracts branch out from the various parts of the body, many of them coming to, and spreading out over the surface of the true skin. The epidermis contains no nerves. It is by means of these nerve termini that the human being comes into actual contact with the world of objects about him and learns their meaning. The inner ends of the nerves are hidden in the central nerve mass. It is interesting to notice that the nerves over which we receive sensations terminate in the gray covering of the brain, the cortex, and that there is for each pair or group of nerves a particular point of termination. For instance, the optic nerve-fibers terminate in the occipital brain lobes, and the olfactory tracts are traced to the lower part of the temporal region.

Thus it seems that each and every movement of muscle or limb is presided over by some specific portion of the brain. When I raise my right hand there is evidently some unusual excitation in the cells to the left of the top of the brain mass, and left-hand movements are accompanied by the same disturbance to the right of the topcenter. Wherefore, right-handed persons are " left-brained"; i. e., there is probably a fuller and more complex development of those brain cells to the left of the upper center than of those to the right. If this be true, it makes right- or left-handedness an inheritance rather than a mere acquirement. It has been noticed that left-handedness frequently "runs in families."

Various Qualities of Feeling. — It is also interesting to note the so-called "specific energies" of the various parts of the brain. So far as we can determine, the nerve-fibers are all composed of the same kind of material and they transmit their energy in the same way. Notwithstanding this fact, the brain receives and interprets the various impulses that come in over these similar tracts as having innumerable different qualities. Each region of the cortex responds to the nerve currents that enter it in a manner that is attended by a peculiar quality of feeling. Blindfold a person and touch lightly with your finger, first the back of his hand, then the back of his neck. He will distinguish at once a radical difference in the feeling of the two contacts, and also locate them accurately. This distinction can be made between two points of contact located a small fraction of an inch apart on the surface of the hand. No satisfactory explanation of this power of distinction has ever been made, so far as the author is aware.

Reflex Action. — Tickle a sleeping child on the hand and it will jerk the hand away. While you are deeply absorbed in a book, let a fly perch upon the bridge of your nose. Immediately, without direction, your hand will go up and brush the creature away. Both of these are examples of reflex action. The first is entirely unconscious, while the second is (or may be) conscious. In both cases the sensory-motory current is completed and in neither case is there time to think before the motion

THE NEURAL BASIS OF MIND. 23

is executed. The central nervous system presides over the life centers, as the heart, lungs and stomach, and under its direction there go on the vital processes, such as secretion, digestion, and assimilation. These processes are, in a certain sense, reflex acts of the nervous system. For example, food is taken into the stomach, where it stimulates certain nerves. As a response to this stimulation, the digestive fluids are poured into the stomach. These reflex processes all go on unconsciously.

Man's nervous organism is so constructed as, under normal conditions, to take the best care of the body by a series of reflex acts. The human body is a highly complex machine which, according to the evolutionist, it has taken thousands of years to build. Only a small portion of the many acts performed by the nervous system ever come to consciousness. Just as soon as the organism becomes proficient in the performance of any acquired act, the consciousness of the repetitions of this act either ceases or becomes very dim. I was watching a young woman playing the piano today, and noticed that her fingers flew over the keys so lightly and so rapidly that it was impossible to follow the movements of even one of them. She was watching the music on the page and seemed to be wholly unconscious of what her hands and fingers were doing. Long-continued practice had brought about this condition.

Summary. — The discussion so far has implied that to understand the mind to best advantage one must stick pretty close to the body, observing especially the nature of the nervous mechanism. As to which of the two, mind or body, is the more important, or what has the greater influence on the other, I will not here attempt to

24 PSYCHOLOGY AMD HIGHER LtPE.

decide; but, for the time being, the reader will please observe that he cannot get along very well without either. To summarize, let us note, then, that —

1. For every psychosis (mind-act) there is a neurosis (nerve-act). That is, accompanying every mind-act there is a brain-act.

2. All mental processes tend to express themselves in form of physical acts, although only a few, the most actimpelling ones, succeed in coming to expression in such form.

3. Consciousness is awareness of something existing or taking place in one's environment. Self-consciousness is this same awareness directed to something having reference to one's own person.

4. One's moods change constantly with the everyvarying condition of his health and his environment. He may experience joy, sadness, hope and despair all within a single hour, and shortly afterwards, while deeply absorbed in a problem, none of these.

5. The nervous system is composed of (1) afferent nerve-tracts with specialized outer ends to catch the sense of touch, sight, sound, etc.; (2) Central organs of redirection, as the brain, spinal cord, and smaller ganglia; (3) Efferent nerve-tracts to direct the movements of muscles, limbs, etc.

6. Many of the ingoing nerve currents are redirected and movements executed correspondingly without the attention, or often even without the knowledge, of the person chiefly concerned, — the subject.

Ttitt NEURAL BASIS OF MWD. 25

QUESTIONS.

Sensations vary in intensity not only with the strength of the stimulus, but also with the sensitiveness of the organs stimulated. Is there not, moreover, a very wide range of differences in people in reference to the latter factor?

1. Apply the same tickling stimulus to several children of about the same age, and notice the wide difference in response.

2. If you have not an algometer, place some rough surface, points downward and weighted, on the backs of the hands of several small boys, and notice how much more susceptible some are to the pain than others. A nutmeg grater or perforated tin-can lid will serve this purpose.

3. Undertake to comb the hair of the various members of this same group, but offer no comment on their conduct during the experiment. Notice that while one may shriek with pain, another will endure the hair-pulling with complete indifference.

4. Accompany a group of persons to the top of a high building or cliff, and ask each in turn to lean out over the edge. Observe the variety in their behavior. Some will feel a sensation as if being pulled downward forcibly. Others will lean far out with impunity.

5. A small boy is beating vigorously upon a tin pan with an iron spoon while you are reclining on the couch recuperating from the fatigue of work and worry. The " music" seems to satisfy a positive want in the boy's nervous system. Do you enjoy it as much? Why the difference?

6. Observe that a little child just learning to walk will nearly always try to dance in response to rapid-time piano music. Is this a mark of intelligence, or a mere matter of instinctive response of the nervous system? The same music would likely make a dog howl and a horse prance.

7. Observe the avidity with which some persons partake of their food at the table, and the absent-mindedness and indifference of others in the same act. A difference in appetite, you say. Is there likely also a permanent difference in nerve conditions? People are widely variant in the amount of enjoyment obtained from eating.

8. A loud report such as that of a gun or a door slamming occurs near you. You start very perceptibly. Succeeding reports have a much less effect. Must there not be some rearrangement of the nerves such as enables one to meet this new condition with less pain?

9. According to the testimony of many persons, the pain of fatigue and that of hunger are much alike in some of their stages, there being a vague, indefinable, but positive, feeling of unpleasantness. Let the reader make a simple test of this matter. He will possibly discover that much seeming fatigue can be relieved by partaking of food. A better understanding of these conditions would be of great benefit to parents and teachers.

10. It seems very probable that the ordinary person's nerves vary widely in sensitiveness of response during the course of the day. Excitement and worry may, for a brief time, heighten the acuteness of all the sense organs, but a reaction of an opposite nature likely follows. It is the more or less unconscious practice of some teachers to use some exciting device during the process of instruction. But what specific value have such methods, and to what extent are they to be used?

K^

THE NEUBAL BASIS OF MWt). 27

REFERENCES.

1. James, — Psychology, Briefer Course, Ch. II, "Sensation in General."

Angell, — Psychology, Ch. II, "The Psycho-physical Organism." Gordy, — Psychology, Ch. V, "The Function of the Nervous System."

Halleck, — Education of the Central Nervous System, Ch. I, " The Central Nervous System."

Stout, — Groundwork of Psychology, Ch. IV, "Body and Mind." Hoffman, — Psychology and Common Life, Ch. I, "The Brain as Related to Intelligence."

The volumes referred to in the second division offer a more advanced treatment of the subject.

2. Baldwin, — Development and Evolution, Ch. IX, "Mind and Body." Mental Development, Ch. IV, "Origin of Right-handedness."

Bain, — Senses and Intellect, Ch. II, "Sensations."

Wundt, — Human and Animal Psychology (first half of book).

2g PSYCHOLOGY AND HIGHER LIFE.

Chapter II. Perception

We know a thousand facts which we do not remember having learned. For instance, when did you learn that some things are true, or beautiful, or good, while others are untrue, or homely, or bad? When did you learn that the whole of anything is greater than any one of its parts ? You feel like answering in the language of the schoolboy, "I always knowed such things." Yet there is much to indicate that you have acquired this and all other knowledge you possess since the day of your birth. Descartes (b. 1596), a Frenchman, and the so-called founder of Modern philosophy, believed in innate (inborn) ideas. Some fundamental ideas are in the mind at birth, so he argued, and by means of these we become aware of the great multitude of facts. This theory of innate ideas is not advocated, however, by modern philosophers.

The theory most nearly approaching that of innate ideas is that the child is endowed at birth, through inheritance and variation from the ancestral type, with certain capacities for learning the facts of the world. The basis of these capacities is his brain structure. The sounds and sights and odors so common to us, must run together into one big conglomerate confusion to the new-born child. The fact is, he knows nothing, and blind instinct alone enables him to perform the few simple acts by means of which he is kept alive while the rudiments of his education are being implanted. He doesn't even know any difference between the "me" and the "not me." The little pink toe at the further extremity of his body means just as much or just as little to him as the big house-clock or the shelf at the other end of the room. The puzzling question is, if the child doesn't know anything to begin with, how does he get his first idea?

The First Idea. — This question is a difficult one, which the author does not pretend to answer, although his theory is that the first faint idea comes into the mind of the child as a result of the difference between his more pronounced sense impressions. For example, sights and sounds affect his nervous organism in such a different manner that a consciousness of this distinction must in time be forced upon his intelligent brain-nature. Such an explanation seems plausible, at least.

One well-known theory is that different degrees of bigness or volume of sight and sound and the like, first impress themselves upon the nervous organism in an intelligent way. All we know for certain is what we have actually observed, namely, that after a very few days the infant shows unmistakable indications of taking a slightly intelligent notice of things about him. At the first moment of his existence the noises and ponderable objects touching him from without, and the colic and other disturbances from within, begin an everlasting irritation of his nervous system. He coos and kicks and screams and otherwise "fights back." Thus the environment impresses itself upon him, and thus he reacts upon it and acquires the more rapidly the little, simple meanings of things. One of the most interesting pastimes imaginable is to observe closely day by day the conduct of the little child as he proceeds to find out the whole world.

Sensation and Perception. — The new-born child is perhaps the only person that is capable of experiencing pure sensations, that is, merely vague, uninterrupted, unnamed physical feelings. Such are sensations, the so-called first things in consciousness. One reason a pure sensation is well-nigh impossible to the average adult person is the fact that he immediately interprets the sensations as they come to him, and such interpretation constitutes perception. Unlike the infant, he perceives at once that the object felt is a hot stove or that the thing heard is a bell ringing, etc.

However, you might try this experiment: while some friend is wholly unexpecting it, thrust a pin (not too deep) into the back of his hand. Then, if he is not too much incensed at the experimenter, ask him to state at once whether or not he felt first a mere sensation, while the interpretation (the perception) came later. A number of persons have been able, so they maintained, to separate sensation and perception in some such manner. There is no doubt that a very brief interval of time elapses between these two, although it may not exceed a lightningflash in duration.

The function or purpose of perception is very evident. Through the avenues of the special senses there come various sense impressions which have to be interpreted, or perceived. This interpretation, or perception, is always in terms of something that has been learned before. To illustrate : Suppose I hold up to your view an object that is very unfamiliar to you. Your first statement is a question, namely, "What is it?" I ask you to examine the object more closely, and you immediately begin trying to find a name for it. That is, you class it with some object which is already familiar to you. At first you say it is a thing, and later you suggest mirror and microscope, till, at last, I tell you it is a color-sense tester.

Perception, then, might be called the interpretation of the raw material of sensation; and it in turn furnishes a comparatively raw material for the higher intellectual activities, such as imagination and reasoning.

The Special Senses. — Every part of the peripheral (outer) nervous system seems to be sensitive to contact, but some parts of it have become highly specialized. It was an ancient philosopher named Demetrius who first suggested that the special senses are merely modified forms of the touch sense. Sound vibrations touch the nerve -ends in the ear, sight (ether) vibrations impinge upon the retina, floating particles come in contact with the olfactory nerves, etc. Now, it may be true that millions of years ago, the ancestor of man was like a jellyfish, or even an amoeba, a little simple creature that has exactly the same kind of substance in every part of his body. It may also be true that this little insignificant creature, by means of being tossed and rolled around by the elements, developed finally into something higher and more significant, until after thousands of evolutions he became a man. We do know that a tadpole somehow finally evolves into a frog. But we are not much concerned about all this just now.

What we are concerned about is the unquestionable fact that one can't see very well with his ears or taste very much with his eyes. So while all these special senses may all be modified forms of the touch sense, each one of them has its own very peculiar way of interpreting a very peculiar form of touch. We see, thus, that their difference is more significant than their likeness.

The Sense of Sight. — Very early in life a child begins to notice objects. After a few days his little eyes will follow a moving light, and after that other moving things attract him. Still later, bright, stationary objects are noticed. The sight centers, that is, the portions of the brain that are active in interpreting things seen, lie in the back part of the cerebrum. Here the cells seem to be developed in proportion to the keen-sightedness of the person. In the case of a person blind from birth the convolutions are much shriveled up in this region of the brain.

An Autopsy. — President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University, performed a most interesting experiment. After the death of Laura Bridgeman, a blind deaf-mute, remarkable for her intellectual attainments, Dr. Hall examined her brain carefully and found that the optic lobes were withered and undeveloped, the gray covering being much thinner over this portion. On the contrary, the lateral portions of the brain, the centers for movement of the secondary muscles, showed unusual development. The absence of the two senses of sight and hearing compelled Miss Bridgeman to depend almost wholly upon the musclar sense and the sense of touch in getting her knowledge about things. Hence the full development of the lateral brain convolutions.

Learning to See.— The child at birth is blind, at least in the sense that he can't see any meaning in things; and he gradually learns to see by experience. Some of the ways in which he learns to see and distinguish things by sight are as follows: Images of objects moving about him pass over the retinae. The same effect occurs with stationary objects when he moves his head. After a few weeks he touches and handles things, thus becoming able to see them at various sides, angles, and distances. Later he may approach or withdraw from a distant object and get the experience of its seeming increase or diminution in size. And then, at greater maturity, he has pointed out to him, and he discovers by various other means, the finer points of likeness or difference in things.