DISCUSSIONS.
DR. MÜNSTERBERG'S THEORY OF MIND AND BODY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Dr. Münsterberg has given us in the course of his psychological writings[1] a very brilliant and striking presentation of what Professor James calls "the conscious-automaton theory." I propose in the following article to give a summary of this and of his resulting theory of will, followed in each case by criticism.
If we ask, says Dr. Münsterberg, what it is which is immediately given in experience, we find that it is neither a material world nor a soul, but simply consciousness the consciousness of a definite content. This content we are led by an unconscious impulse to separate into two series a series of perceptions of matter, and a series of mental states; and the question is, how are these series related to each other?
The popular theory conceives the relation as if the soul were situated at a point in the brain, where on the one hand it underwent changes caused by bodily processes, and on the other was able by a mere exercise of volition to impart to the body an impulse of motion. This theory, though sufficient for the needs of every-day life, overlooks that necessity of thought which obliges us to seek the explanation of every physical phenomenon in previous physical phenomena, and which finds its expression in the principle of the conservation of energy. "It is certain that every voluntary act is far more than a physico-chemical process; but equally certain that physical science, in explaining voluntary action, must attend solely to the physico-chemical process." "If a mental act could be wholly or partly the cause of a motion of matter, the lawful relations between kinetic and potential energy would be destroyed." The contraction of a muscle is nothing but a motion of matter; physical science must therefore assume it to be completely explicable as the result of prior material conditions.
The law of the conservation of energy is not a mere induction from experience, but a necessary presupposition of thought with regard to
- ↑ Dr. Hugo Münsterberg, Privatdocent an der Universitāt Freiburg (Baden), Die Willenshandlung: ein Beitrag zur physiologischen Psychologie, Freiburg, 1889, pp. 100-111; Beiträge zur experimentellen Physiologie, Freiburg, 1890, Heft 1, Einleitung: Bewusstsein und Gehirn, pp. 6-19; Ueber Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 13-37.
