Mind
(Greek nous; Latin mens, German Geist, Seele; French
ame esprit).
The word mind has been used in a variety of meanings in
English, and we find a similar want of fixity in the
connotation of the corresponding terms in other
languages. Aristotle tells us that Anaxagoras, as
compared with other early Greek philosophers, appeared
like one sober among drunken men in that he introduced
nous, mind, as efficient cause of the general order in
the universe. In treating of the soul, Aristotle
himself identifies nous with the intellectual faculty,
which he conceives as partly active, partly passive
(see INTELLECT). It is the thinking principle the
highest and most spiritual energy of the soul,
separable from the body, and immortal. The Latin word,
mens, was employed in much the same sense. - St.
Thomas, who represents the general scholastic usage,
derives mens from metior (to measure). He identifies
mens with the human soul viewed as intellectual and
abstracting from lower organic faculties. Angels, or
pure spirits, may thus be called minds (De Veritate, X,
a. 1). For Descartes the human soul is simply mens, res
cogitans, mind. It stands in complete opposition to the
body and to matter in general. The vegetative faculties
allotted to the soul by Aristotle and the Schoolmen are
rejected by him, and those vital functions are
explained by him mechanically. The lower animals do not
possess minds in any sense; they are for him mere
machines. An early usage in English connects the word
mind closely with memory, as in the sentence "to bear
in mind". Again it has been associated with the
volitional side of our nature, as in the phrases "to
mind" and "to have a mind to effect something". Still
when restricted to a particular faculty the general
tendency has been to identify mind with the cognitive
and more especially with the intellectual powers. In
this usage it more closely corresponds to the primary
meaning of the Latin mens, understood as the thinking
or judging principle. Mind is also conceived as a
substantial being, equivalent to the scholastic mens,
partly identified with, partly distinguished from the
soul. If we define the soul as the principle within me,
by which I feel, think, will, and by which my body is
animated, we may provide a definition of mind of fairly
wide acceptance by merely omitting the last clause.
That is, in this usage mind designates the soul as the
source of conscious life, feeling, thought, and
volition, abstraction being made from the vegetative
functions. On the other hand the term soul emphasizes
the note of substantiality and the property of
animating principle.
In the English psychological literature of the last
century there has indeed been exhibited a most
remarkable timidity in regard to the use of the term
"soul". Whilst in German at all events the word seele
has been in general acceptance among psychologists, the
great majority of English writers on mental life
completely shun the use of the corresponding English
word, as seemingly perilous to their philosophical
reputation. Even the most orthodox representatives of
the Scotch school rigorously boycotted the word, so
that "the nature and attributes of the Human Mind",
came to be recognized as the proper designation of the
subject matter of psychology, even amongst those who
believed in the reality of an immaterial principle, as
the source of man's conscious life. However, the spread
of the positivist or phenomenalist view of the science
of psychology has resulted in a very widely adopted
identification of mind merely with the conscious
states, ignoring any principle or subject to which
these states belong. The mind in this sense is only the
sum of the conscious processes or activities of the
individual with their special modes of operating. This,
however, is a quite inadequate conception of the mind.
It may, of course, be convenient and quite legitimate
for some purposes to investigate certain activities or
operations of this mind or soul, without raising the
ultimate question of the metaphysical nature of the
principle or substance which is the basis and source of
these phenomena; and it may also serve as a useful
economy of language to employ the term mind, merely to
designate mental life as a stream of consciousness. But
the adoption of this phraseology must not cause us to
lose sight of the fact that along with the action there
is the agent, that underlying the forms of mental
behaviour there is the being which behaves. The
connection of our abiding personal identity, nay the
simplest exercise of self-conscious memory, compels us
to acknowledge the reality of a permanent principle,
the subject and connecting bond of the transitory
states. Mind adequately conceived must thus be held to
include the subject or agent along with states or
activities, and it should be the business of a complete
science of mind to investigate both.
All our rational knowledge of the nature of the mind
must be derived from the study of its operations.
Consequently metaphysical or rational psychology
logically follows empirical or phenomenal psychology.
The careful observation, description, and analysis of
the activities of the mind lead up to our philosophical
conclusions as to the inner nature of the subject and
the source of those activities. The chief propositions
in regard to the human mind viewed as a substantial
principle which Catholic philosophers claim to
establish by the light of reason are, its abiding
unity, its individuality, its freedom, its simplicity,
and its spirituality (see CONSCIOUSNESS; INDIVIDUALITY;
INTELLECT; SOUL).
MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS
In connection with the investigation of our mental
operations there arises the question, whether these are
to be deemed coextensive with consciousness. Are there
unconscious mental processes? The problem under
different forms has occupied the attention of
philosophers from Leibniz to J. S. Mill, whilst in
recent years the phenomena of hypnotism, "multiple
personality", and abnormal forms of mental life have
brought the question of the relation between the
unconscious and the conscious processes in the human
organism into greater prominence. That all forms of
mental life, perception thought, feeling, and volition
are profoundly affected in character by nervous
processes and by vital activities, which do not emerge
into the strata of conscious life, seems to be
indisputably established. Whether however, unconscious
processes which affect conclusions of the intellect and
resolutions of the will, but are in themselves quite
unconscious, should be called mental states, or
conceived as acts of the mind, has been keenly
disputed. In favour of the doctrine of unconscious
mental processes have been urged the fact that many of
our ordinary sensations arise out of an aggregate of
impressions individually too faint to be separately
perceivable, the fact that attention may reveal to us
experiences previously unnoticed, the fact that
unobserved trains of thought may result in sudden
reminiscences, and that in abnormal mental conditions
hypnotized, somnambulistic, and hysterical patients
often accomplish difficult intellectual feats whilst
remaining utterly unaware of the rational intermediate
steps leading up to the final results. On the other
side it is urged that most of those phenomena can be
accounted for by merely subconscious processes which
escape attention and are forgotten; or, at all events,
by unconscious cerebration, the working out of purely
physical nervous processes without any concomitant
mental state till the final cerebral situation is
reached, when the corresponding mental act is evoked.
The dispute is probably, at least in part, grounded on
differences of definition. If, however, the mind be
identified with the soul, and if the latter be allowed
to be the principle of vegetative life, there can be no
valid reason for denying that the principle of our
mental life may be also the subject of unconscious
activities. But if we confine the term mind to the
soul, viewed as conscious, or as the subject of
intellectual operations, then by definition we exclude
unconscious states from the sphere of mind. Still
whatever terminology we may find it convenient to
adopt, the fact remains, that our most purely
intelectual operations are profoundly influenced by
changes which take place below the surface of
consciousness.
ORIGIN OF MENTAL LIFE
A related question is that of the simple or composite
character of consciousness. Is mind, or conscious life,
an amalgam or product of units which are not conscious?
One response is offered in the "mind-stuff" or "mind-
dust" theory. This is a necessary deduction from the
extreme materialistic evolutionist hypothesis when it
seeks to explain the origin of human minds in this
universe. According to W. K. Clifford, who invented the
term "mind-stuff", those who accept evolution must, for
the sake of consistency, assume that there is attached
to every particle of matter m the universe a bit of
rudimentary feeling or intelligence, and "when the
material molecules are so combined as to form the film
on the under-side of a jelly fish, the elements of
mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as
to form the faint beginnings of sentience. When the
matter takes the complex form of the living human
brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of
human consciousness, having intelligence and volition"
(Lectures and Essays, 284). Spencer and other thorough-
going evolutionists are driven to a similar conclusion.
But the true inference is rather, that the
incredibility of the conclusion proves the
untenableness of the materialistic form of evolution
which these writers adopt. There is no evidence
whatever of this universal mind-stuff which they
postulate. It is of an inconceivable character. As
Professor James says, to call it "nascent"
consciousness is merely a verbal quibble which explains
nothing. No multiplicity and no grouping or fusing of
unconscious elements can be conceived as constituting
an act of conscious intelligence. The unity and
simplicity which characterize the simplest acts of the
mind are incompatible with such a theory.
MIND AND MATTER
The opposition of mind and matter brings us face to
face with the great controversy of Dualism and Monism.
Are there two forms of being in the universe ultimately
and radically distinct? or are they merely diverse
phases or aspects of one common underlying substratum?
Our experience at all events appears to reveal to us
two fundamentally contrasted forms of reality. On the
one side, there is facing us matter occupying space,
subject to motion, possessed of inertia and resistance
permanent indestructible, and seemingly independent of
our observation. On the other, there is our own mind,
immediately revealing itself to us in simple unextended
acts of consciousness, which seem to be born and then
annihilated. Through these conscious acts we apprehend
the material world. All our knowledge of it is
dependent on them, and in the last resort limited by
them. By analogy we ascribe to other human organisms
minds like our own. A craving to find unity in the
seeming multiplicity of experience has led many
thinkers to accept a monistic explanation, in which the
apparent duality of mind and matter is reduced to a
single underlying principle or substratum. Materialism
considers matter itself, body material substance, as
this principle. For the materialist, mind, feelings,
thoughts, and volitions are but "functions" or
"aspects" of matter; mental life is an epiphenomenon, a
by-product in the working of the Universe, which can in
no way interfere with the course of physical changes or
modify the movement of any particle of matter in the
world; indeed, in strict consistency it should be held
that successive mental acts do not influence or
condition each other, but that thoughts and volitions
are mere incidental appendages of certain nerve
processes in the brain; and these latter are determined
exclusively and completely by antecedent material
processes. In other words, the materialistic theory,
when consistently thought out, leads invariably to the
startling conclusion that the human mind has had no
real influence on the history of the human race.
On the other hand, the idealistic monist denies
altogether the existence of any extra-mental,
independent material world. So far from mind being a
mere aspect or epiphenomenon attached to matter, the
material universe is a creation of the mind and
entirely dependent on it. Its esse is percipi. It
exists only in and for the mind. Our ideas are the only
things of which we can be truly certain. And, indeed,
if we were compelled to embrace monism, it seems to us
there can be little doubt as to the logical superiority
of the idealistic position. But there is no
philosophical compulsion to adopt either a
materialistic or an idealistic monism. The conviction
of the common sense of mankind, and the assumption of
physical science that there are two orders of being in
the universe, mind and matter, distinct from each other
yet interacting and influencing each other, and the
assurance that the human mind can obtain a limited yet
true knowledge of the material world which really
exists outside and independently of it occupying a
space of three dimensions, this view, which is the
common teaching of the Scholastic philosophy and
Catholic thinkers, can be abundantly justified (see
DUALISM; ENERGY, CONSERVATION OF).
MIND AND MECHANISM
Mind is also contrasted with mechanical theories as
cause or explanation of the order of the world. The
affirmation of mind in this connection is equivalent to
teleologism, or idealism in the sense of there being
intelligence and purpose governing the working of the
universe. This is the meaning of the word in Bacon's
well-known statement: "I had rather believe all the
fables in the Legend and the Alcoran than that this
universal frame is without a mind" (Essays: Of Atheism)
It is, in fact, the doctrine of theism. The world as
given demands a rational account of its present
character. The proximate explanations of much,
especially in the inorganic and non-living portion of
it, can be furnished by material energies acting
according to known laws. But reason demands an account
of all the contents of the universe-living and
conscious beings as well as lifeless matter- and,
moreover, it insists on carrying the inquiry back until
it reaches an ultimate explanation. For this, Mind, an
Intelligent Cause, is necessary. Even if the present
universe could be traced back to a collection of
material atoms, the particular collocation of these
atoms from which the present cosmos resulted, would
have to be accounted for- because in the mechanical or
materialistic theory of evolution, that original
collocation contained this universe and no other, and
that particular collocation clamours for a sufficient
reason just as inevitably as does the present complex
result. If we are told that the explanation of a page
of a newspaper is to be found in the contact of the
paper with a plate of set types, we are still compelled
to ask haw the prticular arrangement of the types came
about, and we are certain that the sufficient
explanation ultimately rests in the action of mind or
intelligent being.
MICHAEL MAHER
Transcribed by Tomas Hancil and Joseph P. Thomas
[New Advent Catholic Website]
http://www.knight.org/advent
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright �
1996 by New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver,
Colorado, USA, 80228. (
[email protected])
If you would like to contribute to this worthwhile
project, please contact Kevin Knight by e-mail at
(knight.org/advent). For more information please
download the file cathen.txt/.zip.
-------------------------------------------------------
Provided courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network
PO Box 3610
Manassas, VA 22110
Voice: 703-791-2576
Fax: 703-791-4250
Data: 703-791-4336
Web:
http://www.ewtn.com
FTP: ewtn.com
Telnet: ewtn.com
Email address: sysop@ ewtn.com
EWTN provides a Catholic online
information and service system.
-------------------------------------------------------
