Note 147 — ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER III. (continued 2)

This quotation is from his Matter and Force, Chapter XIX. Büchner is never tired of emphasizing the Materialism of thought. In an address prefixed to his tenth Edition, speaking of the hypothesis of Mind acting on Brain he calls it "the tragi-comic pianoforte theory," and regrets that there should be so many "human pianofortes out of tune in the world." Büchner's own Materialism is outspoken, as may be judged from the following propositions:—

1. Spirit without Body is unimaginable.

2. The Soul brings with it "no innate intuitions"; and

3. It is not an ens per se, but a product of external influences.

4. There is no individual immortality nor personal continuance after death.

5. The Soul's knowledge relates only to earthly things.

6. It becomes a person by being opposed to earthly individualities.

7. (Adopted from C. Vogt) "The soul ... is a product of the development of the brain; just as muscular activity is a product of muscular development, and secretion a product of glandular development. So soon as the substances composing the brain are aggregated in a similar form, will they exhibit the same functions.... Mental activity changes with the periods of life, and ceases altogether at death."

Büchner's writings are sufficiently known in this country. In America they are food for the million.

Proposition No. 6 is particularly noticeable because it re-echoes the fallacy of Locke (see page 182-3 ante) on personal identity. By opposition to earthly individualities we do not "become" persons, but the sense of antagonism between ourselves and other externalities (both men and things), sharpens every day our belief in our own personality, and furnishes its daily verification.

The grossness of this writer's Materialism does not hinder him from using the word "soul" on almost every page; and in one of his more recent publications he is candid enough to acknowledge that this old-fashioned entity is not yet quite improved off the face of the Earth. He says:—"Just the properties of the human mind and the impossibility of explaining them, were from the most ancient times one of the main supports of spiritualism and theological systems. True, their explanation is still wanting." Büchner, of course, looks for the speedy elimination of "Soul" proper, on exactly the same grounds which underlie his own whole system. Mental activity and Brain go together (he argues), as Force and Matter go together. It may be answered, that every practical reasoner knows the danger of arguing from concomitancies, however well-established, to Causality; and the risk is evidently much increased when a like argument is used to Identity. Besides, if Mental activity is resolvable into Brain, why should not Matter be likewise resolved into Force? Thus the whole Universe, inanimate and animated, material and psychical, becomes Force. The chain would run in this manner: Mind = Brain = Matter = Force. But how are we to know that Force must be all of one kind and description? Or, again, why may not the concomitancies be rather resolved some other way;—e.g., Matter (including Brain) = Force = Mind? Thus Materialism might slide into Idealism, Pantheism, or even Theism; since in some shape or other Mind would form and sustain the Universe. Our last citation of Büchner is taken from a New York Edition of his Materialism, p. 19.