Our minds and their bodies / by John Laird.

  • Laird, John, 1887-1946.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Our minds and their bodies / by John Laird. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    122/132 (page 118)
    we find a certain continuity, unity, and integrity of events, or substance is but a name for this continuity, unity, and integrity ; and on either hypothesis, minds might be substances. It may be objected, to be sure, that minds are not really non- spatial ; and, again, that they are intermittent, not continuous. In the former case, however, they might still be substances, and on any ordinary theory, they would be substances if they inter¬ acted with their bodies. It is the absence of spatiality that is held to be an objection, not its presence ; and this absence seems, on the whole, to be probable. Certain sensations and certain images (e. g. visual or tactical ones) seem plainly to be extended and therefore spatial. Logic and sentiment do not appear to be. In short, space seems to have nothing to do with spiritual regulation, except in so far as spatial things are its instrument. The problem of intermission is perhaps more difficult. A sub¬ stance, we say, must at least be a continuant in time. Otherwise, it is like a series of flashes and not a thing. Accepting this, we should say that if the temporal continuance of minds cannot be maintained without impossible overdrafts upon an unverifiable theory of subconsciousness, minds are not 4 substances ’ in any useful sense. It does not follow, however, that they are 4 flashes ’ of, or from, our bodies. Some other and spiritual reality might be the 4 substance 5 of them ; and in any case if Peter asleep is not a mind at all, Peter awake is the same Peter as he was the day before. The second, and wider, range of questions that arise out of dualistic theory, is as provocative as any philosophy can be. If these millions of minds exist, how do they come into being, and how are they united, if at all, in a spiritual realm ? When minds and bodies are going concerns, their partnership, if it is singular, does not appear to be in any proper sense a mystery. The origin of a mind, however, is another story, and even if all origins are,