Is the Mind a Myth? (1942)

Book Review from the February 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Myth of the Mind. By Frank Kenyon. Thinkers Library. Watts. 1s. 6d.

This admirable little book deserves the close attention of all who are interested in psychology. Since the appearance of Freud and company a considerable literature has been published on this subject. We often hear “cultured” people talking very glibly about the “Universe of Mind,” “Absolute Mind,” and the “Power of Mind over Matter,” etc.

Says Mr. Kenyon in the last two sentences of his book, “When we turn over the pages of history we smile at the superstitions and follies of a bygone age. In future years, our descendants, engaged in a similar pursuit, will regard the belief in an immaterial entity called the mind as the greatest, and least excusable, superstition of them all.”

The author directs his attack against the professional psychologists, the quacks and charlatans who acquire large sums of money from wealthy nit-wits, but his criticisms are equally pertinent to the philosophical word-spinners who seek to dazzle the eyes of the simple with their sophistries, the people who “prove” that the material world which surrounds and includes us possesses no reality that is independent of our sense-perceptions, and is but the eternal form of a supreme mental activity—absolute mind.

Mr. Kenyon remarks, “The belief in the mind as an entity, is due to that principle which has drawn philosophy into such disrepute: the principle of generalising phenomena into an abstract term, and then treating the abstraction as a metaphysical entity governing the phenomena it was intended to describe.”

Put even more simply, the word mind is an abstract term, which correctly understood, is used to describe a definite form of activity—the activity of the brain. Similarly, the word digestion describes certain processes associated with the stomach. But no altars have yet been erected to the God of Digestion, nor do we hear about “Absolute Digestion.” and the “Universe of the Stomach.” Mr. Kenyon wants to know what happens to the mind when a person falls into unconsciousness. He asks, too, “If the mind be an immaterial entity utilising the body as its instrument, why does it succumb to a blow on the head, a sunstroke, intoxicating liquors, the inhalation of chloroform, or the taking of a few drops of poison?” In a chapter on consciousness he points out the lack of agreement among psychologists and philosophers in their treatment of the subject. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for the soul or mind, sometimes it is synonymous with knowledge, or with self-consciousness as distinct from some other consciousness or with abstract thought as distinct from sense-perceptions, and so on.

The author writes: “Of one thing we may be certain. Consciousness is never manifested in the absence of a nervous system. There is no abstract consciousness without contents. Consciousness cannot exist unless there is something of which one is conscious ; its existence depends on material factors, and its nature must be sought in material conditions, a scientific investigation which must inevitably lead us to the conclusion that consciousness is a quality or attribute of the nervous system to which it owes its manifestation.” The view is also expressed that consciousness may not be the causative factor in human action, but a mere adjunct. “When an excitation passes immediately into action, indicating definite, organised tracts, there is little or no consciousness of it; but when the excitation reaches a certain intensity and does not wholly pass into immediate action, the ground substance is affected and gives rise to consciousness. If precise action depends on definite, organised tracts, it follows that the more definite and better organised are the tracts, the better will the action be performed; the less organised are the tracts the more the action is delayed, the more will the ground substance be affected by the wandering currents which in their turn affect other nerve tracts, leading to confusion, interference and sometimes to total inhibition. . . . Consciousness, far from being of that high and noble character which it is commonly supposed to be, is merely an insignificant by-product of an undifferentiated portion of the nervous system. If progressive development of life means a progressive specialisation of nervous structure, such progressive development implies that the organised tracts must increase at the expense of the undifferentiated grey matter, and that the gradual elimination of the latter must result in a corresponding decrease in the manifestation of consciousness, which will eventually disappear. In the case of creatures living in a more limited environment than man this is probably what has already happened, and we may here have an illustration of what has so often been urged—that .instinct is lapsed intelligence. … It may be that the conditions that give rise to consciousness enable us to perform an extremely larger number of actions. . . . Though the actions accompanied by consciousness are not performed with the unerring certainty of those actions that depend on the existence of definitely organised tracts, the possibility of their extreme variety may be a compensating factor in the struggle for existence.” So we see that this insignificant by-product has a range of action, and a capacity for development, that automatic response can never achieve.

Pressure of space prevents us from touching on all the points raised in this book, but enough has been said to indicate that its method is scientific, and the exposition extremely lucid.

Here is one more quotation: “It is not appreciated that there is not one of the arguments employed to support the belief in the mind which could not with equal fitness be employed to support a belief in any myth we might care to choose. The assumption of an immaterial mind as an explanation of phenomena for which no other explanation may be immediately forthcoming is no more permissible than the assumption of an invisible dragon. The presence of the mind must first be proven before another step can be taken.”

Kaye.