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A CRITIQUE
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there something of an entirely different nature from the body? Can we not explain the facts of psychology without introducing 'mind'? The intimate relationship and interaction between mind and body is a fact without dispute What is disputable is the adoption of the mental hypothesis which involves the existence of 'mind' ie something which is not of the same order of being as the body We have, thus the two alternatives 1) mind as an aspect of body and 11) mind as distinct from body
(1) In the first case the mind consists entirely of physiological instruments such as the sensory nervous systems or receptor nerves which receive the stimuli from outside, the transference machinery to pass on the stimuli to brain, the brain itself and the motor system or effector nerves which govern the movements of the body
In this case the emotions are perceptions of a physiological change in ourselves For example, when we feel the emotion of fear the adrenal glands discharge a certain amount of fluid secretion, which produces changes in the tensions of the muscle and in the blood, resulting in increased rapidity of the heart-beat, etc The awareness of these bodily occurences constitute the emotion of fear
In the absence of an independent mental instrument the process of thinking is explained as simply subvocal talking involving as it does the same muscular activities of the larynx as those which occur in talking although these activities are not carried so
far
(11) In the other alternative viz. mind as distinct from body, a unique, distinct and in some sense independent status of mind is contended For contending an independent status of mind it is not necessary to
