For philosophy in general, and for psychology in particular, the problem
of the relation of soul and body has prime significance, and moreover,
it is a problem with which each of us is acquainted intimately and
practically, even if we know little or nothing of the academic
discussions, or of the technical terms representing various views. It is
very frequently the terminology which turns the plain man away from the
consideration of philosophical problems; but he has some conception,
however crude it may be, of his soul or his mind and of his body. These
terms are familiar to him, but the sight of a phrase like "psycho-
physical parallelism" rather daunts him. Really, it stands for quite a
simple thing, and is just the official label used to designate the
theory commonly held by scientific men of all kinds, to describe the
relation of soul and body. Put more precisely, it is just the assertion
that brain and consciousness work on parallel lines.
Bergson does not accept the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism.
In the first of his four lectures on La Nature de l'Ame, given at London
University in 1911, we find him criticizing the notion that
consciousness has no independence of its own, that it merely expresses
certain states of the brain, that the content of a fact of consciousness
is to be found wholly in the corresponding cerebral state. It is true
that we should not find many physiologists or philosophers who would
tell us now that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes
bile.
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