Chapter XII: Mental Evolution (1)

The phrase "mental evolution" clearly implies the existence of somewhat concerning which evolution can be predicated; and the adjective "mental" further implies that this somewhat is that which we term "mind." What is this mind which is said to be evolved? And out of what has it been evolved? Can we say that matter, when it reaches the complexity of the grey cortex of the brain, becomes at last self-conscious? May we say that mind is evolved from matter, and that when the dance of molecules reaches a certain intensity and intricacy consciousness is developed? I conceive not.

"If a material element," says Mr. A. R. Wallace,[JY] "or a combination of a thousand material elements in a molecule, are alike unconscious, it is impossible for us to believe that the mere addition of one, two, or a thousand other material elements to form a more complex molecule could in any way tend to produce a self-conscious existence. The things are radically distinct. To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception. You cannot have in the whole what does not exist in any of the parts; and those who argue thus should put forth a definite conception of matter, with clearly enunciated properties, and show that the necessary result of a certain complex arrangement of the elements or atoms of that matter will be the production of self-consciousness. There is no escape from this dilemma--either all matter is conscious, or consciousness is something distinct from matter; and in the latter case, its presence in material forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, outside of and independent of what we term 'matter.'"

There is a central core of truth in Mr. Wallace's argument which I hold to be beyond question, though I completely dissent from the conclusion which he draws from it. I do not believe that the existence of conscious beings, outside of and independent of what we term "matter," is a tenable scientific hypothesis. In which case, Mr. Wallace will reply, "You are driven on to the other horn of the dilemma, and must hold the preposterous view that all matter is conscious."

Now, I venture to think that the use here of the word "conscious" is prejudicial to the fair consideration of the view which I hold in common with many others of far greater insight than I can lay claim to. And it seems to me that we cannot fairly discuss this question without the introduction of terms which, from their novelty, are devoid of the inevitable implications associated with "mind" and "consciousness" and their correlative adjectives. Such terms, therefore, I venture to suggest, not with a view to their general acceptance, but to enable me to set forth, without arousing at the outset antagonistic prejudice, that hypothesis which alone, as it seems to me, meets the conditions of the case.

According to the hypothesis that is known as _the monistic hypothesis_, the so-called connection between the molecular changes in the brain and the concomitant states of consciousness is assumed to be identity. Professor Huxley suggested the term "neuroses" for the molecular changes in the brain, and "psychoses" for the concomitant states of consciousness. According to materialism, psychosis is a product of neurosis; but according to monism, neither is psychosis a product of neurosis, nor is neurosis a product of psychosis, but _neurosis is psychosis_. They are identical. What an external observer might perceive as a neurosis of my brain, I should at the same moment be feeling as a psychosis. The neurosis is the outer or objective aspect; the psychosis is the inner or subjective aspect.

It is almost impossible to illustrate this assumption by any physical analogies. Perhaps the best is that of a curved surface. The convex side is quite different from the concave side. But we cannot say that the concavity is produced by the convexity, or that the convexity is caused by the concavity. The convex and the concave are simply different aspects of the same curved surface. So, too, are molecular brain-changes (neuroses) and the concomitant states of consciousness (psychoses) simply different aspects of the same waves on the troubled sea of being. Again, we may liken the brain-changes to spoken or written words, and the states of consciousness to the meaning which underlies them. The spoken word is, from the physical point of view, a mere shudder of sound in the air; but it is also, from the conceptual point of view, a fragment of analytic thought.

Now, we believe that the particular kind of molecular motion which we call neurosis, or brain-action, has been evolved. Evolved from what? From other and simpler modes of molecular motion. Complex neuroses have been evolved from less complex neuroses; these from simple neuroses; these, again, from organic modes of motion which can no longer be called neuroses at all; and these, once more, from modes of motion which can no longer be called organic. And from what have psychoses, or states of consciousness, been evolved? Complex psychoses have been evolved from less complex psychoses; these from simple psychoses; these, again, from--what? We are stopped for want of words to express our meaning. We believe that psychoses have been evolved. Evolved from what? From other and simpler modes of--something which answers on the subjective side to motion. We can hardly say "of consciousness;" for consciousness answers to a _particular_ mode of motion called neurosis. So that unless we are prepared to say that all modes of motion are neuroses, we can hardly say that all modes of that which answers on the subjective side to motion are conscious. I shall venture, therefore, to coin a word[JZ] to meet my present need.

It is generally admitted that physical phenomena, including those which we call physiological, can be explained (or are explicable) in terms of energy. It is also generally admitted that consciousness is something distinct from, nay, belonging to a wholly different phenomenal order from, energy. And it is further generally admitted that consciousness is nevertheless in some way closely, if not indissolubly, associated with special manifestations of energy in the nerve-centres of the brain. Now, we call manifestations of energy "kinetic" manifestations, and we use the term "kinesis" for physical manifestations of this order. Similarly, we may call concomitant manifestations of the mental or conscious order "metakinetic," and may use the term "metakinesis" for all manifestations belonging to this phenomenal order. According to the monistic hypothesis, _every mode of kinesis has its concomitant mode of metakinesis, and when the kinetic manifestations assume the form of the molecular processes in the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations assume the form of human consciousness_. I am, therefore, not prepared to accept the horn of Mr. Wallace's dilemma in the form in which he states it. All matter is not conscious, because consciousness is the metakinetic concomitant of a highly specialized order of kinesis. But every kinesis has an associated metakinesis; and _parallel to the evolution of organic and neural kinesis there has been an evolution of metakinetic manifestations culminating in conscious thought_.

Paraphrasing the words of Professor Max Müller,[KA] I say, "Like Descartes, like Spinoza, like Leibnitz, like Noiré, I require two orders of phenomena only, but I define them differently, namely, as kinesis and metakinesis. According to these two attributes of the noumenal, philosophy has to do with two streams of evolution--the subjective and the objective. Neither of them can be said to be prior.... The two streams of evolution run parallel, or, more correctly, the two are one stream, looked at from two opposite shores." And again,[KB] "Like Noiré, I would go hand-in-hand with Spinoza, and carry away with me this permanent truth, that metakinesis can never be the product of kinesis (materialism), nor kinesis the product of metakinesis (spiritualism), but that the two are inseparable, like two sides of one and the same substance."

According to this view, the two distinct phenomenal orders, the kinetic and the metakinetic, are distinct only as being different phenomenal manifestations of the same noumenal series. Matter, the unknown substance[KC] of kinetic manifestations, disappears as unnecessary; spirit, the unknown substance of metakinetic manifestations, also disappears; both are merged in the unknown substance of being--unknown, that is to say, in itself and apart from its objective and subjective manifestations.

It will, no doubt, be objected that the final identity of neuroses and psychoses is an assumption. It is pure assumption, it will be said, that these molecular nervous processes, and those percepts and emotions which are their concomitants, are simply different aspects, outer and inner, objective and subjective, physiological and psychological, of the same noumenal series. This must fully and freely be admitted. Any and every explanation of the connection of mind and body is based on an assumption. The common-place view of two distinct entities, a mind which can act on the body and a body which influences the mind, is a pure assumption. The philosophic view, that there are two entities, body and mind, that neither can act on the other, but that there is a pre-established harmony between the activities of the one and the activities of the other, is, again, a pure assumption. The materialistic view, that matter becomes at last self-conscious, is a pure assumption. The idealistic view, that the world of phenomena has no existence save as a fiction of my own mind, is, once more, a pure assumption. It is not a question of making or of not making an initial assumption; _that we must do in any case_. The question is--Which assumption yields the most consistent and harmonious results?

Again, an answer will, no doubt, be demanded by some people to the question--_How_ does that which, objectively considered, is neurosis become subjectively felt as psychosis? Is not the identification of neurosis and psychosis a begging of the question, unless the _how_, the _modus operandi_, is explained? If, in the latter query, by "begging the question" the adoption of an initial assumption is meant, I have already answered it in the affirmative. To the direct question--How does the objective neurosis become conscious as a subjective psychosis?--while freely admitting that I do not know, I enter the protest that it is philosophically an illegitimate question; for an answer is impossible without transcending consciousness. An illustration will, perhaps, make my meaning clear. Suppose that a sentient being be enclosed within a sphere of opaque but translucent ground glass, into the substance of which there are wrought certain characters. Suppose that external to this there is another similar but larger sphere, similarly inscribed, and that a second sentient being is enclosed in the space between the two spheres. By an attentive study of the two spheres, this second sentient being arrives at the conclusion that the markings on the convex surface of the inner sphere answer to the markings on the concave surface of the outer sphere; and he is led to the conviction that what _he_ sees as markings on the convex, the being within the sphere sees as markings on the concave. He is, however, perplexed by the question--How can this be? He is acquainted with a certain inner surface and a certain outer surface. He is led to correlate the markings of the one with the markings of the other. But the question how the two can have such different aspects is beyond his solution. Puzzle as he may, he can never solve it. It can only be solved (and how simple then the solution!) by a being _outside both spheres_, who can see what the enclosed being, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined," could never see, namely, that the characters were wrought in the translucent glass of the spheres. By which parable, imperfect as it is, I would teach that we can never learn how kinetic manifestations have a metakinetic aspect without getting outside ourselves to view kinesis and metakinesis from an independent standpoint. Or, in the words of Sir W. R. Hamilton,[KD] "How consciousness in general is possible; and how, in particular, the consciousness of self and the consciousness of something different from self are possible ... these questions are equally unphilosophical, as they suppose the possibility of a faculty exterior to consciousness and conversant about its operations."

The only course open to us, then, in this difficult but important problem is to make certain assumptions, and see how far a consistent hypothesis may be based upon them. I make, therefore, the following assumptions: First, that there is a noumenal system of "things in themselves" of which all phenomena, whether kinetic or metakinetic, are manifestations. Secondly, that whenever in the curve of noumenal sequences kinetic manifestations (convexities) appear, there appear also concomitant metakinetic manifestations (concavities). Thirdly, that when kinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of the nerve-processes in certain ganglia of the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of human consciousness. Fourthly, that what is called "mental evolution" is the metakinetic aspect of what is called brain or interneural evolution.

It would require far more space than I can here command to deal adequately with these assumptions, and meet the objections which have been and are likely to be raised against them. I must content myself with drawing attention to one or two which seem at once obvious and yet easily met.

It may be asked--What advantage has such a view over realistic materialism? Why not assume that neural processes, when they reach a certain complexity, give rise to or produce consciousness?

First of all, I think, the objection raised by Mr. Wallace, in the passage before quoted, to materialism is unanswerable. Secondly, realistic materialism ignores the fact that kinetic manifestations for us human-folk are phenomena of consciousness. To this we will return presently. Thirdly, realistic materialism, and any view which regards the physical series as one which is independent of the psychical accompaniments, and which regards consciousness as in any sense a by-product of neural processes, are open to an objection which was forcibly stated by the late Professor Herbert.[KE] "It is clearly impossible," he says, "for those ... who teach that consciousness is [a by-product and] never the cause of physical change, to dispute that the actions, words and gestures of every individual of the human race would have been exactly what they have been in the absence of mind; had mind been wanting [had the by-product never emerged], the same empires would have risen and fallen, the same battles would have been fought and won, the same literature, the same masterpieces of painting and music would have been produced, the same religious rites would have been performed, and the same indications of friendship and affection given. To this absurdity physical science [realistic materialism] stands committed." I believe that Professor Herbert's argument, of which this passage is a summary, is, as against realistic materialism, sound and unanswerable. Finally, as Professor Max Müller has well observed,[KF] "Materialism may in one sense be said to be a grammatical blunder; it is a misapplication of a word which can be used in an oblique sense only, but which materialists use in the nominative. In another sense it is a logical blunder, because it rests on a confusion between the objective and the subjective. Matter can never be a subject, it can never know, because the name was framed to signify what is the object of our knowledge or what can be known." Materialism, then, for more than one sufficient reason, stands condemned.

It should be stated, however, that Professor Herbert seems to regard the monistic view I am advocating as committed to the absurdity indicated in the passage I have quoted. I am convinced that he was here in error. Indeed, he seems to have failed to see the full bearing of the monistic hypothesis; for while he combats it, he comes very near adopting it himself. With this, however, I have no concern. I have only to show that, on the assumptions above set down, we are not committed to the "absurdity" of supposing that intelligence and consciousness have had no influence on the course of events in organic evolution--that they have only felt the inevitable sequence of physical phenomena without in any way influencing it. According to the monistic hypothesis, kinesis and metakinesis are co-ordinate. The physiologist may explain all the activities of men and animals in terms of kinesis. The psychologist may explain all the thoughts and emotions of man in terms of metakinesis. They are studying the different phenomenal aspects of the same noumenal sequences. It is just as absurd to say that kinetic manifestations would have been the same in the absence of metakinesis, as to say that the metakinetic manifestations, the thoughts and emotions, would have been the same in the absence of kinesis. It is just as absurd to say that the physical series would have been the same in the absence of mind, as to say that the mental series would have been the same in the absence of bodily organization. For on this view consciousness is no mere by-product of neural processes, but is simply one aspect of them. You cannot abstract (except in thought and by analysis) metakinesis from kinesis; for when you have taken away the one, you have taken the other also. To speak of the organic activities being conceivably the same in the absence of consciousness, is like saying that the outer curve of a soap-bubble would be the same in the absence of the inner curve. Whatever hypothetical existences this statement may be true of, it assuredly is not true of soap-bubbles.

To pass on from this point to another, it is possible--I trust not probable, but still not impossible--that some one may say, "But how, on this view, can perception be accounted for? Granted that in the neural processes of the individual organism kinesis is accompanied by those metakinetic manifestations which we term 'consciousness,' how will this account for our perception of a distant object? Yonder scarlet geranium is a centre of kinetic manifestations; it is fifty yards and more away. How can I here, by any metakinetic process, perceive the kinesis that is going on out there?"

For one who can ask this question, I have written the chapter on "Mental Processes in Man," and have used the term "construct," in vain. In vain have I endeavoured to explain that the seat of all mental processes is somewhere within the brain; in vain have I indicated the nature of localization and outward projection; in vain have I reiterated that the object is a thing we construct through a (metakinetic) activity of the mind; in vain have I insisted that our knowledge is merely _symbolic_ of the noumenal existence; and perhaps in vain shall I again endeavour to make my meaning clear.

When we say that we perceive an object, the mental process (perception) is the metakinetic equivalent of certain kinetic changes among the brain-molecules. The object, _as an object_ (as a phenomenon or appearance), is there generated. As before stated, I assume the existence of a noumenal system of which the noumenal existence, symbolized as object, is a part. But what we term the object is a certain phase of metakinesis accompanying certain kinetic nerve-processes in the brain. In other words, phenomena are states of consciousness, and cannot, for the percipient, be anything else.

"It comes to this, then," an idealist will interpose: "states of consciousness are metakinetic; phenomena are states of consciousness; therefore phenomena are metakinetic. Your kinesis vanishes, and you are one with us, a pure idealist."

Before showing _wherein_ I am not a pure idealist, let me state _why_ I am not. For the pure idealist, phenomena being states of consciousness, _and nothing more_, the world around resolves itself into an individual dream. Were I to hold this view, this pen which I hold, this table at which I write, the spreading trees outside my window, my little sons whose merry voices I can hear in the garden, my very body and limbs, all are merely states of my own consciousness. This I am not prepared to accept. Do what I will, I cannot believe that such an interpretation of the facts is true.

For this reason I make my first assumption that there is a noumenal system of things in themselves, of which all phenomena, whether kinetic or metakinetic, are manifestations. I differ from the pure idealist in that I believe that phenomena, besides being states of consciousness, _have another, namely, a kinetic, aspect_. What are for me states of consciousness are for you neural processes in my brain. These are, again, for you states of consciousness; but still for some one else they are kinetic processes. And an ordinary extraneous object, like this table, is the phenomenal aspect to me of a noumenal existence; and since that noumenal existence appears to you also in like phenomenal guise, the table is an object for you as well as for me, and not only for us, but for all sentient beings similarly constituted. The world we live in is a world of phenomena; and it has a phenomenal reality every whit as valid as the noumenal reality which underlies it. And that phenomenal reality has two aspects--an inner aspect as metakinesis, and an outer aspect as kinesis.

I must not here further develop the manner in which the hypothesis of monism presents itself to my mind. I will only, before passing on to consider mental or metakinetic evolution, draw passing attention to two matters. We have seen that Professor Hering and Mr. Samuel Butler have suggested "organic memory" as a conception useful for the comprehension of embryonic reconstruction in development and other such matters (see p. 62). On the hypothesis of monism, this may be regarded as a kinetic manifestation of that which in memory rises to the metakinetic level of consciousness.

The other matter is of far wider import. Monism affords a consistent and comprehensible theory of the ego, or conscious self--that which endures amid the flux and reflux of our conscious states. The ego, or self, is that metakinetic unity which answers to, or is the inner aspect of, the kinetic unity of the organism.[KG] Only here and there, in fleeting and changing series, does the metakinesis rise to the level of consciousness. But the metakinetic unity is as completely one, indivisible, and enduring, as is the physical organism which is its kinetic counterpart. No one questions that there is an enduring organism of which certain visible activities are occasional manifestations; no one who has adequately grasped the teachings of monism can question that the enduring ego, of which certain states of consciousness are occasional manifestations, is the metakinetic equivalent of the organic kinesis. This solution of a problem which baffles alike materialists and idealists is, as it seems to me, as satisfactory as it is simple.

And now let us pass on to consider the question of mental or metakinetic evolution. What, on the principles above laid down, can we be said to know or have learnt about it?

The inevitable isolation of the individual mind has long been recognized. "Such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts," says Bishop Berkeley, "that it cannot be itself perceived, but only by the effects that it produceth." "Thinking things, as such," writes Kant, "can never occur in the outward phenomena; we can have no outward perception of their thoughts, consciousness, desires; for all this is the domain of the inward sense." How comes it, then, that there is nothing of which, practically speaking, we are more firmly convinced than that our neighbours have each a consciousness more or less similar to our own? Certain it is that no one can come into sensible contact with his brother's personality and essential spirit. My brother's soul can never stand to me in the relation of object. Subject he never can be to any but himself. What, then, is he--his metakinetic self, not his kinetic material body--to me? In Clifford's convenient phrase, he is an eject. And what is an eject? An eject is a more or less modified image of myself, that I see mirrored, as in a glass darkly, in the human-folk around me. Into every human brother I breathe the spirit of this eject, and he becomes henceforth to me a living soul. Or, if this mode of presentation does not meet with approval, I will say that an eject is that metakinetic unity I infer as identically associated with the organic and kinetic unity of my brother's living body. And I base the close metakinetic correspondence that I infer on the close kinetic correspondence that I observe. But since the only form or kind of metakinesis that I know is that of human self-conscious personality, it is certain that the metakinetic eject is an image of myself; it is and must be, in a word, anthropomorphic.

Too much stress can scarcely, I think, be laid on the human, nay, even the individual, nature of the eject. All other-mind I am bound to think of in terms of my own mind. The men and women I see around me are like curved mirrors, in which I see an altered reflection of my own mental features. By certain signs I may be able to infer in this or that human mirror graces or imperfections that I lack. But throughout my survey of human nature, every estimate of intellectual or moral elevation or degradation that I form must ever be measured in terms of my own subjective base-line. My conception of humanity must always be, not only anthropomorphic, but idiomorphic.

Once more, let it be remembered that the metakinesis that rises to the level of consciousness is that which forms the inner aspect of the neural kinesis of my brain or yours. For each of us, then, that metakinesis is the only possible metakinesis which we can know as such and at first-hand. And for the pure idealist it is the only metakinesis which he can know at all. Not so with us. We have assumed a noumenal system of "things in themselves," of which all phenomena, whether kinetic or metakinetic, are manifestations. We have assumed that kinesis cannot emerge into the light of being without casting its inseparable metakinetic shadow. We have assumed that when the kinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of nerve-processes in certain ganglia of the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of human consciousness. Human physiology is teaching us more clearly every day that all human activities are, physically speaking, the outcome of neural processes. Such neural processes are in us conscious. Therefore, granting our assumptions, the conclusion that my neighbour is a conscious self, just as I am, is not only legitimate, but (as we see from the daily conduct of men) inevitable. In other words, certain kinetic phenomena have for us inevitable metakinetic implications.

Now, when we pass from man to the lower animals, the metakinetic implications become progressively less inevitable and less forcible as the kinesis becomes more dissimilar from that which obtains in the human organism. The only metakinesis that we know directly is our own human consciousness. In terms of this we have to interpret all other forms of metakinesis.

It is unnecessary to go over again the ground that has already been covered in previous chapters, in which we have endeavoured to give some account of what seem to us the legitimate inferences concerning the mental processes in animals. The point on which I wish here to insist is that, outside ourselves, we can only know metakinesis in and through its correlative kinesis. Underlying kinetic evolution, we see that, on the hypothesis of monism, there must have been metakinetic evolution. But of this mental or metakinetic evolution we neither have nor can have independent evidence. Such evolution is the inevitable monistic corollary from kinetic evolution. More than this it is not and cannot be. And only on the monistic hypothesis, as it seems to me, is it admissible to believe in mental evolution,[KH] properly so called.

But does not, it may be asked, the hypothesis of monism, if carried to its logical conclusion, involve the belief in a world-consciousness on the one hand, and a crystal-consciousness on the other? If, according to the hypothesis, every form of kinesis has also its metakinetic aspect, "must we not maintain," in the words of Mr. J. A. Symonds, "that the universe being in one rhythm, things less highly organized than man possess consciousness in the degree of their descent, less acute than man's? Must we not also surmise that ascending scales of existence, more highly organized, of whom we are at present ignorant, are endowed with consciousness superior to man's? Is it incredible that the globe on which we live is vastly more conscious of itself than we are of ourselves; and that the cells which compose our corporeal frame are gifted with a separate consciousness of a simpler kind than ours?" To such questions W. K. Clifford replied with an emphatic negative. "Unless we can show," he said, as interpreted by Mr. Romanes,[KI] "in the disposition of the heavenly bodies some morphological resemblance to the structure of a human brain, we are precluded from rationally entertaining any probability that self-conscious volition belongs to the universe."

I conceive that both parties, opposed as they seem, are logically right; and I venture to think that the terms I have suggested will help us here. Mr. Symonds used the word "consciousness" to signify metakinesis in general; Clifford used it to signify that particular kind of metakinesis which in the human brain rises to the level of consciousness. Not only is it not inconceivable, but it is a logical necessity on the hypothesis of monism, that answering to the kinetic rhythm of the universe there is a metakinetic rhythm; but unless the gyrations of the spheres have some kinetic resemblance to the dance of molecules in the human brain, the metakinesis cannot be inferred to be similar to the consciousness of man.

Similarly, with regard to the supposed self-consciousness of the so-called social organism. Mr. Romanes, in his article on "The World as an Eject,"[KJ] leads up to his conception of a world-eject through the conception of a society-eject--an eject, he tells us, that, for aught that any one of its constituent personalities can prove to the contrary, may possess self-conscious personality of the most vivid character. Its constituent human minds may be born into it, and die out of it, as do the constituent cells of the human body; it may feel the throes of war and famine, rejoice in the comforts of peace and plenty; it may appreciate the growth of civilization in its passage from childhood to maturity.

This, of course, may be so; or it may not. Who can tell? But Clifford was on firm monistic ground when he maintained that, unless the kinesis be similar, we have no grounds for inferring similarity of metakinesis.

The study of kinesis leads us to recognize different kinds or modes of its manifestation. There is one mode of kinesis in the circling of the planets around the sun, another mode of kinesis in the orderly evolutions of a great army, another mode in the throb of a great printing-press; there is one mode of kinesis in the quivering molecules of the intensely heated sun, another in the wire that flashes our thought to America, and yet another in the molecular vibrations of the human brain. All are of the same order, all are kinetic. But they differ so widely in mode that each requires separate, patient, and long-continued study. So is it, we may conclude, with metakinesis. There may be, nay, there must be, many modes. But our knowledge is confined to one mode--that in which the metakinesis assumes the form of human consciousness.

I have been led to discuss this matter in order further to indicate the inevitable limits of our knowledge of metakinetic evolution. Our conclusions may be thus summarized: First, we can know directly only one product of metakinetic evolution--that revealed in our own consciousness. Secondly, the process of metakinetic evolution must be reached, if reached at all, indirectly through a study of kinetic evolution. Thirdly, we have no right to infer a mode of metakinesis analogous to human consciousness, unless the mode of kinesis is analogous to that which is observed in neural processes. And, fourthly, the closer the kinetic resemblance we observe, the closer the metakinetic resemblance we may infer.

* * * * *

The last point we have to notice, and it is by no means an unimportant one, is that, just as the kinetic evolution of the organism must be studied in reference to its kinetic environment, so, too, must the metakinetic evolution of mind be studied in reference to its metakinetic or mental environment.

Of course, in ordinary speech, and even in careful scientific description, we are forced, if we would avoid pedantry, to skip backwards and forwards from the kinetic to the metakinetic. We speak of a kinetic cow giving rise to metakinetic fear, and this determining certain kinetic activities. Why we thus interpose a mental link in a physical series has already been explained. The physical cow we know, the physical activities we know, the physical neuroses we scarcely know at all. On the other hand, fear we have ourselves experienced, and know well. Hence we introduce the mental link that we know in place of the physical link of which we are ignorant. And there can be no harm in our doing so when we are working on the practical, and not the philosophical plane. But when we are striving to go deeper, and are employing that gift of analysis which is man's prerogative, in order to proceed to a higher and more complete synthesis,--then we must be careful to keep separate those processes which analysis discloses to be distinct. And I repeat that, on the philosophical plane of thought, we must remember that _metakineses are determined by other metakineses, and by them alone_.

The reader who has kept his head among these slippery places will at once see that this is and must be so; for, as we have already seen (p. 474), all phenomena are states of consciousness, whatever else they may also be. The cow, as a phenomenon, is a _construct_, a product of mental activity, and woven out of states of consciousness. For the pure idealist she is this and nothing more. But for us she is a real external entity, manifested through phenomenal kineses. Hence in ordinary speech we separate the kinetic cow from its metakinetic symbols in consciousness (the convex from the concave aspect), and call the former the cow itself, and the latter our idea of the cow. But, as before maintained, my idea of an object is for me the object. And this is now justified by our deeper analysis.

The physiologist, dealing with organic phenomena in terms of motion (kinesis), proclaims that the physical series is complete, that there is no necessity for the introduction of feeling which is at best but a by-product. The idealist, dealing with the processes of thought and emotion in terms of consciousness, proclaims that his series is complete--an external material universe is an unnecessary encumbrance. Each proclaims a half-truth; each sees that half of the truth which alone is visible from his special standpoint. Monism combines the two (and is, of course, scouted by both). It sees not only that the one series does not in any case interfere with the other, but that the conception of such an interference involves an impossibility and incongruity. As soon could one speak of the convexities of one side of a curved surface interfering with the corresponding concavities of the other side, as of the metakinetic series interfering with the kinetic series, which is its other aspect. But if the one cannot interfere with the other, neither can the one exist without the other. To apply the same analogy, as well might one speak of the convexities of a curved surface existing without the concavities of its other side, as of the kinetic phenomena of organic life as being conceivably the same in the absence of conscious intelligence.

Remembering, then, that just as the environment of kinetic phenomena is itself kinetic, with which consciousness can in no wise interfere, so is the environment of metakinetic phenomena, perception, thought, and emotion, itself metakinetic. Let us now proceed to consider some of the implications.

We have already seen that, in what we may regard as the earlier phases of organic and mental life, the series between stimulus and activity is a simple one, which may be kinetically represented thus--

Stimulus-->neural processes-->motor-activities;

but that when inhibition is developed, there arises an alternative, thus--

/ motor-activities.
Stimulus-->neural processes
\ inhibition thereof.

And we further saw that, as a result of this inhibition, the entering stimuli, instead of, as it were, rapidly running out of the organism in motor-activities, set up a more and more complex series of diffused and reverberating neural processes in the brain or other central ganglia.

From the metakinetic view-point these diffused and reverberating neural processes in the brain culminate in consciousness as thought, æsthetic emotion, and the higher conceptual mental activities. Deeply as these influence conduct, they are, to a large extent, independent of conduct. A man's thoughts and æsthetic yearnings may be of the truest and purest; but in the moment of temptation and action, when stimuli crowding in run through rapidly to action, he falls away. His conduct belies his ideals. Nevertheless, the ideals were there, but too far away in the region of thought and abstract æsthetics to be operative in action.

Now, we may divide the metakinetic concomitants of neural processes into two categories: first, those which are intimately associated with neural processes directly leading to motor-activities; secondly, those which are, so to speak, floated off from these into the region of thought and æsthetic emotion, and which are therefore associated with neural processes only indirectly or remotely leading to motor-activities. Both have, of course, kinetic equivalents in neural processes, but the former are directly associated with activities and conduct, and the latter are not.

Let me exemplify. Interpretations of nature, theories, hypotheses, belong to the latter class. Their association with activities is in the main indirect. Whether we believe in materialism, idealism, or monism, our conduct is much the same. People got out of the way of falling stones, and guarded against being caught by the incoming tide, before science comprised both phenomena under the theory of gravitation. The conduct of human-folk was not much altered by the replacement of the geocentric by a heliocentric explanation of the solar system. It matters not much how a man explains the lightning's flash so long as he avoids being struck. The bird continues to soar quite irrespective of man's prolonged discussion of how it can be explained on mechanical principles. And in general the practical activities of mankind remain much the same (I do not say quite the same, for there are remote and indirect results of the greatest importance in the long run) whatever their particular theory of the universe may be.

Now, let us note the implication. We have said a good deal in earlier chapters about natural elimination and selection. To which category of neural kineses do they apply--to those associated with practical results; or to those associated with theoretical results (supposing these to obtain below the level of man); or to both? Clearly to those associated with practical results. It matters not what theories a lion, or an adder, or a spider hold (supposing, again, that they are capable of theorizing, which I doubt). Its practical activities determine whether it survives or not. So, too, with men, _so far as they are subject to natural elimination_. It matters not what may be the nature of their thoughts, their æsthetic yearnings, their ideals. According to their practical conduct, they are eliminated or escape elimination. In other words, elimination or natural selection applies only remotely or indirectly to the human race regarded as theorists, æsthetes, or interpreters of nature.

Before proceeding to indicate to what laws our theories and interpretations of nature and moral ideals are subject, we may note that there are sundry activities of man, the outcome of his conceptual thought and emotion, which are also, under the conditions of social life, to a large extent beyond the pale of elimination. I refer to the æsthetic activities--music, painting, sculpture, and the like; in a word, the activities associated with art, literature, and pure science. These, in the main, take rank alongside the ideas of which they are the outward expression. Natural selection, which deals with practical, life-preserving, and life-continuing activities, has little to say to them. They are neutral variations which, so far as elimination is concerned, are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous, and, therefore, remain unmolested.

We may, therefore, fully agree with Mr. Wallace, when he says,[KK] "We conclude, then, that the present gigantic development of the mathematical faculty [as also of the musical and artistic faculties] is wholly unexplained by the theory of natural selection, and must be due to some altogether distinct cause." Nay, we may go further, and say that it is only by misunderstanding the range of natural selection as an eliminator that any one could suppose that these faculties could be explained by that theory.

We must admit, then, that there are certain neural kineses which, from the fact that they are unassociated with life-preserving and life-continuing activities, are not subject to the law of elimination; and in the development of which natural selection cannot have been an essential factor. These, in their metakinetic aspect, are conceptual thoughts, emotions, and ideas. Remembering the distinction drawn in the chapter on "Organic Evolution" between _origin_ and _guidance_, let us proceed to inquire, first, how these ideas have been guided to their present development; and, secondly, how we may suppose these special variations to have originated.

To understand their development, we must understand their environment. The environment of metakineses is, as we have already seen, constituted by other metakineses. What we have now to note is that the environment of conceptual ideas, as such, is constituted by other ideas. The immediate environment of an hypothesis is other hypotheses; of a moral ideal, other moral ideals; of an æsthetic thought, other æsthetic thoughts; of a religious conception, other religious conceptions. But not only are ideas environed by ideas of their own order; they are environed by ideas of other orders. Thus a scientific hypothesis or a moral ideal may be in harmony or conflict with religious conceptions, and its fate may be thereby determined; or a religious conception may be in harmony or conflict with psychological principles, and its acceptance or rejection thereby determined. So that we may say, in general, that _the environment of an idea is the system of ideas among which it is introduced_.

Of course, it must be clearly understood that it is with the individual mind that we are dealing. The scientific ideas, moral ideals, æsthetic standards, religious conceptions, of a tribe, nation, or other community, are simply representative, either of the general views of the majority of the individuals, or more frequently of a majority among a cultivated minority. In any case, we have seen that metakineses are and must be an individual matter. For each individual there is a separate ideal world.

Through certain activities, notably language spoken or written, men can symbolize to each other the ideas that are taking metakinetic shape in their own minds. All-important, however, as is this power of intercommunication by means of language, it does not a whit alter the fact that the idea and its environment have to work out their relations to each other separately in each individual mind. My neighbour may symbolize, through language, his ideas in such a form that similar ideas may be called up in my mind; but it is there that they have to make good their claim for acceptance in the environment of the system of ideas among which they are introduced.

Now, what is the guiding principle of the evolution and development of ideas in the world of their metakinetic environment? Is there any principle analogous to that of elimination which we have seen to be of such high importance in organic evolution? I believe that there is. _An idea is accepted or rejected according to its congruity or incongruity with the system of ideas among which it is introduced._ The process has, perhaps, closer analogy with elimination than with selection, inasmuch as it would seem to proceed by the rejection of the incongruous, leaving both the congruous and the neutral. An idea or hypothesis may be accepted, at any rate provisionally, so long as it is not in contradiction to the theories and beliefs already existing in the mind.

It may, however, be objected that this view is at variance with the familiar observation that there are many excellent people who hold and maintain theories which are exceedingly incongruous, which seem, indeed, to us mutually antagonistic. Yes, _to us_. Brought into the environment of _our_ system of ideas, one or other of these antagonistic views would be eliminated through incongruity. Not so, however, with those who hold both. Amid the environment of a less logical and less coherent system of ideas, both can find admission, if not as congruous, still as neutral. A sense of their incongruity is not aroused.

But there are some people, it may be said, who consciously hold views which they admit to be incongruous; who base all their scientific reasonings on a continuity of causation, but who, nevertheless, believe in miraculous interruptions of that continuity. In this case, however, the incongruity is made congruous in a higher synthesis. They belie themselves when they suppose that they are holding incongruous views. Stated at length, what they admit is that miraculous interventions are incongruous, not for them, but for those whose whole system of thought is cast in another mould than theirs--for the materialist and the infidel.

I cannot discuss the matter further here. This is not the place to show, or attempt to show, how the evolution of systems of thought has caused, or is causing, certain ideas, such as that of slavery, religious persecution, the moral and physical degradation of our poor, to reach that degree of incongruity which we signify as abhorrent; or how that evolution has caused yet more primitive ideas to seem positively repulsive. Nor is it the place to show, or attempt to show, how the advance of scientific knowledge has been constantly accompanied by the elimination of incongruous conceptions. I must content myself with the brief indication I have given of the principle of elimination through incongruity as applied to ideas.

It may be said that such a principle does not account for the origin of the new congruous ideas, but only for the getting rid of old incongruous ideas. Quite true. But I have grievously failed in my exposition of natural selection through elimination if I have not made it evident that this objection (if that can be called an objection which, in truth, is none) lies also at the door of Darwin's generalization.[KL]

Now, from all that has been said in this chapter, it will be seen that, on the hypothesis of monism, we cannot regard organic and mental evolution as continuous the one into the other, but rather as parallel the one with the other--as the kinetic and metakinetic manifestations of the same process. Organic evolution is a matter of structure and activity. If the structure or the activity be not attuned to the environing conditions, it will be eliminated, those sufficiently well attuned surviving. Turning to the metakinetic aspect, we have seen that there are certain mental processes which are directly and closely associated with activities. Their evolution will be intimately associated with organic evolution. For if these processes lead to ill-attuned activities, the organism will be eliminated; and thus the evolution of well-attuned activities and their corresponding mental states will proceed side by side. We may, therefore, say, not incorrectly, that these lower phases of mental evolution are subject to the law of natural selection.

But when the neural processes which intervene between stimulus and activity become more complex and more roundabout; when, instead of being directly and closely associated with life-preserving activities, they are associated indirectly and remotely;--then they become, step by step, removed from their subjection to natural selection. And when, in man, the metakineses associated with these neural kineses assume the form of hypotheses, theories, interpretations of nature, moral ideals, and religious conceptions, these are, except in so far as they lead to activities which may conduce to elimination, no longer subject to the law of natural selection, unless we use this term in a somewhat metaphorical, or at least extended, sense. They are subject, as we have seen, to a new process of elimination through incongruity.

Similarly with that wide range of conduct in man which is the outcome of his conceptual life, and is removed from those merely life-preserving activities which are still, to some extent, under the influence of natural elimination. Conduct is here modified in accordance with the conceptual system of which it is the outcome and outward expression. And this higher conduct is subject, not to elimination through natural selection, but to elimination through incongruity. Slavery would never have been abolished through natural selection; by this means the modest behaviour of a chaste woman could not have been developed. To natural selection neither the Factory Acts nor the artistic products in this year's Academy were due; by this process were determined neither the conduct of John Howard nor that of Florence Nightingale. Some evolutionists have done no little injury to the cause they have at heart by vainly attempting to defend the untenable position that natural selection has been a prime factor in the higher phases of human conduct. I believe that natural selection has had little or nothing to do with them as such. They are the outcome of conceptual ideas, and are subject to the same process of elimination through incongruity.

So soon as, in the course of mental evolution, the idea of slavery became incongruous, and in certain minds abhorrent and repulsive, steps were taken to check the conduct which was the outward expression of this idea. So, too, in other cases. The reformer must not, however, be too far in advance of his generation, if his reform is to be practically carried out. When his ideas are so "advanced" as to be incongruous with those of all but a very small minority of his contemporaries, even they are forced to confess that the nation is not yet ripe for the changes they contemplate.

No one will question that artistic products are the outcome of artistic ideas. In the slow and difficult progress of a new school of painting or of music, we see exemplified the rejection of the new ideas through their incongruity with the old-fashioned artistic systems. Only gradually do there grow up new generations for whom these new ideas are not incongruous. For them the old-fashioned systems become incongruous; and if the school becomes dominant, artistic products embodying the old ideas are eliminated through incongruity.

We are not all alike. Our mental systems are different. One artist will introduce into his canvas effects which, to the eye of another, will at once strike a jarring note of incongruity. To some minds the institution of slavery presents no incongruity. There are not wanting men for whom the degrading moral and physical conditions under which many of our poor are forced to live and work present little or no incongruity. To the Russian, English fidelity to the marriage vow is said to be as incongruous as, to an English woman, is the harem of an Eastern potentate.

In the higher phases of human conduct, then, the activities are subject to the law of the ideas of which they are the outcome--the law of elimination through incongruity.

I have said that natural selection has little or nothing to do with these higher phases of conduct. But has not human selection through preferential mating? I believe that it has; and I trust that it will have a still greater influence in the future. It is one of the noblest privileges of woman, for with her mainly lies the choice, that she may aid in raising humanity to a higher level. If once the idea of marrying for anything but pure affection could become utterly incongruous to woman's mental nature; and if once the idea of perpetuating any form of moral, intellectual, or physical deformity could become equally incongruous; the bettering of humanity, through the exclusion of the deformed in body and mind from any share in its continuance must inevitably follow. Here, again, ideas would determine conduct.