274 The Origin of a ^ Thing" and its Nature 



'what' entirely by its theory of the 'how.' To these 

 claims what shall we say ? 



From our preceding remarks it seems evident that the 

 nature of mind is its behaviour generalized ; and, further, 

 that this generalization necessarily implicates more or less 

 of the history of mind ; that is, more or less of the career 

 which discloses the ' how ' of mind. What further can be 

 said of it as a particular instance of reality ? 



A most striking fact comes up immediately when we 

 begin to consider mental and with it biological reality. The 

 fact of growth, or to put the fact on its widest footing, the 

 fact of organization. The changes in the external world 

 which constitute the career of a thing, and so show forth its 

 claim to be considered a thing, fall under some very wide 

 generalizations, such as those of chemistry, mechanics, etc. ; 

 and when the examination of the thing's behaviour has 

 secured its description under these principles in a rather 

 exhaustive way, we say the thing is understood. But the 

 things of life, and the series of changes called organic 

 which unroll its career, are not yet so broadly statable. 

 When we come to the mind, again, we find certain very well 

 made out generalizations of its behaviour. But here, as in 

 the case of life, the men who know most have not a shadow 

 of the complacency with which the physicist and the 

 chemist categorize their material. It is for this reason, I 

 think, in part, that the difference between the two cases 

 gets its emphasis, and the antithesis between origin and 

 nature seems so necessary in one case while it is never 

 raised in the other. For who ever heard an adept in 

 natural science say that the resolution of a chemical 

 compound into its elements, thus demonstrating the ele- 

 ments and law of the origin of the 'thing' analyzed, did 



