Psychic Integration 



hours in an open alcove which was at the bottom of the 

 garden. ... It was in this place, then, exposed to freezing 

 cold that without being sheltered from the wind, I composed, 

 in the space of three weeks, my letter to D'Alembert on 

 theatres." 



If this sort of thing, one may note in passing, is a case 

 of "struggle for existence," the existence struggled for is 

 on the highest plane of psychic life and not on the plane 

 of mere brute continuance. 



The only other example will be one of activity in science 

 proper, i.e., "pure intellect" as far as there is such a thing. 



The case of some man devoting the best of his life to the 

 working out of a great germal idea an Aristotle, a Coper- 

 nicus, a Galileo, a Kant, a Darwin will serve our purpose 

 best. Of these we choose the case of Darwin. Consider first 

 the youth and the young man keenly alive to the flood of 

 sense impressions pouring in upon him from external nature, 

 and mentally "internally" "restless," as Royce would 

 say, from an undefined though strong dissatisfaction with 

 the stereotyped school and university curricula and modes 

 of dealing with subjects. Later comes the set of environ- 

 mental influences (chiefly through the naturalist Henley), 

 quite incidental to his regular, prescribed environment, to 

 which he responds with eagerness and effectiveness an al- 

 most automatic choosing of fields of intellectual activity. 

 Out of all these fragmentary and by-the-way experiences- 

 "contents of consciousness" there is organized a body of 

 natural knowledge, and such definiteness and promise of ten- 

 dency as to justify an appointment to a post of consider- 

 able responsibility and unique opportunity, that of natural- 

 ist to H. H. Exploring Ship Beagle. 



During the voyage and from the new and strange con- 

 tacts with nature afforded by it, there arises another state 

 of "restlessness," this time concerning the origin of organic 

 species, the "mystery of mysteries," as Darwin himself put 



