298 The Unity of the Organism 



so far as it shows that among the activities essential to the 

 human organism thinking is one. In other words the "there- 

 fore" in "I think, therefore I am," is true only because "I 

 am, therefore I think," the reverse proposition, is also true 

 and includes the other truth. The lesser truth is true be- 

 cause it is an essential part of the larger truth, much in 

 the same way that the cells of a multicellular organism are 

 alive because they are essential parts of the organism. 



We need not inquire how, from this serious shortcoming of 

 Descartes' description of psychic life Descartes went on to 

 the conclusion that "there is nothing really existing apart 

 from our thought" and that "neither extension, nor figure, 

 nor local motion, nor anything similar that can be attrib- 

 uted to body, pertains to our nature, and nothing save 

 thought alone ; and, consequently, that the notion we have of 

 our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing, and is more 

 certain, seeing we still doubt whether there is any body in 

 existence, while we readily perceive that we think." 18 Nor 

 need we concern ourselves with the voluminous and tedious 

 reasonings by which a considerable number of moderns, fol- 

 lowing Descartes's lead, have convinced themselves that they 

 have "reduced" all reality or at least all reality that really 

 amounts to anything, to quantity. Enough now to remark 

 that every modern biologist who really accepts the basal data 

 of his science, must agree that "Psycho-physical paralellism 

 . . . stands to-day as the scandalous but irrefutable conse- 

 quence of postulating a material world without qualities and 

 a world of minds that lack spatiality and exists nowhere." 

 One way of characterizing my hypothesis would be to say 

 that it is an effort to remove this scandal by showing where- 

 in the postulation noted by Dr. Montague is not true. 



The genetic relationships of my hypothesis can be still 

 farther indicated by coming on down from Descartes to 

 Hume then from Hume to Huxley and finally to G. F. Stout 

 and John Dewey as philosophers of to-day. Hume's nom- 



