Caklile. — On the Ultimate Problem of Philosophy . 11 



is spoken of can hardly be otherwise regarded than as an 

 approximation towards something in the nature of an ideal 

 existing in some mind that did not itself cease to exist with 

 the passing- away of any single generation. How otherwise 

 can we represent to om'selves the gradual evolution of the 

 ocelli on the peacock's tail, or the still more wonderful ocelli 

 which with such incredible accuracy reproduce the eifect of 

 light shining on a convex surface on the wing-feathers of the 

 argus-pheasant ? In the difference between the upper and 

 lower ocellus in his illustration (" Descent of Man," p. 149, 

 vol. ii.) we seem to see the very last finishing-touch being 

 given to the picture. We need hardly, however, resort to 

 isolated and remarkable instances like this to discover the 

 operations of a general mind underlying the operations of 

 individual minds in the lower world. It seems to gleam 

 through every instance of the exercise of an untaught instinct. 

 The mere fact of the discrimination by birds of the pitch of 

 musical notes and the varieties of colour, though so obvious 

 and familiar, if lightly considered, brings us vividly in view of 

 the supernatural in nature. We know that the relations be- 

 tween notes and between colours both rest on exact numerical 

 relations between vibrations and undulations, and that when 

 we discriminate notes and colours we may be said, in a fashion, 

 to perceive these numerical relations ; we know that the dis- 

 covery of them is, at any rate, implicit in our immediate 

 perception, and waits only for reasoning thought to make it 

 explicit. If the birds have, in this respect, the same percep- 

 tions that we have, can we interpret the fact otherwise than 

 by the hypothesis that we and they alike share in the opera- 

 tions of a vaster mind ? 



We are accustomed to view all the organized and systema- 

 tized products of human intelligence under the category of 

 " things made," often with much inaccuracy. If a man builds 

 a house or constructs a machine he has a plan, either on paper 

 or in his mind, which he follows out in detail. The mental 

 process as the result of which a poem is written is widely 

 different. Burns tells us that he composed his songs often by 

 humming an air to himself and waiting till the words came. 

 If one could have viewed the process from the outside, with- 

 out knowing anything of the mind behind it, it might have 

 seemed to him as if there were a struggle for existence between 

 the words, and the survival of those best fitted to meet the 

 exigencies of the rhythm and at the same time to call up 

 ideas that were interesting and inspiriting. The Herbartian 

 psychology has familiarised us with the conception of a contest 

 between ideas for a place in consciousness, and the survival of 

 such only as fall in with the needs of a dominant apperceptive 

 system. Survival of its constituent factors under the influence 



