282 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



individual self in harmonious relation with the whole 

 of reality that he knows. Therefore he should or- 

 ganize that reality as a whole, and in such a way 

 that it can all be brought to bear through any single 

 point. The relation between the self and the idea 

 of outer reality is, for any one problem, that of two 

 pyramids touching by their points only; but the 

 points of contact can shift as by miracle over their 

 surfaces as the problem is changed. 



But another power of personalities is their power 

 of interpenetration. The purely material cannot do 

 this. One portion of matter cannot occupy the same 

 space as a second portion. It is another of the great 

 differences between the psychozoic and all previous 

 stages of evolution, between man and all else that 

 we know in the universe, that the discrete units 

 reached at this level of organization, the individual 

 human beings, can achieve interpenetration by means 

 of their minds. When you expound a new idea to 

 me, and I grasp it, our minds have obviously inter- 

 penetrated. This is a simple case; but there may 

 be an intimate union of mind with mind which is the 

 basis of the highest spiritual achievement and the 

 greatest happiness. If mind and matter are two 

 properties of the same world-substance, then the rise 

 of mind to dominance has enabled this basic sub- 

 stance to escape from some of the imprisoning limita- 

 tions which confined it at lower levels of its develop- 

 ment; do we not all know that despair at being 

 boxed up, that craving for communion? Using ou; 



