PHILOSOPHY, THE GUIDE OF MENTAL LIFE 273 



are beyond the range of human conception, the daily life of every 

 person demonstrates belief in and guidance by the actual realities 

 of matter and of mind. Without attempting to explain them, the 

 law deals with both matter and mentality. Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 in his first publication (1836) entitled "Nature," said: "Philo- 

 sophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the 

 Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all 

 which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both 

 nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked 

 under this name, NATURE." 



What Emerson considers as the ME, the mental and spiritual 

 personality, is not a fixture. Our personalities like our bodies, 

 grow from infancy to maturity, and may in some cases return again 

 to an infantile senility. Oliver Wendell Holmes said in "The 

 Chambered Nautilus," 



Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 



And there is no doubt but that most human beings show great de- 

 velopment, both mental and spiritual.* Coincidentally, the atoms 

 and molecules comprising our bodies are undergoing continual 

 change, and even the basic patterns of our physical frame are by 

 no means constant. Gradually, we feel our age — and look it. The 

 mental and spiritual possibilities in the brains of most of us are 

 sometimes pitifully limited by physical, chemical, and environ- 

 mental conditions. Though all service ranks the same with God, 

 as Browning put it, mankind is often slow in recognizing, much 

 less in emulating, even outstanding example and superlative serv- 

 ice in individuals. Contemporaries are often poor judges of 

 values. It takes courage to follow the judgment of one's own 

 conscience. Jesus of Nazareth, whose teachings pilloried the bru- 

 tal materialism of imperial Rome, suffered crucifiction, a Roman 

 form of punishment, 12 by Roman soldiers, under a Roman Pro- 

 curator. But the Golden Rule based on the Law and the Prophets 

 and emphasized by Jesus, remains the ideal of great numbers of 

 human beings. 



Science recognizes that matter is real and indestructible, even 

 though its ultimates are unknown; and similarly we are led to the 



* In a paper entitled "Natural Selection and the Mental Capacities of Mankind" 

 (Science, 1947, 105, 587-90) Th. Dobzhansky and M. E. Ashley Montagu state: "The 

 genetically controlled plasticity of mental traits is, biologically speaking, the most 

 typical and uniquely human characteristic." Man is extremely adaptable, whereas 

 "the behavior of an individual among social insects is remarkable precisely because 

 of the rigidity of its genetic fixation." 



