INTEGRATIVE LEVELS 



long procession of morphological forms and physiological achieve- 

 ments which the biologists have charted, with all its turning-points, 

 the first coelomic organisation, the first endocrine mechanism, the 

 first osmo-regulatory success, the first vertebral column, the first 

 appearance of consciousness, the first making of a tool. At the point 

 at which social life begins, factors set in so new as to constitute a 

 recognisably higher level. Rational control of the environment now 

 for the first time becomes a possibility. 



The view of mind as a phenomenon of high organisational level, 

 a quality of elaborate nervous organisation, is of course opposed by 

 all idealist philosophers and many theologians, but it has wide support 

 among psychologists and scientific philosophers. As examples I -^^ould 

 mention a striking passage of the great psycho-pathologist, Henry 

 Maudsley^; also the expressions of Samuel Alexander,^ and the psycho- 

 logists, R. G. Gordon,^ C. K. Ogden,* E. B. Holt,^ with many others. 

 It need hardly be said that this view of mind has no connection with 

 that which regards it as an "epiphenomenon." Perhaps few realise 

 how well Lucretius stated the view of mind as a quality of high 

 organisational levels in his great poem^ : — 



"sed magni referre ea primum quantula constent, 

 sensile quae faciunt, et qua sint praedita forma, 

 motibus ordinibus posituris denique quae sint." 



(. . . but much it matters here 

 Firstly, how. small the seeds which thus compose 

 The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed, 

 And lastly what positions they assume 

 What motions^ what' arrangements. . . .) 



About the first beginnings of social organisation we know rather 

 less than about some of the earlier, biological, stages. It is doubtful 

 how far our consideration of humanity's problems can be assisted by 

 a knowledge of the phenomena of social life in ants and bees (the 

 social hymenoptera), for the anatomical nature of these animals, with 

 its exoskeleton and rather inferior nervous system, is so far removed 

 from our own." The behaviour of the sub-human Primates has much 



^ Body and Will (London, 1883), p. 132. 

 ^ Space, Time and Deity (London, 1927), vol. i, p. xiii. 



^ Personality (London, 1926). * The Meaning of Psychology (New York, 1926). 

 ^ The Concept of Consciousness (London, 1914). ^ De Rer. Nat. II, 894. 



' Popular writers such as J. Langdon-Davies in his Short History of the Future 

 (London, 1936) go somewhat astray here. 



