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The Origins of IS/lind 



We have reached the critical stage of our thesis. If mind 

 exists without matter, if one cannot show that there is no 

 fundamental dualism here, our whole effort to establish the 

 unity of nature collapses. There must be continuity, not 

 only in the evolution of the body, but also in the evolution 

 of the mind. We have briefly reviewed evidences for the 

 origin and development of living organisms from the sub- 

 atomic microcosm through naked genes to man. Nowhere 

 in all the rising levels of structural diversity and complexity 

 did we find any line of division. Imperceptibly and grad- 

 ually, through billions of years, nature evolved all the con- 

 figurations of the cosmos— each configuration can be traced 

 backward through its various levels of organization to 

 the microcosm. It will be our purpose now to show that the 

 human mind, however incredible and miraculous it may 

 appear, is also traceable backward to the underlying origins 

 of the realm of life; in short, that the human mind displays 

 nothing other than a superlative and culminating expression 

 of nature's striving toward conscious understanding. 



Living organisms, even the most primitive, act discrimi- 

 natingly and of themselves. By degrees as they rise in the 

 scale of life, they appear, as we interpret their movements, 

 to feel, to perceive, and to think. All organisms respond to the 

 environment. Even the simplest microscopic animals search 

 for food, seize and devour their prey, flee from harm. Plants 

 push stem and leaf up to the sunlight and roots into the soil 



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