IX MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 249 



passionless like the distant stars, and would never have 

 become the great ideals thrilling and inspiring men and 

 women to deathless action. Love would have been there, 

 but not the immortal .emotion which mortals call by that 

 name. Into that great dream-garden of Eden, Mind the 

 Disturber has entered, and with Mind sin and sorrow, faith 

 and love, the great vision of knowledge, and the conscious 

 effort to master all hampering conditions and to work out 

 the great redemption. To the music of the universe there 

 has thus been added a new note, as of laughter and tears, 

 a new undertone of the human, which transforms and en- 

 riches all the rest. It is no longer a song of the Golden 

 Reign of the Elder Gods, but of the intertwining of the 

 Cosmos with human Destiny, of the suffering which has 

 become consecrated and illuminated by the great visions, of 

 the magic power of knowledge to work out new enchant- 

 ments to break the dumb routine, to set the captive spirit 

 free, and to blaze new paths to the immortal Goal. Mind has 

 thus added an infinity of light and shade and colour, of in- 

 ward character and conscious content to tke great process in 

 and from which it has emerged. Without Mind the universe 

 would have been an altogether dull affair, however unimagi- 

 nably grand in other respects. Even its aberrations have 

 been woven into the new harmonies; its eye has beheld the 

 greater lights, and knowledge has given it the key of power 

 and mastery over the conditions which previously towered 

 like an unscalable mountain escarpment athwart its path 

 of progress. 



Let us dwell for a moment on this new power and mastery 

 which Mind has brought on the scene. Knowledge is power, 

 and it is unnecessary for us here to trace in detail the steps 

 by which the present power and mastery of Science over 

 material conditions have been acquired. Life below the 

 mental level strengthens the innate capacity to react to 

 external influences of a harmful or beneficial nature by 

 various movements which lead successively to the tropisms, 

 reflexes and automatisms of the lower organisms. When 

 Mind appears as an active factor, this power of regulating 



