IX MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 253 



comes out in dark and unexpected ways in the individual 

 conduct. 



The advent of Mind has undoubtedly meant a large cor- 

 related development of structure, especially in the human 

 nervous system and brain, which is, of course, far larger and 

 more complex than that of even the highest anthropoid. 

 But even so the role of structure is comparatively less 

 prominent in man than it is at earlier phases of organic Evo- 

 lution, and its functions have not only been fundamentally 

 transformed, as we have just seen, but have also relatively 

 vastly increased in significance. So much so indeed that 

 structure in man becomes of merely secondary importance, 

 while its mental functions become all-important. The super- 

 structure of Mind is immeasurably greater than the brain or 

 neural structure on which it rests, and is something of a quite 

 different order, which marks a revolutionary departure from 

 the organic order whence it originated. Under these circum- 

 stances the question of primacy as between the Mind and the 

 brain is deprived of all real importance. It is not a question 

 of origins but of values, to which there can be but one an- 

 swer. By whatever standard of value it is measured, Mind 

 has risen above its physiological source as high as, or even 

 higher than, life has risen above its inorganic beginnings. 



From the question of structure we pass naturally on to 

 consider the ^'field" of Mind. The field of Mind differs in 

 character from the field of matter or of organism. It is 

 neither physical nor physiological, no more than Mind itself 

 is. Mind is a new type of structure of the immaterial or 

 spiritual kind, and so also is its field. In Mind there is a 

 central illuminated area, the area of full consciousness, which 

 is directly open to inspection and observation. Taking this 

 area as the central structure of Mind, the "field" of Mind 

 then comes to mean that area of its functions and activities 

 which falls below the "threshold'' of consciousness, which 

 remains unilluminated and dark, which cannot, therefore, be 

 known by direct inspection and which, as in the cases of the 

 other fields, can only be ascertained by its indirect effects. 

 The field of Mind in this sense has been the subject of much 



