SELECTIVE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND 241 



to an outlook adopted by the mind for its own reasons; 

 and any other building process would not converge to 

 the mental scheme of world-building. The Hamiltonian 

 derivative has just that kind of quality which makes it 

 stand out in our minds as an active agent against a 

 passive extension of space and time; and Hamiltonian 

 differentiation is virtually the symbol for creation of an 

 active world out of the formless background. Not once 

 in the dim past, but continuously by conscious mind is 

 the miracle of the Creation wrought. 



By following this particular plan of building we 

 construct things which satisfy the law of conservation, 

 that is to say things which are permanent. The law of 

 conservation is a truism for the things which satisfy it; 

 but its prominence in the scheme of law of the physical 

 world is due to the mind having demanded permanence. 

 We might have built things which do not satisfy this 

 law. In fact we do build one very important thing 

 "action" which is not permanent; in respect to "action" 

 physics has taken the bit in her teeth, and has insisted 

 on recognising this as the most fundamental thing of all, 

 although the mind has not thought it worthy of a place 

 in the familiar world and has not vivified it by any 

 mental image or conception. You will understand that 

 the building to which I refer is not a shifting about of 

 material; it is like building constellations out of stars. 

 The things which we might have built but did not, are 

 there just as much as those we did build. What we have 

 called building is rather a selection from the patterns 

 that weave themselves. 



The element of permanence in the physical world, 

 which is familiarly represented by the conception of 

 substance, is essentially a contribution of the mind to 

 the plan of building or selection. We can see this 



