CONSCIOUSNESS AS A VITAL FUNCTION 305 



which any amateur in the scientific field makes of his 

 own tools. 



Interest in the question of the relation of body and 

 mind is perennial and widespread. In its scientific 

 aspects this would seem to He within the realm of 

 biology, for we know mind scientifically only as re- 

 lated with organisms. Biologists have frequently 

 pointed out proximate solutions of the body-mind 

 question which are regarded as adequate for their 

 purposes, and beyond this they are seldom inclined to 

 go, for science knows no absolutes and no ultimates. 



Scientific thinkers themselves are too often con- 

 tent with solutions whose inadequacy is patent even 

 within the contracted field of the practical require- 

 ments of some specific scientific inquiry. Perhaps the 

 most common of these inadequate solutions (inade- 

 quate, I mean, for the practical needs of science) is 

 the thoroughly unscientific appeal to a philosophic 

 monism which in effect denies the reality of the prob- 

 lem. Two of these monistic cults merit special men- 

 tion. 



I. Pure, or Berkleyan, idealism, which denies the 

 reality of matter, makes small appeal to most sci- 

 entific men. The technique of their profession and the 

 mental habits engendered by its ^practice make most 

 students of science practical realists of some sort, and 

 they are disinclined to throw the cherished objects of 

 their researches into the discard as fabrications of 

 their own minds. 



