CONSCIOUSNESS AS A VITAL FUNCTION 299 



on the part of many physicists to resolve the old 

 dualism of matter and energy into a simpler but even 

 less intelligible monism of energy manifestations 

 alone. But disembodied energy is a concept which the 

 scientific mind has difficulty in grasping, and one 

 gropes about for a more substantial foundation for 

 the enduring realities of our cosmos. 



Certainly we must avoid the error of assuming 

 that matter is more fundamental, more primitive, or 

 more significant than its properties or behavior. This 

 is a natural mistake for those of us who are trained in 

 the methods of natural science, for our experience 

 tends to make us structurally minded (Herrick, 1905). 

 But more recent scientific experience has led to the 

 conviction that our familiar concepts of matter and 

 energy, of material and its properties, are not ulti- 

 mates; in the end they will probably have to be recast 

 in some way if they are to fit such scientific experience 

 as is now available. But the time has not yet arrived 

 when this recasting can be done in generally accept- 

 able form.^ 



The demand that at this point in the argument we 

 give an accurate and final definition of mind is nat- 

 ural but, after all, unreasonable. Adequate definitions 

 should precede a logical syllogism, but they do not 



^ As illustrative of recent trends in this direction we may cite the 

 "neutral stuff" of Holt (1914), the "movement-continuum" of Reiser 

 (1924), and the philosophic aspects of the quantum theory, relativity, 

 Gestalt (Lotka, 1925; Koffka, 1924; Ogden, 1925; Brown, 1925). For still 

 other modes of approach see Sellars (1922), Mead (1925), and Dewey 

 (1925). 



