Till-: RIXATIOX OF BODY AND Ml. Ml. -'■'^.^ 



piecemeal and in lime; but, on the other hand, the mechanism 

 ^vill be controlled throughout by the purposive life which per- 

 vades it in every ])art. And, moreover, the two will develop 

 together. As the ]iurposive life grows, the mechanism will 

 alter and modify itself, and, rice -c'crsa. the increased complexity 

 of the meclianism will enable the ]nirposive life to become richer 

 and fuller and more far-reaching in aims and ideals. And this 

 seems to be what has actually happened in the course of evolu- 

 tion. All life is ]iur])osive, and contains the germ of the most 

 advanced developments of mind. It seems futile to say that 

 at no point in evolution can we detect the emergence of mind, 

 and that, therefore, there is no such thing. Mind is ])resent in 

 all life; the purposive character of life is its mental character; 

 at the earliest stage that purpose is faint and primitive. C(^rre- 

 sponing to the undeveloped structure of the organism. The 

 amteba manifests ])urix)sive life in protruding or contracting 

 itself in accordance with the bodies with which it comes into 

 contact. .\nd as the organism becomes more complex in 

 structure, the ])urposive life becomes subtler and fuller: It is 

 a vital unitv interfused with the material structure and govern- 

 ing and regulating the action of that structure. Tints a ]')uv- 

 posive character is im])ressed at everv stage upon the structure : 

 at every stage it is soaked in mentality : it is just the instrument 

 used by the life which indwells it with the object of avoidin;^ 

 collisions or obtaining nourishment, and so on. At a later 

 period, coincident with the fitrther development of the structure 

 of the brain, the organic life itself becomes more complex, and 

 manifests itself in those cognitive, conative, and aftective as]>ects 

 which we know as reason and will, and desire, but which are 

 simply aspects of the organic life in its advanced stage, and to 

 which we tend to ascril:)e far too much in the way of separate- 

 ness from each other. .\nd by this time the nervous svstem has 

 become a highly elaborate, minutely diiterentiated structure, 

 sutliciently com])lex and delicate to ex])ress these various depart- 

 ments of the indwelling life. 



In other words, what we come to see is this : instead of the 

 crudely dualistic conception of a purely immaterial mind inter- 

 acting somehow or other with a i)urely material bodilv 

 mechani>m. we have the concrete conce])tion of a single living 

 organism in which whole and parts are mutuallv dependent on 

 each other : the vital unity is the whole, and the nerves are the 

 parts. The life is the whole which directs and gives ])urpose 

 to the ])arts : while the i)arts in their turn build ui) and su]:)port 

 the whole. Roughly, then, the relation of mind and bodv is 

 the relation of the whole to the parts, of the life and the 

 organism. The value of such a conce])tion is that on the one 

 hand it maintains a real distinction between mind and l)odv. 

 and provides for the growth of both through their interaction> 

 with each other, avoiding the static immobility which theories 

 of monism seem to imply : and on the other hand, it make? 



