16 



cells again are differentiated protoplasm, and, as I stated 

 in the early part of this address, it is significant that un- 

 differential protoplasm exhibits a crude form of nervous 

 activity. It discriminates, it is sensible of difference, it 

 chooses. We must, therefore, stiU further amplify our 

 conception of mind. "We are bound to suspect that there 

 is a mental or quasi-mental reality accompanying all proto- 

 plasmic phenomena. And the same conclusion as to the 

 mentality of protoplasm is reached when, in "vratching 

 progressive development from the ovum, we gradually 

 arrive at that startling result — animal intelligence ; or when 

 we attempt to trace the development of mind in racial 

 evolution. Nature makes no leap into mentality or into 

 consciousness, either in the individual or the race. Can we 

 stop short at protoplasm ? 



Having extended the scope of mentality to the Vegetable 

 world and the lower forms of life, are we compelled to 

 halt there ? If the inorganic passes by evolution into the 

 organic ; if they form one series ; if protoplasmic motions 

 enter, as we have every reason to believe they do, into the 

 circle of the modes of motion ; in other words, if proto- 

 plasm is natural in origin and function, I do not see how 

 we can draw a hard and fast line for mentality at proto- 

 plasm, any more than we can draw a hard and fast Une at 

 personal consciousness. 



We are at least logically bound to extend the term mind 

 to all such nervous activities as ultimately find an 

 expression in consciousness. We are, I take it, further 

 bound to seek its factors in the antecedent stimxili which 

 operate on the nervous mechanism from without. Just as 

 we regard any particular function of the mind as accom- 

 panied by a general operation of the nervous system with 

 special reference to a pai'ticular area, so are we bound to 

 regard consciousness as a culmination of all its antecedents 

 in space and time, with a special reference to the particular 

 organism in which it may appear. You may have per- 

 ceived that I have already dropped a hint as to the real 

 nature of the external woiid. I will consider the question 

 in a little more detail. 



Let it not be forgotten that all that we know of the 

 external universe we know in terms of our personal con- 

 sciousness — we know in terms of mind. If I listen to a 

 musical note the sound is neither in the instrument nor in 

 the vibrations of the air, though it proceeds from both ; it 



