174 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



has an organization quite like our own, we may validly assume that it, 

 too, functions somewhat like our own. 



Since extremists on any side of a discussion are likely to go astray, 

 it is always best not to confine oneself entirely to following any single 

 group to the exclusion of another. To be fair, one must use anything 

 and everything that will throw light on the problem one is trying to 

 solve. 



The word Mind is another confusing term. By the older writers 

 it was used to designate the personality of an individual. That is, if one 

 say with Descartes "I think" therefore "I exist," the "I" which does the 

 thinking and which does exist is the true personality, the true mind. 

 Or, one may note that it is quite common to dream that one hns died 

 and attends one's own funeral. That which can look at its own physical 

 body as the physical co-partner of the true ego of the individual's per- 

 sonality is the mind, or as the older writers called it the soul. 



Not only do we here see a distinction of the ego or personality 

 proper, as mind, but we also note that the mind is separate from the 

 thoughts which the mind brings forth. We can, therefore, understand 

 these writers when they tell us that the brain is in turn the organ of 

 the mind, but not the mind itself. 



The average laboratory man will have little* of this, however. He 

 insists that mind does not exist as distinct from thought and emotion. 

 He means by mind the whole "stream of consciousness" of the individ- 

 ual all thoughts such as one has ever had, plus all one's emotions, such 

 as pleasures and pains accumulated experiences of the individual, in 

 other words. 



The laboratory men do, however, admit two divisions of this mental 

 life, namely, consciousness (awareness) and feelings (emotions or affec- 

 tions, such as pleasure and pain). 



The student can understand these two divisions easily if he -will 

 think of breaking a bone in his body. It is one thing to know (be con- 

 scious of) that the bone is broken, and another thing entirely to feel the 

 pain it may cause. 



The idea of a difference between the mind and the physical body 

 containing it, leads us to note the distinction between mind and matter. 

 Those who accept this distinction are called dualists. 



Great conflicts have been waged by the learned of all times as to 

 which is the more important of the two mind or matter and which 

 was first upon .the scene of existence. Some have contended that mind 

 (spirit) came first, and this, then, was the cause of the physical universe 

 (matter). Such contenders are known in philosophy as spiritualists. 

 Others contended that matter was first on the scene, and that mind was 

 late in its arrival, because it is only an emanation of some kind from the 

 physical. That is, mind is something like the secretion from ductless 

 glands which we know little about, but which we know to exist. Such 



