68 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. n 



this formula is justified, it will be sufficient for our present 

 purpose to select but one or two. &quot; The stinging and con 

 tractile powers of a polyp s tentacle correspond to the sensi 

 tiveness and strength of the creatures serving it for prey. 

 Unless that external change which brings one of these 

 creatures in contact with the tentacle were quickly followed 

 by those internal changes which result in the coiling and 

 drawing up of the tentacle, the polyp would die of inani 

 tion. The fundamental processes of integration and dis 

 integration within it would get out of correspondence with 

 the agencies and processes without it ; and the life would 

 cease.&quot; So in higher animals, &quot;every act of locomotion im 

 plies the expenditure of certain internal mechanical forces, 

 adapted in amounts and directions to balance or out-balance 

 certain external ones. The recognition of an object is impos 

 sible without a harmony between the changes constituting 

 perception, and particular properties coexisting in the en 

 vironment. Escape from enemies supposes motions within 

 the organism, relnh i in kind and rapidity to motions without 

 it. Destruction of prey requires a particular combination of 

 subjective actions, fitted in degree and succession to overcome 

 a group of objective ones. And so with those countless 

 automatic processes exemplified in works on animal instinct.&quot; 

 And similarly, as will appear still more clearly when we 

 come to treat especially of the evolution of intelligence, 

 &quot; the empirical generalization that guides the farmer in his 

 rotation of crops, serves to bring his actions into concord 

 with certain of the actions going on in plants and soil ; and 

 the rational deductions of the educated navigator who calcu 

 lates his position at sea, constitute a series of mental acts by 



posed from a resultant into an initial condition, the name given to the wholo 

 group of phenomena becomes the personification of the phenomena, and the 

 product is supposed to have been the producer. In lieu of regarding vital 

 actions ai the dynamical results of their statical conditions, the actions are 

 personified, and the personification comes to be regarded as indicating some 

 thing independent of and antecedent to the concrete facts it expresses.&quot; 

 of Life and Mind, vol. i. p. 110. 



