THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND MIND 89 



that "appear" to us, or are sensed by us. That is the 

 literal and the only intelligible meaning of the term " pheno- 

 mena," which has been so useful to the theologian in his 

 modern conflict with science. Odour, pressure, colour, 

 etc. (I am not, of course, speaking of the sensations these 

 produce in us), are not a mysterious metaphysical peel of 

 the "real" orange. They are the matter of the orange 

 shooting at our olfactory nerve, reflecting the ethereal waves 

 to our retina, and so forth. 



It is the same with biology and psychology. It has been 

 very convenient for certain reactionary schools of thought 

 to assume that the "phenomena" of life and mind are 

 something separate from the realities. The naturalist could 

 then be left to deal with the former, while the supernaturalist 

 still extended his mystic theories to the latter. The distinc- 

 tion is a mere survival of the older superficial way of look- 

 ing at things. Modern science knows nothing of "qualities" 

 so distinct from objects that as the Catholic believes to be 

 the case in the Mass the substance (of the bread or wine) 

 can be annihilated and the qualities remain intact. This 

 is a childish conception in science to-day. Life and mind, 

 in the concrete, have no qualities or phenomena distinct 

 from themselves, in the sense that biology and psychology 

 can deal extensively with the former, yet leave the latter 

 under the veil. Such a work as Haeckel's Wonders of Life 

 tells you a vast amount about life, not about the pheno- 

 mena of life (in the distinct sense). Such a work as Sully's 

 Psychology gives you a mass of information about the mind 

 itself. 



