36 



NATURE 



[March io, 192 i 



has nowise been established in the conscious life 

 of the individual concerned. It is not here a case, 

 as in habit, of the submergence of that which 

 has been integrated in the light of conscious pur- 

 pose, but of the rising above the threshold of 

 that which was integrated outside that individual 

 life. 



There are thus two forms of integration : 

 (i) that which is established in the course of in- 

 dividual life above — for the most part in human 

 life well above — the threshold of consciousness ; 

 and (ii) that which comes to each one of us in 

 integrated fprm from the subliminal part of the 

 psychical system to which we are heir. Neither 

 of these can now be neglected ; but one or the 

 other may receive special emphasis. The stress 

 in Mr. Stephen Ward's book (i) is on integra- 

 tion in the field of thought. Not readily is there 

 to be found in such short compass so suggestive 

 a treatment — no mere summary, but touched 

 throughout with individuality — as that which is 

 the foundation of his study of ethics. He insists 

 that, for thought, every fact is a conceptualised 

 fact, and inevitably to be taken as universalised ; 

 and "while we think in the present, iscihai we 

 think of is either past or future." Hence, "in- 

 asmuch as the present is not expressible in 

 thought, it follows that the purpose of our being 

 is not expressible in thought. For thought, the 

 word ' purpose ' always has a future reference ; 

 for life, our purpose is to be what we are, to 

 have a present." And while, in life, so much is 

 provided jor thought to discuss, yet of this 

 a great deal is nowise provided by the thought of 

 the individual or the race. Its integration has 

 been otherwise established. 



The goal of reason is truth, and "the first 

 necessity of reason is that it should be one and 

 one only. There cannot [ultimately] be several 

 kinds of truth. It must be self-standing and 

 complete, for if it were not complete, it would 

 depend on something outside itself — something, 

 that is, which would be more true than itself." 

 Whence "it is obvious that no experience of 

 which we are capable could possibly fulfil these 

 conditions." But the perfectly right, as the goal 

 of duty, is in like position. Man is bound "to 

 realise eventually that, situated as he is, all that 

 he can know of reason or morality is that they 

 are not what he is, because both require a free- 

 dom or completeness which his life is unable to 

 supply." They are unattainable ideals, but 

 thereby they lose nothing of their grandeur. 



Here morality is dealt with in exceUis. A 



reasonable being and a moral being are one and 



the same — but beyond our reach. On the other 



hand, Mr. Relnheimer (2) seeks the roots of 



NO. 2680, VOL. 107] 



morality in the very beginnings of life. His ad- 

 vocacy of symbiosis, in his extended sense of the 

 word, is well known from his previous publica- 

 tions. Making due allowance for some over- 

 emphasis, pardonable in the advocate, what one 

 may fairly regard as his main contention — that 

 integration in bionomic relatedness is essential to 

 the good of all concerned in the intricate web of 

 life — is sound at the core. In this mesh of related- 

 ness the nutritive factors demand as careful study 

 as those which subserve the end of reproduction. 

 Life as a whole is an integrated symbiotic whole ; 

 and if we be "sharers in a wholesome pan- 

 psychism " we may fairly seek and find in the very 

 foundations of organic evolution the foundations 

 also of the integration of the unconscious, neither 

 identifying the psychical with the physiological^ 

 nor accepting the mythological views of Maeter- 

 linck and Samuel Butler (which are considered 

 and criticised by Mr. Reinheimer), but regarding 

 them as distinct, though, in some way, " deeply 

 and closely interrelated. Mr. Reinheimer, indeed,, 

 suggests that the physical and mental work to- 

 gether in internal or domestic symbiosis. 



Thus, while, for Mr. Ward, at the upper limit 

 of human thought is the concept of duty which 

 under the conditions of our life cannot be 

 reached, for Mr. Reinheimer the foundations of 

 duty are laid in that integrated biological recipro- 

 city to which he extends the concept of symbiosis.^ 



Intermediate between these different levels on 

 which the problems of life and mind may be dis- 

 cussed is the doctrine of the complex as affording 

 the foundations on which a superstructure of con- 

 sciousness is built. Mr. Lane-Fox Pitt, in his- 

 "Purpose of Education," of which his essay on 

 " Freewill and Destiny " (3) is the sequel, says that 

 a complex may be defined as a dynamic system of 

 closely associated ideas linked together in some 

 experience, or succession of experiences, with 

 corresponding emotions, perceptions, memories, 

 interests, and range of volitions. In every in- 

 dividual, he says, there are "egos" innumerable,, 

 and they all strive. Freedom is the escape from 

 this bondage of strife. Our destiny is the con- 

 quest of this multiplex egoism. Hence it would 

 seem that, alike in the realm of ethical thought,, 

 with which Mr. Ward deals, in that of symbiotic 

 interrelatedness under Mr. Reinheimer's treat- 

 ment, and in that of a complex of complexes 

 founded on the unconscious, as interpreted by 

 Mr. Lane-Fox Pitt, the direction of progress is. 

 towards further and fuller integration of factors 

 which, under the correlative process of differ- 

 entiation, tend to fall asunder. 



When, in this difficult problem of the uncon- 

 scious, we dig down to essentials, the question 



