Mental Evolution. 473 



have taken away the one, you have taken the other also. 

 To speak of the organic activities being conceivably the 

 same in the absence of consciousness, is like saying that 

 the outer curve of a soap-bubble would be the same in the 

 absence of the inner curve. "Whatever hypothetical exist- 

 ences this statement may be true of, it assuredly is not 

 true of soap-bubbles. 



To pass on from this point to another, it is possible I 

 trust not probable, but still not impossible that some 

 one may say, " But how, on this view, can perception be 

 accounted for? Granted that in the neural processes of 

 the individual organism kinesis is accompanied by those 

 metakinetic manifestations which we term * consciousness,' 

 how will this account for our perception of a distant object ? 

 Yonder scarlet geranium is a centre of kinetic manifesta- 

 tions ; it is fifty yards and more away. How can I here, 

 by any metakinetic process, perceive the kinesis that is going 

 on out there ? " 



For one who can ask this question, I have written the 

 chapter on " Mental Processes in Man," and have used the 

 term " construct," in vain. In vain have I endeavoured to 

 explain that the seat of all mental processes is somewhere 

 within the brain ; in vain have I indicated the nature of 

 localization and outward projection ; in vain have I reiterated 

 that the object is a thing we construct through a (meta- 

 kinetic) activity of the mind ; in vain have I insisted that 

 our knowledge is merely symbolic of the noumenal existence ; 

 and perhaps in vain shall I again endeavour to make my 

 meaning clear. 



When we say that we perceive an object, the mental 

 process (perception) is the metakinetic equivalent of certain 

 kinetic changes among the brain-molecules. The object, 

 as an object (as a phenomenon or appearance), is there 

 generated. As before stated, I assume the existence of a 

 noumenal system of which the noumenal existence, sym- 

 bolized as object, is a part. But what we term the object 

 is a certain phase of metakinesis accompanying certain 

 kinetic nerve-processes in the brain. In other words, 



