PHYSIOLOGICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL 1 7 



or acquitted by his own showing and on his own evidence, 

 and where he can be made to feel in his own physico- 

 mental being a foretaste of a " coming " futurity. Here, 

 finally, the Ego, by itself, is the sum, the Alpha and Omega, 

 the beginning and end of life, the active and directing 

 agency in all that man thinks, says, and does. What, 

 therefore, should be the " creed," the end and aim of 

 every seriously thinking member of the human family ? 

 Is it not to possess himself and herself of, in the words of 

 the great and oft-quoted Celsus : Mens sana in corpore 

 sano. 



The material dwelling-place of the Ego being healthful 

 and sanitary in all its parts, its mechanism being main- 

 tained in perfect order, its force-receiving, conserving, 

 initiating, and conducting machinery being absolutely 

 intact and in full working order, it must follow that 

 everything which humanity at its best can accomplish 

 will be accomplished, and that, given a steady repetition 

 of such exalted ideals of humanity in the ages to come, 

 civilisation must progress with " leaps and bounds." 



The picture is, however, terrible and disappointing 

 when we consider and realise the myriads of influences 

 at work daily in the retardation of this work of civilisa- 

 tion, the almost impossibility of maintaining a uniformly 

 high rate or level of progress amongst the varying 

 nationalities of the world, the tendency to retrogression 

 evidenced on the part of those nations who have reached 

 what may be called the " high-water mark " of civilisation, 

 and the large amount of general " cussedness " observable 

 amongst the individual members of the human race. But 

 this is the language of metaphor, and we forbear lest we 

 endanger the truth and cogency of our scientific research. 



All the deftly woven textures and wrappings which 

 make and constitute the dwelling-place of the Ego are, 

 so to speak, but the " clothes " in Carlylean phraseology 

 of the soul or spirit this latter being the immaterial 

 and indestructible " material," so to speak, of our being, 

 and representing the irreducible residuum of that being at 

 its death. 



The totality of the higher cerebral nucleoli, or, at any 

 rate, those of the psychic cells , as has already been said, 



III B 



