RESPIRATION 



397 



facts first discovered by Mendel with regard to reproduction, in- 

 cludes the lives of still more elementary centers of life. The same 

 reasoning applies, of course, to communities of what appear at 

 first to be quite separate organisms. An organism separated from 

 its kind is an artificial abstraction, just as is an organism separated 

 in other ways from its environment. 



Although such processes as respiration, circulation, secretion, 

 absorption, and various forms of nervous activity, occur inde- 

 pendently of consciousness, many bodily activities are accompa- 

 nied by consciousness. Muscular exertion, for instance, is for the 

 most part consciously determined, and as muscular activity de- 

 termines breathing, and in other ways the breathing is determined 

 by conscious activity and under direct conscious control, it is 

 necessary to refer to the relation of conscious to unconscious 

 bodily activity. 



We can interpret unconscious physiological activity from the 

 biological standpoint which has hitherto served us in the interpre- 

 tation of breathing, circulation, etc. ; but it is different with con- 

 scious activity. In perception we are aware of what we interpret 

 as ''objective reality," and voluntary actions are quite evidently 

 determined by this awareness. The awareness signifies that in 

 perception, as distinguished from a simple physiological reaction, 

 the reaction is not simply definable as occurring at a certain 

 moment or within a certain definite time, but involves also past 

 and future times, as well as surrounding space. When I see my 

 pen now, I see it as a material structure which has existed and 

 will continue to exist. I also see it as being in relation to many 

 other things not at the moment visible in the physiological sense. 

 The light in which I see it is not merely that of an electric lamp 

 but of all my other experience. When I write with the pen the 

 movements of my muscles are determined by the actual presence 

 to me of innumerable past, present, and anticipated future events 

 in both my own individual history and that of mankind. The past 

 events are not simply past and done with, like events interpreted 

 physically or biologically, but they, and not their mere effects, 

 are still present and active. What I have experienced before, what, 

 for instance, I have read of Hippocrates, or Johannes Miiller, or 

 Claude Bernard, or Paul Bert, is still taking on fresh meanings in 

 my mind and directly determining my action now. The same is 

 true of all I have absorbed of the common spiritual heritage and 

 anticipations for the future of my country or of mankind. Actual 

 memory is no mere organic memory. I am living and acting in a 



