The Dawn of Mind 241 



progress in multiplying the gateways of knowledge and making 

 them more discriminating, and there is progress in making the 

 modes of experimenting more wide-awake, more controlled, and 

 more resolute. But behind both of these is the characteristically 

 vital power of enregistering within the organism the lessons of 

 the past. In the life of the individual these enregistrations are 

 illustrated by memories and habituations and habits ; in the life of 

 the race they are illustrated by reflex actions and instinctive 

 capacities. 



Body and Mind 



We must not shirk the very difficult question of the relation 

 between the bodily and the mental side of behaviour. 



(a) Some great thinkers have taught that the mind is a 

 reality by itself which plays upon the instrument of the brain 

 and body. As the instrument gets worn and dusty the playing 

 is not so good as it once was, but the player is still himself. This 

 theory of the essential independence of the mind is a very beauti- 

 ful one, but those who like it when applied to themselves are not 

 always so fond of it when it is applied to other intelligent crea- 

 tures like rooks and elephants. It may be, however, that there 

 is a gradual emancipation of the mind which has gone furthest 

 in Man and is still progressing. 



(b) Some other thinkers have taught that the inner life of 

 thought and feeling is only, as it were, an echo of the really im- 

 portant activity that of the body and brain. Ideas are just 

 foam-bells on the hurrying streams and circling eddies of matter 

 and energy that make up our physiological life. To most of us 

 this theory is impossible, because we are quite sure that ideas 

 and feelings and purposes, which cannot be translated into mat- 

 ter and motion, are the clearest realities in our experience, and 

 that they count for good and ill all through our life. They are 

 more than the tickings of the clock; they make the wheels go 

 round. 



VOL. I 16 



