THE STARTING POINT 



population, their social organization, their mode 

 of production, their historical conditions. Fur- 

 thermore, the air which man requires for breath- 

 ing, the climatic conditions of his locality, the soil, 

 grass, flowers, trees, animals, springs, lakes, riv- 

 ers, seas, mountains, not only those near him, 

 but on the entire surface of the globe ; the cosmic 

 conditions immediately surrounding this globe; 

 when the moon, the planets, the sun, the fixed 

 stars, the Milky Way, the comets, and all the 

 rest of the universe, whether he perceives it or 

 not. All these things, always considered as 

 natural things, form the environment of the 

 physical brain. 



On the other hand, my brain is a part of the 

 environment of any or all these things. Each 

 part belongs to the environment of all the other 

 parts of the universe, and neither would be just 

 what it is without all the others. 



But, some one may say, mind and soul and 

 all the rest of the unknown things of the world 

 are also parts of the universal environment of our 

 brain. True, even if mind and soul were but 

 imaginary terms, they would still be parts of 

 our brain's environment. But so are the un- 

 known quantities x, y and z parts of the environ- 

 ment of the known quantities of some algebraic 



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