Mineral Causes. 129 



difference between one substance and another. This 

 is even extended to the power of sexual-material- 

 selection for the purposes of production, as already 

 explained. That those actions are reflex, produced 

 automatically, does not vitiate our postulation, for no 

 accurate definition of automatism could be enunciated 

 which did not include 99, if not 100 per cent, of even 

 man's intelligent actions, as we shall show anon. 



We thus assert and shall eventually prove that 

 intelligence at bottom is merely the accurate automatic 

 action, or selective attraction and repulsion, of the 

 atoms. 



Intelligence in all phenomena truly differs infinitely 

 in complexity, yet this complexity is a difference 

 in degree, not in kind. It is simply that difference 

 which is inevitable between an atom and its simple 

 mind, and a body composed of innumerable atoms 

 and its complex mind. The structure of the complex 

 body and complex mind of course introduces infinite 

 and wonderful complexities, but these do not affect 

 the fundamental origin of intelligence. There is the 

 same relation between them as between a diction- 

 ary and a philosophy : as infinite philosophies may 

 be produced from the one dictionary, so infinite 

 intelligences may be evolved from the one alphabet 

 of elementary atoms and their energies. There is 

 thus no necessity for postulating a Divine Mind in 

 nature, when all nature is constructed of atomic minds, 

 which are both eternal and indestructible, and in a 

 sense both omniscient and omnipotent. By this view, 



