Evolution of Mind. 251 



attempting this fool's-feat during the past two thousand 

 years is ample proof of it* 



The origin, purpose, and limitations of an organism 

 cannot be learnt by the organism itself from itself, any 

 more than a church organ can tell its maker or 

 describe its action ; hence, an intelligent organism can 

 only learn its own nature by studying the life-history 

 of other organisms. 



All knowledge moreover is external, not internal ; 

 that is, all knowledge comes to us from the exterior 

 through the only gateways of our knowledge, the 

 senses. Hence when a philosopher pretends to read 

 in his mind the verbiage so amply served up in all 

 metaphysical works, it is only because he himself has 

 first stowed up the rubbish there. In pretending to 

 read his mind he resembles the gipsy reading fortunes 

 in another's hand. They are both frauds, but while 

 the gipsy only imposes on the ignorant, the meta- 

 physician as successfully imposes on the intelligent. 



We thus assert that a man can only learn what 

 mind is, what it contains, how it originated, and how 

 it works, not by tatooing on his own mental organ, 

 but by examining other men's' minds or, better still, 

 by studying the mental mechanisms of lower animals ; 

 ascertaining their constituents, construction, and action, 

 and thus perceiving through the lower forms how the 



* Metaphysics in fact is but a species of morbid introspection, which 

 is as deadly to a man intellectually as it is physically. Their mind, it 

 may be said, is an over-wound screw, that turns till doomsday but 

 never gets home. 



