1436 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



far incipiently and progressively psychologic in its nature accord- 

 ingly, and interacting with the organic process throughout. It is no 

 doubt incongenial, since well nigh hopelessly difficult, to speak of 

 each step in development as accompanied, and even unified with 

 help of a "mind" that is no more completely there than is the 

 finished "body"; yet if biosis and psychosis be not there, and in co- 

 ordinated interaction from the initial ovum to its completed out- 

 come, how and when can they ever get together and work together ? fl 



In our necessarily external observation and of bodily develop- 

 ments alone, in animals and even plants, do we not too easily forget 

 that we are thus not advancing upon, but lapsing from our child 

 wonder as something of mind appears in the young baby; and since 

 this has come by way of parents, and from ancestors, it can surely 

 never have been completely missing, or utterly functionless. 



Moreover, in any and every review of Life-development, from 

 pre-Protozoon to Man, with its branchings well nigh innumerable, 

 what is after all the main characteristic? — and outcome? Surely 

 that of psj^chic evolution, however convenient we find it to state 

 and trace this in neural, cerebral, and other morphological and 

 physiological terms. Even if we seek to content ourselves with psy- 

 chology in its most reduced terms, as of the Epi-phenomenalism of 

 Huxley, or of Psycho-parallelism with others, there it is; albeit in 

 these sterile forms yielding no light either upon organic development 

 or its own; whereas in our concept of Interaction, we see its rhythmic 

 progress, of Bio-psychosis and Psycho-biosis, as the central and 

 unifying life-process throughout individual development and racial 

 evolution alike. Heredity, Variation, and so on, are thus not merely 

 biologic terms, but carry psychologic meaning as well; for what 

 way is there out of that hidden — yet deeply manifest — harmony of 

 Being and Becoming, save by postulating that of one side and 

 aspect of life with the other? If not, we should have no general 

 scientific term to include even our own life outside inorganic Nature, 

 for non-life, for biology and psychology alike, is termed Death. 



Is it necessary to add a final illustration? What better than the 

 familiar one of any book before our eyes. Say, then, this one — an 

 obviously material object, plainly admitting of clear and continuous 

 mechanistic explanation, from paper- and ink-makers, printers, 

 binders, publishers, and booksellers in turn, and before that from 

 our own pens and ink, and hand-muscles worked by nerves from 

 motor brain-centres. And yet none the less continuously (before 

 these so far mechanical-looking processes, yet each and all psycho- 

 logic too — and ethico-social as well) — an intimately mingled product 

 of two long-associated minds as well as brains, and each of varied 

 acquirement and reflection, alike on personal nature-knowledge and 

 on that of others, yet so far co-ordinated by prolonged co-operation 

 and mutual criticism, towards such unity as it has. A unity obvi- 



