246 The Evohition Hypothesis. 



associated groups of feelings, that is nervous shocks, 

 and the physical changes in the environment. Sense- 

 perception is, then, the answer of the nervous organism 

 to the impact of an external force, and is the setting 

 up of a series of composite nerve-actions correspond- 

 ing with the external order. Ultimately and essen- 

 tially every perception is a group of nervous shocks 

 co-ordinated so as to be in more or less exact accord 

 with the relations existing in nature. The " unit of 

 conciousness " has been compounded and re-com- 

 pounded : the organism has registered these waves 

 of molecular change ; and the cognition of an ex- 

 ternal object is the bringing into play of the accu- 

 mulated experiences, through impact of the object 

 itself in direct contact, or mediately, as in vision 

 through the agency of light. 



But perception of the world around us cannot be 

 generated by nerve-shocks. Something with faculty 

 of knowing must exist before there is any cognitive 

 act. Some one with a faculty of perceiving exists 

 before anything is perceived. We must start in the 

 study of mind with knowledge. Cognition of external 

 objects is not the consequent ; it is the condition of 

 experience. The knowledge may be of the most rudi- 

 mentary kind ; but it is knowledge. Without it no 

 play of nerve-thrills, no composition of nervous shocks 

 will build up the cosmos in our experience. A mind 

 with power of perceiving, and that power in exercise, 

 is necessary on the one hand ; an organism, endowed 



