THE EVOLUTION OF MIND.* 



The iniiid — where is it, what is it and whence came it ? 

 For ages men have striven to solve these knotty problems. 

 In studying the physical nnivorse, we find that mocking 

 nature played some solemn pranks, which if repeated in the 

 psychical will account for our tardiness of progress in this 

 direction. Immediate perceptions of sense have almost in- 

 variably been illusory. The earth seems flat and at rest, 

 but is round and in rapid moti(jn. The blue dome above 

 looks like a solid arch studded with specks of light, but is 

 in reality immense vacuity Avith myriads of giant globes. 

 The sun appears to rotate round the earth, but the earth goes 

 round the sun. All we see seems as if out of us but is in 

 reality pictured in the brain. f Science and theology clasp 

 hands in declaring : 



'•This earth is but a fleeting show 

 For man's illusion given." 



It required centuries of thought to triumph over the de- 

 ceptions of matter. It may recpure other centuries to over- 

 come those of mind. The controversy of idealism versus 

 realism is not yet permanently settled,! and there are others 

 of great importance that it will take many generations to 

 make clear. § Of our own minds we have direct evidence. 

 We can only know that other minds exist by our interpreta- 

 tions of the movements of matter. Because of this, physical 

 science had to precede mental. In tracing the leading 

 features of the genesis of the first, we may derive hints as 

 to how we should ai)proach the last. Before men began to 

 philosophize and build up systems of thought it is reason- 

 able to suppose that like children they took appearances for 

 realities. Such a mind would take it for granted that the 

 disappearance of a body of matter by vaporization was its 

 total disappearance, and its reappearance by condensation 



* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal rublishing Co. 



t Reicbert's Foster's "I'bysidlofry. iip. Tii.i-7'>4. 



t Huxley's Critiques and Addresses, i^). :31()-;31T. Miiiil, Vol. 7, i)ii. VM-5i. 



§ Bascom's I'sycbolotry, \i\>. :3.so-4i)l. 



