284 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



through the struggle for existence does not necessarily 

 lead to an increase in intelligence or in the size and 

 complexity of its organ the brain, as has been generally 

 assumed to be the case. 



If, as John Hunter, T. H. Huxley, and other eminent 

 thinkers have declared, " life is the cause, not the consequence, 

 of organisation," so we may believe that mind is the cause, 

 not the consequence, of brain development. The first implies 

 that there is a cause of life independent of the organism 

 through which it is manifested, and this cause must itself be 

 persistent — eternal — life, any other supposition being essenti- 

 ally unthinkable. And if we must posit an eternal Life as 

 the cause of life, we must equally posit an eternal Mind as 

 the cause of mind. And once accept this as the irreducible 

 minimum of a rational belief on these two great questions, 

 then the whole of the argument in this volume falls into 

 logical sequence. 



Life as a cause of organisation is as clearly manifested 

 and as much a necessity in the plant as in the animal ; 

 but they are plainly different kinds (or degrees) of life. So 

 there are undoubtedly different degrees and probably also 

 different kinds of mind in various grades of animal life. 

 And as the life-giver must be supposed to cause the due 

 amount and kind of life to flow or be drawn into each 

 organism from the universe of life in which it lives, so 

 the mind-giver, in like manner, enables each class or order of 

 animals to obtain the amount of mind requisite for its place 

 in nature, and to organise a brain such as is required for the 

 manifestation of that limited amount of mind and no more. 



Thus and thus only, as it seems to me, can we under- 

 stand the raison d'etre of these small-brained animals. They 

 were outgrowths of the great tree of life for a temporary 

 purpose, to keep down the coarser vegetation, to supply 

 animal food for the larger Carnivora, and thus give time for 

 higher forms to obtain a secure foothold and a sufficient 

 amount of varied form and structure, from which they 

 could, when better conditions prevailed, at once start on 

 those wonderful diverging lines of advance which have 

 resulted in the perfected and glorious life-world in the midst 

 of which we live, or ought to live. 



