116 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



without the nerve complexity of which it is a result. In 

 practicing altruism we are onbr following nature, which 

 does everything for others, and thus best serves 

 herself, because all others are parts of herself. 

 Man is a part of nature, and when he nurtures 

 others, he is indirectly doing that which sustains 

 himself. When he helps another, he is teaching 

 it, how to do the same to him. The simplest reflex action, 

 and highest mental abstraction, are equally dependent 

 on material nerve matter. The former is done by a 

 simple reflex arc, consisting of a sensory, and a motor 

 fibre, connected by what is called a ganglion. The 

 latter is the passing of the excitation, either sensory or 

 initiated in the brain, through several reflex arcs, 

 through higher, that is, more complex nerve centers. 

 When an instrument shall be invented which will enable 

 man to measure the process in the higher nerve centers. 

 all mentality will be demonstrated as the action of 

 nerve plexuses. The endeavor to discourse or reason 

 on the "states of consciousness," "sub-consciousness," 

 "subjective states" or "consciousness being a self, 

 conscious of itself," without showing objectively the 

 nervous process which constitutes these conditions, is 

 without any convincing effect. 



By observing the gradations of complexity, and 

 definiteness in the nervous system of animals, from the 

 lowest to the highest, it is plain that intellect, and 

 intelligence, depend upon the correspondence that these 

 systems give the body, with the relation of things in 

 the environment. In other words, the psychology of 

 an animal is the degree of perfection of this corre- 

 spondence. The lowest animal life is without nerves. 

 It has only the sense of touch, and that very feeble. In 

 this regard, it is very different from a human being 



