122 -UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



tient loses first his judgment and self-control, his ethical, 

 instinctive, and carefully taught manners disappear, and 

 he laughs, cries, or swears, in utter abandon, long before 

 he has ceased to be able to repeat, parrot-wise, the 

 monotonous counting of the anaesthetist. The qualities 

 latest acquired, which can best be spared, go first. Judged 

 by this grimly practical test, our mentality depends upon 

 the physical development, at the time, and must have 

 been an evolution from lower forms of mentality. 



MENTAL EVOLUTION, MATERIALISTIC. The principle 

 of organic evolution, being once established, necessarily 

 carries with it mental evolution. This is especially so, 

 upon the theory of the materialist, that "mind" is the 

 function of specialized matter. But, even if that of the 

 parallelist, is taken as true, there is such an intimate 

 connection between the molecular pulsation, and the 

 physical effect, that the evolution of both simultane- 

 ously, would seem to be the only conclusion. Such great 

 advancement has been made, in late years, in the 

 science of brain physiology, and in physiological psy- 

 chology, that -the study of "mind" must now be made 

 through physiology. The result is, that the new defini- 

 tions of psychic elements, and mental phenomena are 

 material. For example, Max Meyer's definition of in- 

 stinct, is that it is the connection of a receptive nerve, by 

 a reflex arc, through the brain, to a motor muscle. Berg- 

 son calls it, an animal mode of doing a thing, because it 

 has but one choice. A brook trout darts away upon sight 

 of a moving object, on the shore of the stream, because 

 its sense of sight is exceedingly keen, by having its eye 

 connected, by a large nerve to the very large brain center 

 of vision, and by other nerves running from these to the 

 motor muscles of tail and fins. The lobe of a trout 's 

 brain, containing the center of vision, is very large in 



