MENTAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 129 



determined by the laws of physics, which hold man's 

 "will"' within the bounds of economical adjustment. 

 All reason is determined the same way. That is, man 

 is compelled to reason within natural law. 



Alfred Binet says "Reason is a synthesis of images." 

 It is a coalescense of images. It is sense impression, 

 arrested in its ordinary neural path, and sent over a new 

 one, where it meets with some resistance, because the 

 new path has not been worn smooth by long use. It is 

 like a ship bound for the East Indies from London. Its 

 natural route would be, via Cape of Good Hope. By 

 this route it would sail easily, and almost automatically, 

 to its destination. But the Suez canal has canalized a 

 new short cut, via the Strait of Gibraltar, Mediterranean 

 sea, and the Red sea. But the latter is not only a change 

 of direction, but that part of it through the canal is 

 slow, and requires new methods. It is not so automatic, 

 but in the aggregate is quicker. It is not reflex action, 

 but a deliberate, studied movement, requiring intelli- 

 gence, more than instinct. 



The conscious psychical effect, of this arrested reflex, 

 is called memory, reason, or imagination, according to 

 the particular center of the cerebrum excited; and the 

 final manifestation of the energy thus aroused, in nervous 

 activity resulting in muscular movement, is called will. 

 The anatomical fact that, in some way unknown, a varia- 

 tion occasionally occurs in the way of added convolution 

 of nerve matter, or facility of molecular motion, in the 

 cortex of the brain, gives the organism, so favored, new 

 power in co-ordinating sense impression. Or, if Meyer 

 is correct, these variations are new nerve threads form- 

 ing new short cut connections in the brain. The human 

 brain has evolved by reason of these biological varia- 

 tions, and not by its own ' ' will. ' ' 



