172 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



again co-ordinated into abstractions and generalizations 

 by higher neural centers. The aggregate of these feel- 

 ings is called the mind. Knowledge is the psychical 

 phase, denoting the physiological wealth of associated 

 and systematized nervous action in the encephalon. It 

 is the culmination of sense impressions, acting by molec- 

 ular and chemical motion, through the nervous struc- 

 ture, upon the motor centers of the cerebrum. We must 

 understand that the resuJting consciousness is of only 

 the objective thing or fact or problem. As remarked 

 before, late experiments and investigations tend toward 

 proving that the functions of nerve matter and those 

 of ordinary muscular tissue are in no way different in 

 kind. The only advantage to the organism the nerve 

 tissue gives, is the greater rapidity with which it con- 

 veys sensations and produces responses or reactions 

 It, of course, gives a wider and completer response to 

 complex environment. 



MIND, THE PROPERTY OP ALL ORGANISMS. The nerve 

 tissue in the human individual is so large a part of the 

 organism, that its activities include abstracting, dis- 

 criminating and comparing the qualities, and the 

 meaning of sensations in a very much larger degree 

 than in any of the lower forms of life. But the animal, 

 with or without nerves, and the members of the vege- 

 table kingdom, have a degree of "mind." "The hum- 

 blest organism is conscious, in proportion to its power 

 to move freely." (Bergson.) 



"I know of no test, by which, the reaction of the 

 leaves of the Sundew, and of other plants, to stimuli, 

 so fully and carefully studied by Mr. Darwin, can be 

 distinguished from those acts of contraction, following 

 upon stimuli, which are called 'reflex' in animals." 

 (Huxley.) 



