228 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



THE PROCESS NATURAL. The question is how the 

 excitation of the receptive nerve, by an incident force, 

 proceeding from objects in the environment produces 

 in us a state of consciousness, and the particular 

 forms of psychical phenomena, called conception, rea- 

 son, memory and will. We can only recognize the 

 physiological marks accompanying these phenomena. 

 The manifestations are objective. When the images 

 of externality are formed on the cortex of the brain, it 

 is done by a natural process of molecular motion, and 

 results in consciousness. It is also a passing condition 

 "immediate experience." The difference between 

 the perception of one person, and another, of the same 

 object, as well as, the perception of an imaginary thing, 

 not seen by another, can be called subjective. It is 

 this excitation of the nerve tissue of the brain by the 

 incident forces of objectivity, and the process of the 

 fusion of the images thus formed, that is the thinking 

 process. "A mind and its experiences are realities 

 that are presentable to sense, as the brain, and its ac- 

 tions. In that respect the mind and experiences are 

 not parallel with Nature, but a part of it. And on 

 the other hand the facts of nature including the brain, 

 whenever they are phenomena, are not parallel with 

 mental phenomena, but a part of them." (W. Mitchell.) 



Now, coming back to the physical marks accompany- 

 ing the act of thinking, they are very clear to the per- 

 ception. 



"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." His 

 thoughts are indicated by outward acts, in the motion 

 of the muscles, e. g., in speech, or in written language. 

 If not in either of these -ways, then the intensity of 

 them can be determined by the following marks; ex- 

 pansion of the arteries leading to the brain, and the 



