i MENTAL EVOLUTION 17 



phases by a philosophical analysis, and thirdly, to apply the 

 results of analysis to the elucidation of the efficacy and 

 scope of Mind as a cause. It will be argued finally that 

 the historical review and the philosophical analysis converge 

 upon the same result, in the sense that the process of evolu- 

 tion when viewed in its completeness serves as a concrete 

 verification of the general theory of Mind which analysis 

 suggests, while conversely the theory serves to interpret 

 and explain the course of evolution. If this is so, we shall 

 have some ground for the belief that our metaphysical con- 

 ception of Mind is not a piece of abstract reasoning that 

 stands in no contact with living fact, but serves as the 

 explanation of a vast historic movement. At the same 

 time we shall have reason to think that this movement 

 which we trace through the whole sweep of terrestrial 

 evolution is no secondary and isolated result of a unique 

 collection of circumstances, but is of the essence of the 

 world process. Our empirical account will in fact yield us 

 a picture of Mind neither as the Lord of all, nor as the 

 casual bye-product of the clash of forces, but as an impulse 

 towards organic harmony working under limiting con- 

 ditions which it gradually subdues, and in such an impulse 

 on a still vaster scale we shall find in the end the most 

 reasonable interpretation of the vital process of the cosmic 

 order. 



