364 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



remain in greater or less disharmony with other elements. 

 For each element has its function in some specific structure 

 alone, each structure in some specific higher structure, and 

 except in this appropriate synthesis there is always disorder. 

 Development consists in synthesis upon synthesis, and 

 until the process is complete discord remains. 



5. In the higher organisms the work of establishing new 

 correlations, and therefore in particular the work of adapt- 

 ing the organism to a higher synthesis, is the function of 

 Mind, and in particular of that union of Mind-functions 

 which constitutes consciousness. The growth of harmony 

 becomes, if it is not from the first, identical with the growth 

 of Mind. Of the beginnings of Mind we can get no 

 direct empirical evidence, because a mind-function is not 

 something which can be directly seen or touched. But 

 applying to Mind the general considerations as to Develop- 

 ment, which have been explained, we regard it essentially 

 as a mode of activity dependent for its specific character on 

 the co-operation of elements. These elements, as long 

 as they exist apart, would not constitute the peculiar form 

 of unity which is Mind, but would be related to it as the 

 chemical molecules which constitute a cell are related to the 

 living cell. If these molecules come together to form a 

 cell, they undergo some development either by the unlock- 

 ing, or by a mutual modification in the action, of pre- 

 existing energies, and if that cell is conscious, the pre- 

 existing energies must be conceived as containing or 

 exerting activities which unite to form the activities of 

 consciousness, just as they exert pressures and tensions 

 which in combination yield the phenomena of contractility. 

 That is to say, mind in the organism is not to be conceived 

 as either external or as growing out of something like 

 matter, taken as wholly discrepant from it. It is to be 

 conceived as a synthesis of elements, which do not function 

 except in combination. 



6. Thus the growth of harmony involves the evolution 

 of individual minds, which constantly enter into deeper and 

 wider relations with one another. But beyond this our 



