COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



last we reach civilized man, whose intelligence 

 responds to every variety of external stimulus, 

 whose ordinary needs are supplied by imple- 

 ments of amazing complexity, and whose men- 

 tal sequences may be determined by circum- 

 stances as remote as the Milky Way and as 

 ancient as the birth of the Solar System. 



When viewed under this aspect the phe- 

 nomena of life and of intelHgence are so simi- 

 lar that it is difficult to keep them separate in 

 our series of illustrations. As we proceed to 

 treat of psychology, we shall much better ap- 

 preciate the importance of the truth which I am 

 now expounding. Restricting ourselves here, 

 as far as possible, to physiological illustrations, 

 let us note that in any organism life continues 

 just so long as relations in the environment are 

 balanced by internal relations, and no longer. 

 The difference in result between a jump from 

 a horse-car and a jump from an express train 

 running at full speed depends simply on the 

 difference in the ability of the contracting mus- 

 cles to neutralize a small or a large quantity of 

 arrested momentum. The motor energy with 

 which the head is carried forward until it strikes 

 the ground is exactly the surplus of external 

 force to which the organism has failed to op- 

 pose an internal force. If the resulting concus- 

 sion of the brain is not so great as to induce in- 

 stant death, but only causes inflammation, with 

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