COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



X Y : it has to investigate its nature, its origin, 

 and its meaning." ^ 



It is true, as the last chapter showed us, that 

 biology also presupposes a reference to pheno- 

 mena outside the organism, the very defini- 

 tion of Life being " the continuous adjustment 

 of internal relations to external relations ; '* so 

 that Mind here appears to be but the highest 

 form of Life. We see here the difficulty of 

 sharply demarcating adjacent provinces of na- 

 ture. Nevertheless there is a broad distinction, 

 though not a sharp one. Exclude from biologi- 

 cal problems all those adjustments which con- 

 stitute mental reaction upon the environment, 

 and the only external factors remaining are 

 those general conditions of temperature, mois- 

 ture, food and the like, which are taken for 

 granted once for all. While in each special 

 problem of psychology the relation between 

 internal and external relations is the main sub- 

 ject of inquiry, on the other hand, in special 

 problems of biology, the relation between the 

 internal processes and these general external 

 factors is not the chief, but a subordinate, sub- 

 ject of inquiry. Digestion, for instance, implies 

 food ; and " food implies neighbouring plants 

 or animals ; but this implication scarcely enters 

 into our study of digestion, unless we ask the 



^ Spencer, Principles of Psycholog^y vol. \. p. 132. [Part 

 I. chapter vii. § 53.] 



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