LIFE AND MIND 



that mind and nervous action are the subjective 

 and objective faces of the same thing, we remain 

 utterly incapable of seeing, and even of imagin- 

 ing, how the two are related. Mind still con- 

 tinues to us a something without any kinship to 

 other things." 



Thus we conclude that psychology — though, 

 from the objective point of view it may be re- 

 garded as a branch of biology, in the same ab- 

 stract sense in which biology may be regarded 

 as a branch of geology, and geology as a branch 

 of astronomy — has nevertheless an equal claim 

 with any of these to be ranked as a distinct sci- 

 ence. From the subjective point of view it has 

 a superior claim to any of the others. Since here 

 the phenomena studied are directly given in the 

 consciousness of the investigator, there arises 

 a distinction more fundamental than those by 

 which the various departments of objective sci- 

 ence are marked oif from each other. And, in- 

 deed, without some of the data furnished by 

 this unique subjective science, it is impossible 

 to obtain the premises of philosophy ; as will 

 at once be admitted, on recollecting the topics 

 which occupied us in the first part of this work. 

 Psychology is therefore distinct alike from bio- 

 logy and from other sciences, in its problems 

 and in its theorems. The problem of biology 

 is to formulate the laws of nutrition and repro- 

 duction, muscular contraction and nervous irri- 

 117 



