LIFE AND MIND 



relations set up within the polyp, though in- 

 volving nascent sensitiveness, are nevertheless, 

 in the absence of specialized nerve matter, un- 

 attended by consciousness, and therefore cannot 

 strictly be classed as psychical ; on the other 

 hand, the relations set up within civilized man 

 are almost purely psychical, involving only such 

 physico-chemical elements as are necessitated 

 by the fact that conscious activity does not go 

 on unattended by molecular changes in nerve 

 tissue. It appears, therefore, that while in the 

 vegetal world, and in the lower regions of the 

 animal world, the life is purely or almost purely 

 physico-chemical, it becomes more and more 

 predominantly psychical as we ascend in the 

 animal world, until at the summit it is mainly 

 psychical. The continuous adjustment of inner 

 to outer relations, which both constitutes life 

 and maintains it from moment to moment, is a 

 process which, at first purely physiological, be- 

 comes ever more distinctly psychological. 



From the facts of comparative anatomy we 

 may elicit a parallel truth. In standard works 

 on human anatomy it is customary to distin- 

 guish between the vegetative organs (compris- 

 ing the nutritive and reproductive systems), 

 which are developed from the endoderm of the 

 embryo, and the animal organs (comprising the 

 nervo-muscular system), which are developed 

 from the ectoderm. Not unfrequently these are 

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