COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



The mind of the infant cannot be compared to a 

 blank sheet, but rather to a sheet already writ- 

 ten over here and there with invisible ink, which 

 tends to show itself as the chemistry of experi- 

 ence supplies the requisite conditions. Or, drop- 

 ping metaphor, the infant's mind is correlated 

 with the functions of a complex mass of nerve 

 tissue which already has certain definite nutri- 

 tive tendencies. On the other hand, the school 

 of Leibnitz and Kant was wrong in assuming 

 a kind of intuitional knowledge not ultimately 

 due to experience. For the ideas formerly called 

 innate or intuitional are the results of nutritive 

 tendencies in the cerebral tissue, which have 

 been strengthened by the uniform experience 

 of countless generations, until they have become 

 as resistless as the tendency of the dorsal line 

 of the embryo to develop into a vertebral col- 

 umn. The strength of Locke's position lay in 

 the assertion that all knowledge is ultimately 

 derived from experience, — that is, from the 

 intercourse between the organism and the en- 

 vironment. The strength of Kant's position 

 lay in the recognition of the fact that the brain 

 has definite tendencies, even at birth. The 

 Doctrine of Evolution harmonizes these two 

 seemingly opposite views, by showing us that 

 in learning we are merely acquiring latent ca- 

 pacities of reproducing ideas ; and that beneath 

 these capacities lie more or less powerful nu- 

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