COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



Whatever theory be held with regard to a fu- 

 ture life, he who admits that during the present 

 life mental action in the gross is correlated with 

 brain action in the gross can in no wise com- 

 plain of an attempt to trace out the detailed cor- 

 relations between mental action in the little and 

 brain action in the little. If the brain is the or- 

 gan of Mind, and if the daily manifestations of 

 Mind, in all their complexity, are conditioned 

 by the possession of such a complex organ, then 

 the simple ultimate elements of which the com- 

 plex mental manifestations are made up must 

 be severally conditioned by the simple ultimate 

 elements, structural and functional, which make 

 up the complex organ and its molecular activi- 

 ties. In proceeding to trace out these simple 

 ultimate correlations, we are merely analyzing 

 two complicated groups of phenomena into their 

 elements, in order that we may arrive at a bet- 

 ter practical understanding of them ; and at the 

 end of our inquiry we no more stand commit- 

 ted to any conclusion regarding the real nature 

 of either group than we did at the beginning. 

 When we admit that a blow on the head is likely 

 to make a man insensible, we are just as much 

 or just as little materialists as when we suggest 

 the hypothesis that cerebral inflammation, by 

 obstructing certain particular transit lines, may 

 prevent certain particular associations of ideas 

 and thus obliterate certain specific memories. 

 270 



