70 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. n 



or between opacity and translucence in its environment, 

 with the keen-scented bloodhound, and the far-sighted 

 vulture. And the increase of complexity may be appre- 

 ciated by comparing the motions respectively gone through 

 by the polyp on the one hand, and by the dog and vulture 

 on the other, while securing and disposing of their prey. In 

 the next chapter it will be shown that the advance from 

 lower to higher forms of life consists in the orderly establish- 

 ment of relations within the organism, answering to external 

 relations of coexistence and sequence, that are continually 

 more special, more remote in space and in time, and more 

 heterogeneous ; until at last we reach civilized man, whose 

 intelligence responds to every variety of external stimulus, 

 whose ordinary needs are supplied by implements of amaziug 

 complexity, and whose mental sequences may be determined 

 by circumstances as remote as the Milky Way and as ancient 

 as the birth of the Solar System. 



When viewed under this aspect the phenomena of life and 

 of intelligence are so similar that it is difficult to keep them 

 separate in our series of illustrations. As we proceed to 

 treat of psychology, we shall much better appreciate the 

 importance of the truth which I am now expounding. 

 Eestricting ourselves here, as far as possible, to physiological 

 illustiaions, let us note that in any organism life continues 

 just so long as relations in the environment are balanced by 

 internal relations, and no longer. The difference in result 

 between a jump from a horse-car and a jump from an 

 express train running at full speed, depends simply on the 

 difference in the ability of the contracting muscles to neu- 

 tralize a small or a large quantity of arrested momentum. 

 The motor energy with which the head is carried forward 

 until it strikes the ground, is exactly the surplus of external 

 force to which the organism has failed to oppose an internal 

 force. If the resulting concussion of the brain is not so 

 great as to induce instant death, but only causes inflamma- 



