482 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



both). It sees not only that the one series does not in any 

 case interfere with the other, but that the conception of 

 such an interference involves an impossibility and incon- 

 gruity. As soon could one speak of the convexities of one 

 side of a curved surface interfering with the corresponding 

 concavities of the other side, as of the metakinetic series 

 interfering with the kinetic series, which is its other aspect. 

 But if the one cannot interfere with the other, neither can 

 the one exist without the other. To apply the same 

 analogy, as well might one speak of the convexities of a 

 curved surface existing without the concavities of its other 

 side, as of the kinetic phenomena of organic life as being con- 

 ceivably the same in the absence of conscious intelligence. 



Eemembering, then, that just as the environment of 

 kinetic phenomena is itself kinetic, with which conscious- 

 ness can in no wise interfere, so is the environment of 

 metakinetic phenomena, perception, thought, and emotion, 

 itself metakinetic. Let us now proceed to consider some of 

 the implications. 



We have already seen that, in what we may regard as 

 the earlier phases of organic and mental life, the series 

 between stimulus and activity is a simple one, which may 

 be kinetically represented thus — ' 



stimulus — ^ neural processes — > motor-activities ; 



but that when inhibition is developed, there arises an 

 alternative, thus — 



„,. , , j> motor-activities. 



Stimulus— > neural processes ^^^ ,,.,... ^^ e 

 >»• inhibition tnereof. 



And we further saw that, as a result of this inhibition, the 

 entering stimuli, instead of, as it were, rapidly running out 

 of the organism in motor- activities, set up a more and 

 more complex series of diffused and reverberating neura^ 

 processes in the brain or other central ganglia. 



From the metakinetic view-point these diffused and 

 reverberating neural processes in the brain culminate in 

 consciousness as thought, aesthetic emotion, and the higher 

 conceptual mental activities. Deeply as these influence 



