Mental Evolution, 493 



to the learned and eminent Professor , and vice versa. 



And so, too, no doubt, does the system of ideas of the white 



man (who introduces firearms and firewater, and preaches 



[fc the gospel of forgiveness and temperance) appear to the 



^Bpoor savage. Each in his degree wonders how this falsity, 



^■this incongruity, can have had a natural genesis. But in 



^Beach case the falsity and the incongruity is not within the 



^■system itself, but between different systems. 



^m Once more, I repeat that if the individual nature of the 



^B systems of ideas be not adequately grasped, the nature of 



^Bmental evolution will not be apprehended. States of con- 



^Beciousness can only be determined by other states of con- 



^» sciousness ; and states of consciousness are for the indi- 



i^« vidual subject, and for him alone. Conceptual ideas are 



states of consciousness; and "falsity to nature" means, 



and can only mean, incongruity with the environing states 



of consciousness in the individual mind. For the savage 



there is no falsity to nature in his fetishism. The idea 



presents no incongruity with his system of ideas ; no more 



incongruity than filed teeth, flattened head, or pierced nose 



do to his standard of beauty. It is with our system of 



ideas {i.e. mine or yours) that his fetishism is false and 



incongruous. The falsity or incongruity, I repeat, is not 



within the system itself, but between different systems. 



It may still, however, be said — Only one interpretation 

 of nature can be true ; all others must be false. And the 

 falsity is not merely incongruity with other ideas in other 

 systems of thought or belief ; it is falsity to the plain and 

 obvious facts of nature. 



We may freely admit that only one interpretation of 

 nature can be true. But who is to determine which ? Who 

 can decide the question between monist and materialist ? 

 Who dare arbitrate between the bishop and the professor ? 

 The criterion of fitness in this case, as in others, is survival ; 

 and who can say what existing interpretation of nature (if 

 any) shall outlive all its competitors ? Who can say what 

 will be the nature of the further evolution of any existing 

 philosophical creed 7 The elimination of the false is a slow 



