502 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



rounding world of phenomena is constructed in mental 

 symbolism. 



The brain itself, however, is part of the world of 

 phenomena thus constructed in mental symbolism ; and 

 the world, therefore, dissolves in pure idealism, leaving 

 only a fleeting series of states of consciousness, if we do 

 not assume the existence of a system of " things in them- 

 selves " (noumena), of which kineses and metakineses are 

 the phenomenal manifestations. Whether the "things in 

 themselves " in any sense resemble their phenomenal mani- 

 festations, we cannot say. It is as difficult philosophically 

 to conceive that they can as it is practically to conceive 

 that they do not. And since, whether they do or do not, 

 the world we live in is phenomenal ; since it is to 

 phenomena that we have to adapt our conduct ; since it is 

 with phenomena that all our thoughts and emotions have 

 reference ; since the world we construct in mental symbolism 

 is the world in which we live and move and have our 

 being ; it is not only convenient, but logically justifiable, 

 to call this world of phenomena the really existing world 

 for us human-folk and other sentient organisms. 



As in the kinetic interneural system, or brain, so, too, 

 in the metakinetic system, no modification of the meta- 

 kinesis which is out of harmony with the existing meta- 

 kinesis can be incorporated therewith. Such attempted 

 modification is eliminated through incongruity* 



In the lower stages of mental evolution, those which 

 belong to the perceptual sphere, where the neuroses are 

 closely connected with the life-preserving activities of the 

 organism, the survival or non-survival of the system of 

 neuroses is largely dependent on the fitness of the asso- 

 ciated activities to the conditions of life. But in the higher 

 stages of mental evolution, those which belong to the con- 

 ceptual sphere, the connection of certain brain-neuroses 

 with life-preserving motor-activities becomes less close and 

 direct. The corresponding ideas, thoughts, and emotions 

 become floated off into a more abstract region. Here the 

 system of ideas, as such, that is to say, so far as they are 



