142 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



It will be generally conceded that the attention 

 which the world is giving to science must in time have 

 its psychological effect upon the collective mind. 

 But that the resultant of this general focusing of 

 mental energy will be love, might give rise to contro- 

 versy. Professor Royce would no doubt parallelo- 

 gram it as loyalty ; others would veer it in the direc- 

 tion of cosmic consciousness ; and some of us who are 

 mathematically minded think to resolve it into 

 fourth-dimensional insight. Perhaps, like the blind 

 men who went to see the elephant, we shall find that 

 these are but different aspects of the same truth. 



The evolution of the mind has been a progress to- 

 ward a unity of consciousness which is at once the 

 basis of attention and of love. It will be demurred 

 that there are many kinds of love. Quite so; and 

 perhaps for the very reason that there are many 

 kinds of attention. We will begin our study with 

 personal love, and proceed from that to communal, 

 since that is the order of experience for the major- 

 ity of persons, notwithstanding Kropotkin 1 thinks 

 to find it the reverse for the race. 



Although love is usually ascribed to some virtue 

 inherent in the object of its passion, it is a recognised 

 fact that the mental attitude has much to do with its 

 engendering. The child attends best to the study he 

 likes, but the teacher knows that the liking is contin- 

 gent upon the attention. The biographies of great 



i P. KROPOTKIN: Mutual Aid. 



