An Introduction to a Biology 



side world, and so many new channels through which 

 his mind can flow out into, and run about amongst, 

 external objects. The word " discourse," which 

 occurs in the quotation at the head of this section, 

 expresses exactly what the human mind has done : 

 it has run about in all directions. But in this dis- 

 coursing man's mind has run along the same tracks 

 as those taken by the progress of his control over 

 matter. The mind at first followed in the paths 

 cut out by the hand ; then, looking ever farther 

 ahead, gradually insinuated itself into the position 

 of leader. So that now it is not necessary to make 

 a device with the hand, to see if it will work ; the 

 mind is so familiar with the properties of matter 

 that it can foretell whether it will work or not before 

 it has been made. The human mind owes this long 

 range, so to speak, which distinguishes it from that 

 of the other animals, to the apprenticeship which it 

 served in the factory, in the most literal and ele- 

 mental sense of the word. It was because it learnt 

 to think in terms of matter that it acquired the 

 habit of looking forward, of foretelling. If the 

 earliest object of the mind's interest had been life, 

 it would never have developed the long range which 

 it acquired from its familiarity with inert matter. 

 Can a man and a woman foretell what their children 

 will be like ? No. It was because the education 

 of the mind began with a study, for purely utili- 

 tarian ends, of the properties of substances like 

 wood, flint and leather, and the behaviour of 

 things like the lever, the spring and the wheel ; it 

 was because the mind received its early training 

 in a course of applied mechanics that it was able 



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