i MIND AS A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION 7 



ing a girder. In each case there is a certain correlation. 

 Actions are fitted together so that they form a connected 

 whole, or an intelligible plan. The difference is partly in 

 the scope of the plan, partly in the method of its con- 

 struction. The dog performs a single action with a view 

 to an immediate gratification. The man, whether states- 

 man or engineer, has to deal with a problem which it 

 would perhaps fill many pages even to formulate, and, in 

 adjusting each detail, has to think out a series of compli- 

 cated interactions, lest in filling a void at one place he may 

 disturb equilibrium somewhere else. If we turn to the 

 data by which dog and man are guided, we find a similar 

 result, of analogy and of contrast. The dog was trained 

 to beg ; that is, he learnt that by begging he obtained 

 food. When he applies the lesson, and begs of his own 

 accord, he connects this experience with his present 

 needs, brings it to bear on his present action. The 

 man also correlates experiences, but he has a thousand 

 and one data to take into account. A great propor- 

 tion of them may rest, not on his own observation, 

 but on the testimony of others, and he has to work 

 them up in all manner of ways, to reconstruct and 

 to calculate, before they can serve his purpose. There 

 is the same process of interconnecting distinct facts at 

 work, but as the interconnection is immeasurably broader 

 in its scope, so it is infinitely more subtle and intricate 

 in its methods. 



The growth of mind in life is, then, manifested in the 

 wider and more subtle interconnection of what is otherwise 

 separate and even inconsistent. The rise of reason is a 

 swelling harmony which gradually subdues discord, and 

 uses it to its own ends. To the true rationalism the 

 supreme reason is no dry pedant living apart and blighting 

 the free spontaneous life of impulse, but the animating 

 spirit that interpenetrates experience and gives to its other- 

 wise scattered fragments new and harmonious meaning. 

 Aristotle, 1 with much quaint nobility of phrase, has de- 

 scribed the inner harmony of the man in whom the real 

 or thinking self 2 is supreme, how he " agrees with him- 



1 Rth. Nic., IX. 4. 2 To SiavorjTiKov oTrep exaaros clvai So/cec. 



