438 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



evolution of Mind as the dominating principle in this 

 world. If still further extending our view we take 

 into account on the one hand the organic growth on which 

 intelligence rests, on the other hand the generic function of 

 Mind in the world, we may describe the whole process as 

 the development of organisation and trace its beginning 

 to the first germ of life. Whether this unity of tendency 

 can be properly regarded as the expression of a purpose is 

 not so clear. What is clear is that in the earlier stages no 

 such purpose is realised by any of the individuals con- 

 cerned in the evolutionary process. 1 There are elements, 

 fragments of the purpose, realised in the lower stages, and 

 these gradually come together into that wider purpose 

 which makes of subsequent evolution an organic de- 

 velopment. 



2. But are we right in calling it an organic develop- 

 ment ? Should we not rather, if we wish to understand 

 what human progress as designed by man would be, 

 compare it to a purpose executed by human fore-thought ? 

 There is certainly one point which should be noticed. An 

 organic growth in the ordinary sense follows a strictly 

 determinate course. Not only its beginning and end, but 

 each intervening stage follows in rigid sequence, each 

 depending on and arising out of that which went before. 

 Certainly there may be deviations of a kind, but these 

 proceed by equally uniform laws from abnormalities of the 

 environment. Now, if the development of humanity 

 were fixed in this way, there would be no need of in- 

 telligence. The function of intelligence is to adjust 

 variable relations, but if the development of the human 

 species were, like the physical development of each in- 



1 Since certain biological processes have somehow engendered that 

 bodily organisation which is capable of mental life, those particular 

 processes must be deemed a part of orthogenic evolution. But this is not 

 to say that there is any plan in the conditions determining survival as such. 

 On the contrary the sort of organism that is a fit vehicle for mind is only 

 one among many that are fitted to survive, all of which are in fact fostered 

 by the biological conditions with the impartiality of complete indifference. 

 If we assume the efficacy of conation in determining structure we may (as 

 shown above, p. 419) impute the entire work of organisation to the action 

 of Mind, but even so it would not in the lower stage be a mind conscious 

 of its supreme purpose, but dimly conscious, fragmentary in effort, and 

 not in the full sense purposive at all. 



