Re Sane 
a Ne ae 
J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 147 
minded? Is the science of psychology concerned only with mental 
processes of the -ing order; or is it concerned also with all manner of 
objective -eds? One must choose. So long as we are careful to dis- 
tinguish the -ed from the -ing it is better, I think, to include both. 
Dependence and Correlation. 
On these terms what is minded is no less mental than the process 
of minding. But I suggest that the word ‘consciousness’ should be 
reserved for that which Berkeley spoke of as ‘in mind by way of 
attribute,’ or, in Mr. Alexander’s way of putting it, as ‘a quality’ of 
that organism which is conscious in minding. Anyhow, consciousness 
is here in the world. Creative Evolution says: Yes, here in the world, 
but not of the world. It acts (as élan vital) into or through the 
organism regarded as a physical system; but its Source is a disparate 
order of Being to which, in and for itself, and an sich, it properly 
belongs. It depends on the physical organism in act but not in Being. 
Now this, I urge, is a metempirical explanation of given facts, but not 
an empirical interpretation of them as (in my view) science tries to 
interpret. And its cause should be tried before a different court of 
appeal from that of science. Hence under emergent evolution one uses 
the word ‘ dependence’ in another sense, and urges that the very being 
of consciousness, as a quality of the organism, depends upon (or implies 
the presence of) the quality of life as prior in the natural order of emer- 
gence. If we enumerate successive stages, then consciousness is a 
quality (4) of certain things (very complex and-highly organised things) 
in this world. In these same things there is also present the quality 
of life (3), and a specially differentiated chemical constitution (2). 
Empirically we never find (4) without (3), nor (8) without (2); and we 
express this by saying that consciousness depends on (or implies the 
presence of) life; and that life depends on a specialised kind of chemical 
constitution. It is an irreversible order of dependence. But there are 
things, such as plants, in which we find (as is commonly held) life 
without consciousness; and other things, such as minerals, in which 
there is chemical constitution (not, of course ‘the same’ chemical con- 
stitution) without life. Furthermore, there seems to have been a time 
when consciousness had not yet been evolved; and an earlier time at 
which life had no existence. But this or that chemical constitution 
is itself an emergent quality (2) of certain things ; and there was probably 
a yet earlier stage of evolution at which even this quality had not yet 
emerged—a purely physical stage (1) at which (let us say) electrons 
afforded the ultimate terms in relation within physical events, con- 
tinuously changing under electromagnetic (and, of course, also under 
spatio-temporal) relations. That is as far as I, with my limited powers 
of speculative vision, can probe. Mr. Alexander, with perhaps more 
piercing insight, goes further. For him such entities as electrons are 
themselves emergent from the yet more fundamental matrix of space- 
time. For him the ultimate terms are point-instants (pure motions). 
_ I eannot here discuss his fascinating but rather elusive treatment. As 
at present advised I can find no satisfactory foothold without electrons, 
or something of the sort, as points d’appus. 
