XIII.] ORGANIC SUBORDINATION. 151 



mind, as distinct as possible from biology, or the science 

 of life. At the same time I avow my opinion — though it 

 is, perhaps, only a question of words — that psychology is 

 really a branch of biology. 



We have seen that the relation of dependence of one 

 group of properties, or functions, on another, holds both in . 

 inorganic matter and in life. But when we come to vital 

 functions, we find a different though parallel relation, 

 unlike any in the inorganic world. I mean the suhordina- Subordina- 

 tion of one function to another : one function working organic 

 through another. As I have already stated, life acts frictions, 

 through the physical and chemical properties of matter ; 

 and it is equally true that the conscious, or vital functions, 

 or those of the mind, act through the unconscious ones. 

 These statements may need explanation. 



Life, as I have stated before, does not suspend the Matter 



1 1 • p 1 • 1 subordi- 



ordinary laws of matter and energy; lite works m accord- natetolife. 

 ance with those laws and through them, directing their 

 forces to the attainment of ends which they would not 

 have attained of themselves. Thus, though life is so com- 

 pletely de2)endent on the ordinary properties of matter that 

 it could not exist, nor even be conceived to exist, without 

 them; yet life makes those properties suhordinate to its 

 own purposes. Exactly parallel to this is the relation of 

 the mind to the unconscious life. The mind is dependent 

 for its existence on the unconscious life : mind is a function 

 of the nervous system ; and the primary purpose of the 

 nerves, as we have seen in the last chapter, is to enable the 

 muscles to work together. But mind has the power of Uncon- 

 making the unconscious life suhordinate to its purposes. subordi- 

 This last statement will perhaps be scarcely intelligible, uate to 

 Tt may be thought that whether the mind works alone, in 

 thought,^ or through the body, in voluntary muscular action, 

 all mentally directed action is conscious ; and that the only 

 unconscious life is the vegetative life, which is not under 

 the direct control of the mind at all. This, however, would 

 be a mistaken view. Paradoxical as it may sound, it is a 



1 TMs expression is not strictly accurate. I shall have to show farther 

 on, that all mental action is connected with bodily action. 



