The Relation of Organic to Mental Evohition. 273 



by the necessities of organic existence. A rigorous pro- 

 cess of elimination, under natural selection, decides which 

 shall survive. It is just because experience is a guide 

 to practical life that it has been fostered and developed. 

 But experience is a mental product. Only in so far as 

 the events of practical life are symbolized in consciousness 

 can they be effective for guidance and control. And here 

 it is absolutely essential to grasp this truth; that 

 throughout its tvhole range, from the earliest glimmerings 

 of sentience to the highest products of human idealism, the 

 environment in mental development is itself of the psychical 

 order. If this truth be not grasped, all attempts at solving 

 the problems of mental evolution are inevitably foredoomed 

 to failure. 



This is not likely to be gainsaid or misunderstood by 

 those who are acquainted with the teachings of psychology. 

 Others may be assured that there is nothing here that is 

 in the least opposed to a full and free acceptance of the 

 objective reality, as such, of the world in which the 

 animal is developed. Stress is indeed laid on the fact that 

 the world is objective to and for conscious experience. But 

 this is precisely the view of common sense, when it is not 

 spoilt by a little dose of ill-digested philosophy. If experi- 

 ence is itself a mental product, it is in terms of mental 

 products and in these alone that it must be explained. 

 Suppose, to illustrate the matter by a concrete example, a 

 young bird seizes a bee and proceeds to swallow it, but is 

 stung in the process ; he thus practically learns the nature 

 of a bit of the objective world in which he lives. But 

 every step of the process is taken in the field of his 

 conscious experience; and the whole drama of his life- 

 experience is a drama in and for consciousness. For 

 experience is, it must be repeated, a conscious process. 

 And every bit of experience, no matter how trivial, no 



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