The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 275 



in its early development was strictly limited within the 

 narrow lines of complete subservience to this end. Mind 

 was evolved in closest touch and most vital linkage with 

 organic development ; but only in so far as it ministered to 

 that organic development was it permitted to evolve at all. 

 Whatever may be the efficient causes which are at work 

 in organic evolution, they inexorably limit throughout 

 animal life, individual and racial, the range of mental 

 evolution. In so far as conscious adjustment aids in the 

 struggle for existence ; in so far as through it the animal 

 is better able to escape danger, to secure a more favour- 

 able habitat, to gain a mate and beget progeny ; the 

 animal possessed of intelligence will escape elimination, 

 transmit his power of conscious adjustment, and contribute 

 to the propagation of his race. Without fully subscribing 

 to the doctrine of the aU-sufficiency of natural selection, we 

 may yet say that natural selection will exercise a deter- 

 mining influence in deciding the course which conscious 

 adjustment must take. 



We may thus regard the drama of conscious organic 

 evolution from two points of view; from that which has 

 reference primarily to organic progress, and from that 

 which has reference primarily to mental development. 

 Let us take the organic point of view first. Before the 

 introduction of consciousness as a factor in progress, 

 organic evolution is dependent entirely upon the directly 

 responsive adjustment of the plastic organism to the 

 environmental influences. If consciousness accompanies 

 this adjustment, it is merely as an adjunct without power 

 of guiding. It is like the passenger on a ship that is 

 aware of her evolutions, but is absolutely without control 

 over them. So far, therefore, there is adjustment which 

 is either unconscious or merely accompanied by conscious- 

 ness as an adjunct — we have no means of determining 



