THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



from the external world — has been gradually evolved 

 from the simple sensitiveness to light of the lower 

 animals, by the development of a transparent lens. In 

 the same way the conscious soul, the internal mirror of 

 the mind's own action, has been produced as a new 

 wonder of life out of the unconscious associations in 

 the phronema of our earlier vertebrate ancestors. 



From this thorough and unprejudiced appreciation of 

 the biology of the phronema it follows that the knowl- 

 edge of truth, the aim of all science, is a natural physio- 

 logical process, and that it must have its organs like 

 all other psychic functions. These organs have been 

 revealed to us so fully in the advance of biology during 

 the last half-century that we may be said to have a 

 generally satisfactory idea of the natural character of 

 their organization and action, though we are still far 

 from enjoying a complete anatomical and physiological 

 insight into their details. The most important acquisi- 

 tion we have made is the conviction that all knowledge 

 was originally acquired a posteriori and from experience, 

 and that its first sources are the impressions made on 

 our organs of sense. Both these — the peripheral sense- 

 organs — and the phronema, or central psychic organ, 

 are subject to the law of substance; and the action of 

 the phronema is just as reducible to chemical and 

 physical processes as the action of the organs of sense. 



In diametrical opposition to our monistic and em- 

 pirical theory of knowledge, the prevailing dualistic 

 metaphysics assumes that our knowledge is only partly 

 empirical and a posteriori, and is partly quite indepen- 

 dent of experience and a priori, or due to the original con- 

 stitution of our "immaterial" mind. The powerful au- 

 thority of Kant has lent enormous prestige to this mystic 

 and supernatural view, and the academic philosophers 

 of our time are endeavoring to maintain it. A "return 

 to Kant" is held to be the only means of salvation for 



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