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THE PRIMAL MIND 
I 
NE of my problems is how to reconcile the 
unity of creation with the fact, or apparent 
fact, that while the vast mass of the visible universe 
is governed by purely physical laws, a compara- 
tively small part of it is dominated by laws of an- 
other order, and is the abode of life and intelligence. 
How these two parts or phases of the cosmos are 
related, how we can ascribe purpose and intelli- 
gence to living matter, and deny them to the non- 
living, without doing violence to our sense of the 
oneness of universal nature, is the problem. Are we 
to believe that the universe is part rational and part 
irrational? — that mind is operative in the grass, the 
trees, the animals, and not in the stars and sidereal 
systems? 
Emerson celebrates 
“the primal mind 
That flows in streams, that breathes in wind.” 
But unless we identify mind with cosmic or solar 
energy, Emerson’s lines do not seem especially 
happy. Is it possible to think of mind, or anything 
like intelligence, as we know it in this world, as 
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