Mental Evolution. 483 



conduct, they are, to a large extent, independent of con- 

 duct. A man's thoughts and aesthetic yearnings may be of 

 the truest and purest ; but in the moment of temptation 

 and action, when stimuli crowding in run through rapidly 

 to action, he falls away. His conduct belies his ideals. 

 Nevertheless, the ideals were there, but too far away in the 

 region of thought and abstract aesthetics to be operative in 

 action. 



Now, we may divide the metakinetic concomitants of 

 neural processes into two categories : first, those which are 

 intimately associated with neural processes directly leading 

 to motor-activities ; secondly, those which are, so to speak, 

 floated off from these into the region of thought and 

 aesthetic emotion, and which are therefore associated with 

 neural processes only indirectly or remotely leading to 

 motor-activities. Both have, of course, kinetic equivalents 

 in neural processes, but the former are directly associated 

 with activities and conduct, and the latter are not. 



Let me exemplify. Interpretations of nature, theories, 

 hypotheses, belong to the latter class. Their association 

 with activities is in the main indirect. Whether we believe 

 in materialism, idealism, or monism, our conduct is much 

 the same. People got out of the way of falling stones, 

 and guarded against being caught by the incoming tide, 

 before science comprised both phenomena under the theory 

 of gravitation. The conduct of human-folk was not much 

 altered by the replacement of the geocentric by a helio- 

 centric explanation of the solar system. It matters not 

 much how a man explains the lightning's flash so long as 

 he avoids being struck. The bird continues to soar quite 

 irrespective of man's prolonged discussion of how it can be 

 explained on mechanical principles. And in general the 

 practical activities of mankind remain much the same (I 

 do not say quite the same, for there are remote and indirect 

 results of the greatest importance in the long run) whatever 

 their particular theory of the universe may be. 



Now, let us note the implication. We have said a good 

 deal in earlier chapters about natural elimination and 



