1885. ] The Relations of Mind and Matter. 845 
THE RELATIONS OF MIND AND MATTER. 
BY CHARLES MORRIS. 
(Continued from p. 767, August number.) 
IV. THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF THE BRAIN. 
WE have, in the preceding sections, reached several conclu- 
sions as to the character, development and mode of opera- 
tion of the nervous organism. We have next to consider this 
organism in its relation to the development of the mind. This is 
undoubtedly the most difficult of the whole broad scope of prob- 
lems to which science has addressed itself. Much has been writ- 
ten upon it, but we can scarcely say much that is satisfactory. It 
remains yet in great measure an open question, though a far nar- 
rower one than of old. Science has strongly attacked the out- 
works, if not the citadel of the problem, and has effectually dis- 
persed the cloud of immaterial existences about which the 
thoughts of men so long hovered. It is becoming clearly evident 
that all existence is based upon substance. It may not be that 
species of substance which we call matter. For all we know 
there may be many species of substance. Yet there is no resting- 
point between something and nothing, and immateriality sinks 
into the category of nothingness. 
But we are able to bring the conditions of the mind much nearer 
to the ordinary conditions of the material universe than this. The 
old idea that the soul is brought full fledged from some distant 
- limbo of souls, and implanted in the infantile organism, might 
serve for the philosophers of a medizval dreamland, but can 
hardly be sustained in this wide-awake age. To us the germ of 
the mental organism forms part of the physical germ, and the 
whole development of the mind takes place through the influences 
acting upon the body. It is well known that the degree of the 
mental development is in close accordance with the variety and 
quantity of these external influences. If the body be closed 
against their entrance, through loss of the organs of the higher 
Senses, the mind remains undeveloped. If all the senses were 
shut off and no external influence permitted to reach the germ of 
the mind, it must continue in the germinal state. In like manner 
if the senses be active, but the brain, the inner organ of the mind, 
be inactive or abnormal in condition, the mental development is 
similarly checked. All this needs no argument. Every one 
