The Metaphysics of a Naturalist 
21 
expression which varies in richness and significance as the horizon of our 
experience widens (p. 279). 
Looking again at the simple facts of sensori-motor response, it 
appears that we have neglected a most important point in the 
process when we say that the force is all returned, viz: that its 
form has changed and the nature of the change depends on the 
nature of the subject. We know that our responses to outward 
stimuli depend on the temporary as well as the permanent disposi- 
tion of the organism. When a reflex circuit is opened, the response 
depends on the anatomical structure of the spinal cord. When 
an automatic circuit is opened, responses follow depending on 
complicated reactions of ]. art on par . When conscious circuits 
are opened, the responses depend on whatever produces con- 
sciousness. Of course it will be replied that the structure of the 
organism is the product of previous stimuli, but that only carries 
us back a step or two. How organization is possible is just the 
problem. Organization is the formation of complicated states 
of equilibrium and all such states of equilibrium result in evolu- 
tion of energy capable of changing the mode of force (as in our 
illustration of impinging bodies) . These enormously complicated 
vortices of energy constitute the soul of the organism. 
We have seen that activity is the sole element of experience, 
and its varying forms are, in a sense, the algebraic expressions 
for interactions. Consciousness is one of the coordinate expres- 
sions of the totality of activities of certain grades. The only 
condition of force in which no force is lost and yet a new mode 
is introduced, is equilibrium. It is natural to apply the same 
suggestion here. Flint met steel and a simple kind of force was 
translated into higher and back again. There was a flash. Trace 
the forces and weigh them; they are all there, but the fact of 
change is a fact of a higher kind not weighed in your balance. 
Applying the same reasoning to the mental phenomena, we 
see that the forces whose intermittent stream feeds the psychical 
lose nothing in their passage through the mind; the stream is 
undiminished, but there has been a transformation the peculiar 
form of which has been the essential psychical content. The 
mind may be compared to a registration apparatus which regis- 
ters by strokes on a dial the passage of a certain quantity of fluid 
flowing through its chamber. Consciousness is a manifestation 
