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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BD421 .C62 
 
 Metaphysics of the nature and in the con 
 
 Clin 
 
 3 1924 028 931 322 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028931322 
 
THE METAPHYSICS of the 
 
 NATURE AND IN THE 
 
 CONCEPTION of 
 
 the SOUL. -IT'S 
 
 HABITAT? 
 
 ay 
 JOSEPH CLEMENTS, M.D. 
 
 Member of the American Association for the 
 Advancement of Science 
 
 BOSTON ; 
 THK ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY (INC.) 
 
f\b3U(^0^ 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1909 
 
 BY JOSEPH CLEMENTS, M.D. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 ^^''hose earth life ended during my sixth 
 year, yet whose maternal psychic manipula- 
 tions and influences during the soul dawn- 
 ing and coming into egoism, and whose 
 after, all too brief, yet effective guiding and 
 incitation have followed and abided with me 
 thru life, making possible and into actual 
 realization a soul life of the highest degree 
 of happiness and of almost infinite satisfac- 
 tion, this wee volume is with filial affection 
 dedicated. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 'T^ HIS little book is offered as the authors 
 -■- mite in contribution to the evolu- 
 tion progress of the human race. It sets 
 forth what the writer believes and here 
 jclaims as in a good degree evidenced to be a 
 true conception of the nature and the origin 
 of the soul. 
 
 Not that this is considered as final, but that 
 if and when finality may be reached it will 
 be found to be consonant with the basal 
 facts out of which it has grown. The facts 
 upon which this philosophy of the soul is 
 built are and always will be deemed the 
 true facts in the premises, whatever their 
 interpretation in the finality. 
 
 This brief thesis is presented as a new 
 conception of the soul. The facts art noth- 
 ing new ; they are the true facts in the prem- 
 ises, whatever their final interpretation of 
 their meaning. 
 
 No conception of the soul — which in- 
 
8 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 eludes the mind — yet broached, with a basis 
 in scientific facts, is consonant with the dig- 
 nity of its nature and powers, as evidenced 
 in that of which it is competant — the powers 
 and the possibiUties as seen in soul achieve- 
 ments, and in foreshadowed potentialities 
 which have not been attained. An evolutional 
 grade of soul nature and capacity in concep- 
 tion has not as yet been reached. Current lit- 
 erature as to this specific problem suffers 
 from and evidences this fact. 
 
 In his recent work, "The Mental Factor 
 in Medicine," used so largely in the new 
 "Emmanuel Movement of Mental Healing," 
 Dr. Schofield takes the position that the 
 zvhole body is the oi^gan of mind. This is 
 quite an advance upon former theories of 
 the brain as the organ of mind, or the solar 
 plexus, or primal gland, or Haeckel's 
 "Phenomena,'' or his "thought centers," and 
 "cells," agreeably with his "gushing" atoms, 
 or molecules competant to "lover's ardor." 
 The articles of Sir Oliver Lodge on "The 
 Immortality of the Soul" (now in book 
 form), and other discussions in the Hibbert 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. q 
 
 Journal, and recently published volumes, as 
 "The ;\Iind and the Brain," "Brain and Per- 
 sonality," etc., all of the highest learning 
 and skill yet inconsonant with a view of the 
 soul in its larger inheritance and potentiali- 
 ties and destiny. It is only pseudo-science 
 that is "constantly bringing us back to the 
 earth, to the ground underfoot," There is 
 great difference between earthly ideas and 
 interpretations of the earth-facts which are 
 associated with mind and soul on that basis, 
 and a conception and interpretation of those 
 facts from an evolutional status of survey 
 and estimation. 
 
 The suggestion is ventured that a con- 
 ception of the soul cognate and consonant 
 ■with its nature as evaluated in view of the 
 actual exercise of the soul powers would 
 have forestalled and prevented much of what 
 appears from the facile pen of John Bur- 
 roughs in The Atlantic Monthly, April, 
 1908, "The Divine Soil." He says: "In 
 chemical affinity, in crystalization, in the per- 
 sistence of force, in electricity, we catch 
 glimpses of a kind of vitality that is pre- 
 
lO THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 liminary to all other. ... Is there a prin- 
 ciple of fire ? of crystalization ? Just as much 
 as a principle of life. . . . The gulf be- 
 tween disorganized matter (jwiorgahized?) 
 and the crystal seems to me as great as that 
 between the organic and the inorganic. 
 . . . We shall probably have to come to 
 accept this view — the view of the mechanico- 
 chemical theory of life an unpalatable truth, 
 like the discovery of the animal origin of 
 man, or that consciousness and all our fine 
 thoughts and aspirations are the results of 
 molecular action of the brain. . . . We shall 
 probably sooner or later be brought to accept 
 the . . . theory of the physical origin of 
 the soul, that it is not of cellestial birth ex- 
 cept as the cellestial and terrestrial are one. 
 . . . Human and helpless before the ques- 
 tion "what for?' when asked of the totality 
 of things! Then let us be silent — and 
 reverent."* 
 
 I shall at least assume the temerity of 
 
 *The Italics are mine! but "Tell it not in Gatb, 
 nor publish it In Askalon," that John Burroughs 
 says this! 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. n 
 
 affirming that the facts in the premises above 
 are not so, nor do they warrant the con- 
 clusions conceded. The above author does 
 not profess to be a scientist, nor does he 
 show the scientific spirit or method in deaHng 
 with these great and vital problems. For 
 instance, at the outset of the paper we read: 
 "I like to think, etc. . . I like to think," 
 etc., and then proceeds to discuss, and in a 
 measure dispose of the questions of "the 
 creative energy vitally related to the great 
 cosmic forces," of "red corpuscles in the life 
 current of the Eternal," and of "the fiery 
 mists out of which planets came." The 
 "high-flying dreams of man, his aspirations, 
 arts, bibles, religions, literature, philosophies, 
 heroes, saints, martyrs, sages, poets, proph- 
 ets," and whether or not "all these lay folded 
 in the fiery mists out of which this planet 
 came," are matters demanding the profound- 
 est scientific acumen, and in this sentimen- 
 talism may play no part. Only the severely 
 scientific attitude and method are competant 
 and allowable in dealing with such problems, 
 and I want to discount the influence of the 
 
12 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 honored named involved in these serious 
 errors in conclusions, as I deem them. The 
 measure of the soul's evaluation in nature 
 and status, which the following pages pro- 
 fess to evidence, will forbid such a view or 
 interpretation of soul-facts, and a clean 
 breast and confession that a large motive in 
 the object of this brief and tentative, yet 
 suggestive essay, is that it be in its measure 
 corrective of the banalities of the recent wide- 
 spread trend of so-called scientific thought to 
 give a mechanico-chemical explanation of 
 life, shall be the final word in this prefatory 
 page. J. C. 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 'T^ HIS is the most fundamental of all 
 -^ questions, and is basic in all cosmic 
 philosophy. The latest step in philosophic 
 thought has brought to the point of recogni- 
 tion that a philosophy of the universe must 
 take into account, and as a chief factor in 
 it, man himself who constructs the philoso- 
 phy. He may not stand outside and observe 
 the phenomena at a distance and so interpret. 
 The explanation must include and account 
 for himself too. This is eloquently set forth 
 in discussions in the last quarterly of The 
 Hibbert Journal, 1907, and particularly by 
 Editor L. P. Jacks, under the title "The 
 Universe as Philosopher." Anthropology 
 and psychology as branches of science, to be 
 sure, are included in the sum total of an 
 universal philosophy but, "Man's place in 
 nature," and particularly his uniqueness as 
 effective in the philosophy of nature, have 
 scarcely been given their fundamental im- 
 portance, and the differences and the incom- 
 
14 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 petency of the varying systems which have 
 been in vogue may be traceable to the incon- 
 sonant and the incompetent conceptions of 
 man, and of his factorship, which is so large 
 in the creation of the philosophy itself. 
 Hence the fundamental and primal import- 
 ance of the subject before us. 
 
 And the age, the hour is pregnant with 
 soul thought. "What is man," etc., in the 
 words of David, King of Israel, uttered sev- 
 eral thousand years ago is today, and more 
 specifically, the question of the nature and 
 the characteristics of the soul, and even the 
 vexed question of life is overshadowed or, 
 perhaps, rather absorbed into the larger one 
 of the soul. 
 
 The trend of scientific thought of the re- 
 cent decades has been to give a physical ex- 
 planation of life, a mechanical accounting 
 for the cosmic phenomenon, with but a very 
 dubious and inconsequential success up to 
 this hour. This, however, has not pushed 
 God out of the universe, or out of the living 
 world, even. In merging the life problem 
 with that of the human soul or mind, as is 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 15 
 
 evidently the result, the imminence of the 
 presence of the All Mind has been empha- 
 sized. And besides, in lessening, if it be 
 done, the mystery of life, and in bringing 
 into greater prominence the soul as a cosmic 
 factor to be interpreted, the area of investi- 
 gation or battle-ground is narrowed or lim- 
 ited as to the dynamics of the physical and 
 mechanical. For scientific thought will war- 
 rant the position that in dealing with soul we 
 are removed farther from the gross and phy- 
 sical than with life. 
 
 Life, whatever it may be, has a physical 
 basis in protoplasm or the living matter, and 
 as a concept it is limited to what is possible 
 only in relation to and in association with 
 the physical. There is, therefore, some 
 plausibility at least in the possibility of such 
 interpretation in over prominence of the phy- 
 sical basis as to find life itself explained 
 away, apparently. This, modern science 
 (which may not be all scientific) has to a 
 degree done. But in the question of the soul 
 the area of ground for work is, not to say 
 shifted, but changed somewhat by modifica- 
 
l6 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 tion, and the power and the play of the physi- 
 cal and mechanical are more circumscribed, 
 while that of the psychic and higher is 
 larger. In the presence of soul or mind, 
 while still related, we are nevertheless less 
 bound or limited in our facts and data than 
 in the means and methods in interpretation 
 of mere life. The physical factors and their 
 activities, which are confessedly basic in in- 
 terpretation of life, as a special force or 
 otherwise, are not in evidence dynamically 
 to the same degree, certainly, in solvement 
 of the higher problem of the soul, and the 
 validity of the distinction of soul and the 
 physical is more apparent, and recognition 
 more readily secured than with life in the 
 scale of the balance. In other words, the 
 soul is less competent of a physical explana- 
 tion than is life or vitality. 
 
 It appears to the writer that the gist of the 
 conception of the soul or mind — the former 
 inclusive of the latter — as exploited in re- 
 cent and present discussion of the soul, its 
 immortality, etc., is not fully consonant with 
 its true nature and character, as evidenced 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 17 
 
 by the facts of soul phenomena. Some fun- 
 damental facts are not fully recognized, much 
 is assumed not consonant with soul facts 
 and phenomena, and much of the soul prob- 
 lem is left uninterpreted, so that no theory 
 of soul conception is even reasonably satis- 
 factory. Braving- the temerity of the at- 
 tempt an essay is here made to present a 
 view of the soul more in harmony with the 
 facts, and with the status of man as a cosmic 
 factor, and a fundamental factor in cosmic 
 philosophy. In so great an undertaking it 
 behooves to start rightly.* 
 
 Before directly attacking the problem let 
 me explain and then dismiss, at least pro- 
 visionally, the query in the title. 
 
 It is in consonance with the principles of 
 
 logic to designate as our subject-matter, the 
 
 nature and characteristics of the soul, but 
 
 not "habitat" or whereabouts. Habitat or 
 
 "seat" is not self-evident as inhering to the 
 
 question without argument, nature and char- 
 
 *I shall have to use the terms phenomenon and 
 phenomenal in graded and accommodatlonal 
 senses, to meet the exigencies of the metaphysics 
 o£ the discussion, readily discernable and allow- 
 able, however. 
 
i8 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 acteristics do so inhere. So that association 
 of habitat or location in "seat," is both bias 
 and confusion in the metaphysics of the sub- 
 ject. "Habitat" in the title of this study I 
 have used querilly, and to discount its im- 
 portance in consideration, because it is thus 
 improperly connected in such discussions, 
 leaving it, however, for inclusion in debate 
 if the facts basic in the conception of the 
 soul formed warrant or demand the same. 
 Non-recognition of this cardinal principle in 
 logic makes facile niisplacement of basic con- 
 siderations, so that a minor or incidental fac- 
 tor may occupy the place, and exert the in- 
 fluence of a fundamental, and the argument 
 be vitiated at the outset, or the philosophy 
 be false in its foundation thereby. 
 
 The bain and bias of "seat" as cognate 
 with the soul in consideration to an extent 
 prejudges the matter, gives unwarranted 
 direction to thought, and entails limitations 
 in orientation or point of view, with conse- 
 quent abridgement of mental horison. 
 
 That the effect of this is dire, and seri- 
 ously so, is seen in Haeckel's "Monistic Phil- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 19 
 
 osophy," in the notion that atoms "feel and 
 think.'' They are supposed to come to- 
 gether by "The Law of Substance" "giish- 
 i'^g" Olid under the influence of "lovers' ar- 
 dor." The idea is further materiaHzed in a 
 "phronema," and in "thought cells" and cen- 
 ters as the "seat of the mind," All this, 
 however, and from the first, is a foregone 
 conclusion and without argument from the 
 bias of habitat in atoms. Now, the entity 
 and phenomena, if there be the former of 
 these two as to mind, are not immediately 
 associated with the physical, and particular- 
 ly not in so narrowed and localized a man- 
 ner as the atomic and molecular involve — 
 mind phenomena are not effected there, and 
 in such a localized status as that. Physics 
 and chemistry as modernly exploited fully 
 account for molecular, atomic and corpuscu- 
 lar phenomena so that it is arbitrary and un- 
 warranted to unnecessarily introduce and 
 localize the more mystic psychism of mind 
 here. A satisfactory explanation and ac- 
 counting for of the factors and their motions 
 in molecular physics is at hand, it is the more 
 
20 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 multiplex and complex and, one might say, 
 complicated, of factors and phenomena that 
 mind is immediately associated with, if at 
 all. 
 
 More grossly materialistic still is the no- 
 tion of "thought a secretion of the brain!" 
 And it is on a par of such thinking that cer- 
 tain physicians, who ought to know better, 
 are endeavoring to ascertain the weight of 
 the soul as it passes out of the body at death ! 
 The soul surely is not a fluid, or a thing of 
 atoms and molecules. Why, a fair-sized 
 molecule is only about one one-hundred-mil- 
 lionth of an inch in diameter, the smallest 
 of souls could not domicile in such quarters, 
 or put itself on exhibition on the basis of 
 such proportions. The distinction of what 
 may be termed the entitally identical and the 
 phenomenal is a metaphysic of the highest 
 importance in the conception of the soul, and 
 having come to this point I may venture. 
 The Affirmation : 
 
 The soul is a psychic entity, which be- 
 comes entitally personal by or through the 
 functional physical organism. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 21 
 
 Look at the statement reversely. A physi- 
 cal organism, actively functional, the soul a 
 psychic personality acmean in the phenome- 
 non. 
 
 This involves that the soul and the life are 
 in relation, in organic association — the soul 
 includes the life. 
 
 Now, the essence in the conception of life 
 is the fact and the principle of organisation. 
 In nature, and in the character of its phe- 
 nomena life is organic, expressing not ener- 
 gy, but quality, though inclusive of energy. 
 Life phenomena are energetical, but they are 
 organized activities, and are unique in this 
 fundamental particulate, having no counter- 
 part in all known cosmic phenomena. And 
 full grasp of this concept of the organic is 
 prime and fundamental to an adequate con- 
 ception of the soul. Hence I linger a mo- 
 ment here. 
 
 Life has a physical basis in bioplasm or 
 living matter, and the life energy is made 
 entitally phenomenal, consonant with its 
 physical basis, in organized functional activi- 
 ties. Life phenomena as to its physical (a 
 
22 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 distinction warranted by the fact of its phy- 
 sical basis, which is distinct from that of 
 which it is the basis) originate and initiate 
 in the protoplasmic activities. Life may 
 designate the energy, organic the quality, 
 this qualitative factor inhering to the concept 
 of life, since the protoplasmic and all the 
 physical processes accruing are organized or 
 associational. And this concept of life, to 
 which all its facts and phenomena bear testi- 
 mony, no single fact contravening, of life as 
 a potency organic in quality, is the key to its 
 origin, as well as designative of its physical 
 processes, and it is therefore in relation with 
 prior life, and has been passed on from germ 
 to germ, from cell to cell, and must be so in 
 order to its continuance on the earth, nor is 
 there any other mode of derivation, or of 
 spontaneity. 
 
 The organic, therefore, is the associa- 
 tional, the organized and governed. System, 
 relation, dependance even are characteristic 
 of the organic. There are included con- 
 geries of functions and processes, associated 
 in the whole, cycling and related and inter- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 
 
 23 
 
 dependent in detail. The human body (as 
 also throughout the plant and animal world) 
 is the product of these organized phenomena, 
 and is itself, and at the same time — during 
 its entital evolution — the factor and agency 
 in the effecting of the phenomenon. No 
 function of an organism is achieved in isola- 
 tion, for sectional relation and interdepend- 
 ance characterize the whole. 
 
 And in a large and cosmically general 
 sense the universe is an organism, and is 
 governed systematically. No planet can ex- 
 ist of itself, no planet or twin stars effect 
 their phenomena independently, they act 
 orbi-annually, many have moons or attendant 
 bodies, and order and association obtain. 
 
 All of this — ^the specifically associational 
 in the living world, and its entail of evolu- 
 tion in the functional and the physical — is 
 dynamically of and with the germ by heredi- 
 tary endowment. The life of the germ, and 
 of the daughter cell is received from the prior 
 living cell, so that, given the conditions in 
 environment and the germ potential phenom- 
 enon comes to achievement. It is evident. 
 
24 
 
 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 therefore, that the organism is potentially 
 entital, in possibility to effect — "potency and 
 promise" — (Huxley) before the body ap- 
 pears. All of this is comprehended in the 
 organic as it applies to and inheres in life. 
 
 In the same manner — kind and degree — 
 in like qualitative entity with property and 
 power, with relation by association both 
 prior and to proceed, the soul is potentially 
 entital, and in association with the life germ, 
 and in process and progress of evolution to 
 entital personality. This conception of the 
 soul's nature, its origin and entital identity 
 is formed on the basis of the organic, which 
 includes the evolutional and the hereditary. 
 These are essential factors in any adequate 
 conception of the soul, for it is derived, 
 parentally and ancestrally and cosmically, 
 trecking back through the potentially or- 
 ganic and cosmical. I introduce the follow- 
 ing collection and collation of facts and con- 
 siderations, a necessary repetition in brief 
 instances, in evidence and support of the view 
 of the soul here affirmed. 
 
 The argument in detail and cumulative. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 'T^ HE organic, which is associational and 
 -■- cycling in process and function, the 
 completion of the cycle in activity of the 
 physical factor achieving the function, veri- 
 tably evidences two facts or points, first, that 
 there is purpose to an end operating in guid- 
 ance of the specific organic phenomenon; 
 second, that there is distinction in kind of 
 factor and phenomenon in the physial pro- 
 cess and the function, the latter the outcome 
 of the former. The distinction of the func- 
 tion is a matter of importance for use later 
 in the study. All the processes and func- 
 tions are in their congeries serial and pro- 
 gressive — in a word evolutional. The prim- 
 itive and simple alike make possible and are 
 effective in achievement of the more multi- 
 plex and complex in the processes and their 
 attained functions. These are gradational, 
 each group and series in interest of the 
 
26 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 higher or that yet to be. This is organic, 
 evolutional, and evidences the qualitative 
 factor which is directive and determinative 
 to the ends in purpose of realization. 
 
 We are, then face to face with a psychic, 
 which is not a physical but a qualitative 
 property, inherent to all life energy, and 
 constituting the organic of life. Distinct 
 in the concept from the energy or dynamic 
 factor of the organic, yet of it and with it, 
 this qualitative psychism constitutes the or- 
 ganic to be a potency to effect in achieve- 
 ment of the congeried, the cycling physical 
 activities, with their functions on functions. 
 It also marks a distinction in kind of factor 
 and phenomena peculiar and unique to the 
 organic or living. There are distinct lines 
 of demarcation between the physical phe- 
 nomena and this psychic, qualitative factor 
 or organic property. Indeed, there is an 
 intermediary, clean cut in difference in con- 
 cept between the qualitative psychic and the 
 physical activities putting the psychism on 
 exhibition — giving it entity. I mean, func- 
 tion, the functional. No one looks for or 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 27 
 
 thinks of the purposive psychism operating 
 in cell differentation or mitosis, as a particle 
 or granule of nuclear matter, even if he sup- 
 pose the qualitati\e property in concept to 
 be embodied in or associated with such phy- 
 sical entity. To be sure, there may be initia- 
 tion of force in action, or change of direc- 
 tion in active processes from certain points 
 in locality, for cell differentiation in bone is 
 not the same as that in a nerve ganglion, 
 though both originate from the one germ cell. 
 Cell proliferation and differentiation are by 
 heredity in the purposive, and "heredity" to 
 have any meaning is in the organic and the 
 qualitative, not the physical or mechanical. 
 A spatical concept is unapt of the organic, 
 the psychic, and impossible as being strictly 
 scientific, notwithstanding that on the basis 
 of the organic initiation of physical proces- 
 ses takes rise from points that are local. 
 
 In like manner in the concept of the func- 
 tional we are outside or above the region 
 of the physical. What is function, and 
 where located ? Is it spatial ? What are 
 its dimensions? Even here we are out of 
 
28 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 and above the sphere of the physical and ma- 
 terial. These are distinctions with differ- 
 ence, and in kind, as the ratiocinative pro- 
 cess makes evident. If one could conceive 
 of function without first cognizing the phy- 
 sical factors and activities basic in its at- 
 tainment, what need of the special senses 
 and brain cells in the ratiocinative phenome- 
 non in respect of it particularly? But I 
 anticipate in the argument. 
 
 The point made so far is that in the or- 
 ganic the evolutional phenomena are serial, 
 and progressive, and distinctive in kind as 
 well as in degree, and that the psychic is 
 neither physical nor functional, but is distinct 
 from and above and magisterial in direction 
 of both. 
 
 This qualitative property of the organic 
 is objective in conception of its nature and 
 sphere of operation. It is objective of the 
 subjective organism, and therefore an equal 
 factor and property of all organic life. 
 There is the purposive in plant and animal 
 and in man as at the zenith, in one word, in 
 organic phenomena. It does not originate 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 29 
 
 in the subjective organism, but is a quali- 
 tative factor of each Hving thing and inher- 
 ing to its status as organic. It is a prop- 
 erty of Hfe, and is of the germ, and is passed 
 on with Hfe and all it embraces from cell 
 to cell, and from germ to germ. There may 
 be seen origination of new centers of life 
 activity in the cell nucleus, and within the 
 already active living matter of the cytoplasm 
 I believe it may, too, be found. All growth 
 is from centers, and from within outward, 
 a phenomenon nowhere else duplicated in 
 all the cosmos, not to be explained on the 
 basis of physics and chemistry, and only in- 
 terpretable on the principle of an objective 
 psychism, inherent to the life germ in its 
 organic potentiality, sovereign and directive 
 to complete organic evolution. All the in- 
 voluntary of the more complex and advanced 
 functions and processes, as respiration, di- 
 gestion, circulation of the blood and stream- 
 ing of other fluids in determination to equi- 
 librium, and many others, all are efifected 
 under the guidance of the objective psy- 
 
30 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 chism everywhere qualitative throughout 
 the organism. 
 
 As already said full grasp of the concept 
 of the organic will give the key to the origin 
 of what I might term the entail of the or- 
 ganic, that is to say, all that is comprehended 
 in and of that to which it is potentially 
 competant. Inclusive of the organic is the 
 property of life, and its perpetuation, with 
 quality and potency automatic or self-direc- 
 tive. This as it came by heredity is secured 
 by heredity to posterity. On the basis and 
 principle of evolution the organic, inclusive 
 as it is of life with the objectively psychic 
 and purposive, is an advance in cosmic pro- 
 gress. This law and principle of the organic, 
 the associational was in cosmic vogue prior 
 to the appearance of life on the earth. The 
 universe is an organism in this large and 
 general sense, as indeed cosmic facts evi- 
 dence in that relation and association in the 
 purposive universally obtain, and coming to 
 higher focus in concentration achieved the 
 entity of the first germ of life on the earth. 
 
 It may be noted here in passing that the 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 31 
 
 above view of the "spontaneous" evolution 
 of life on the earth is not in antagonism 
 with the position taken by Professor Perci- 
 val Lowell, in the article appearing in the 
 Feb. issue of the Century, on "The Evolu- 
 tion of Life." The eminent author assumes 
 the facts of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, ni- 
 trogen, phosphorus and sulphur as in molec- 
 ular constitution, or at least composition, in 
 protoplasm, which no chemistry is able to 
 evidence, as it is in all inorganic molecular 
 matters. Further the well known authority 
 states as facts the meteoric supply' to our 
 planet of matter by which the mass of the 
 earth is formed, and out of which by evo- 
 lution life arose. On this basis as satis- 
 factorily scientific, the "spontaneous" evo- 
 lution of the life germ is affirmed, meteor- 
 ites coming at a later period, when cooling 
 and mass were attained finding the germ of 
 life already existant here. But why assume 
 molecular constitution of protoplasm while 
 science is not competant as demonstrator as a 
 matter of fact? And why affirm the spe- 
 cific supply of matter "from which by evo- 
 
32 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 lution life arose" as meteoric? This planet 
 has possessed in abundance the six elements 
 named as basic in living matter. These com- 
 bined and directed in their activities are 
 alsufficient to all organic phenomena of their 
 kind, that is the physical, the physiological. 
 Why the farfetched meteoric matter, with a 
 supposed constitution favorable to evolution 
 of a life potency, a peculiarity of meteoric 
 character of which no conception is possible 
 save in hypothesis, and which only shifts 
 the riddle of life from our planet to the world 
 or parent of meteors? We have on our own 
 planet the stuff of which the physical basis 
 of life is made. Focus in concentrated ef- 
 fectiveness the psychism in the purposive 
 and directive, which is as diffuse as all cos- 
 mic motion, and we are magisterially com- 
 petant to spontaneous evolution of our life 
 germs, why not? Here, then, is a satisfac- 
 torily scientific basis for the true spontaneous 
 evolution of life, at the conditional and op- 
 portune moment, say, about twenty millions 
 of years ago. 
 
 And what a magnificent evolutional con- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 33 
 
 ception of jNIr. Lowell, of the evolution of 
 life in the deep seas, with food specific to 
 the primal life before plant and plant-eater 
 appeared ! 
 
 Returning to our argument, it is cardinal 
 in our conception of the organic that the as- 
 sociational is regnant effecting the coming 
 into entity of the varied factors, their po- 
 tencies and qualitative properties as they be- 
 come in demand for the evolutional moves 
 onward and upward. And the distinction 
 in kind of these — factor and process — - is 
 fundamental. The physical process, the 
 function achieved with the phychism direc- 
 tive to both in the special and unique phe- 
 nomena of the organic, these are by no means 
 the same, witness our labors in accounting 
 for the origin of life. The physical factor 
 and activities evidence the fact of life, but 
 are not life. Nor is life fimcfion, tho this 
 is indicative and expressive of life. As an 
 intellectual concept life is the organic energy 
 or potentiality having its physical basis in 
 protoplasm. It is associational with the 
 prior, hence the hereditary, the entail, evo- 
 
34 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 Ititionally, of the past. Life as an entity is 
 the heir in entail of the cosmic in embryo- 
 logic of the organic* 
 
 The general principle of "directivity" ef- 
 fecting the organic phenomenally was and 
 is active in the relationship of all cosmic 
 factors and phenomena, and as already seen, 
 coming to specific effect in the new and 
 unique phenomena of the organic. Thus 
 this is an advance in evolution grade from 
 the general to the special, and in the more 
 focused maturity of the psychic directive 
 agency. This is in evidence in the evolution 
 and growth of the body throughout its em- 
 bryologic stage, and entrance upon mature 
 organic functionalism in the after-birth life. 
 
 * Since this paper was first written there has 
 been published in the Hihbert Journal, Oct.-Dec, 
 1907, an article on "Directivity," by Professor 
 G. Homslow, who speaks of the word as coined 
 by Professor A. H. Church. 1 find the term aid- 
 ful in this discussion as expressive of what I 
 have termed objective psychism, using it in the 
 larger and more general cosmic sense, partic- 
 ularly. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 
 
 35 
 
 In this it is entirely objective in character as 
 in all plant and animal life. This objective di- 
 rectivity is more specific in phenomenal ef- 
 fect, and more apparent than in the more 
 general cosmic drama, and hence to be des- 
 ignated as objective psychism, and also as 
 precursory to yet farther advances. This 
 objective psychic and qualitative factor, ubi- 
 quetous as the cell protoplasm, is the compe- 
 tent directive agency to the needs-be of all 
 organic phenomena up to that of the human, 
 and to the needs of the latter organism up 
 to a certain point and period, and this, as 
 hinted, preparatory to and necessitating the 
 farther advance. Necessarily there are lo- 
 calized centers where the directional motion 
 initiates, and here and in this is our factor of 
 heredity. Whether there be a physical fac- 
 tor embodying these guiding impulses in 
 chromosome or what not (bioplasm is a 
 physical basis for life energy) may be mat- 
 ter for yet further research. But in all of 
 this, I believe the life property of irritability, 
 inclusive of almost infinite versatility in re- 
 source of response, will be found to be a 
 
36 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 large factor in interpretation of the problems 
 thus raised. 
 
 After the embr3'ologic and preliminary in- 
 fantile, and on into adolescent and adult life, 
 no new or additional functions of the phy- 
 sical life are brought into existence, only 
 progress in development and maturity to 
 the higher and more complex is seen, and 
 initiation in activity of that already poten- 
 tially in vogue. No voluntary functions, or 
 voluntary effort in control of function ap- 
 pears in the initial stage of sentient life. 
 But after the first few weeks in after-birth 
 existence, when the organism has come to 
 its kingdom in mature functionalism, at least 
 sufficiently so for the great purpose, then a 
 ne-iv phenomenon initiates. This is entirely 
 psycliic! in kind and characteristics. In- 
 strumentalities made use of in phenomenal 
 expression are, of course, physical and func- 
 tional, itself is neither, but magisterial to 
 both. This is a subjective psychi-sm! This 
 is the soul! 
 
 The soul as a subjective psychic entity 
 originates nowhere, and at no point in so 
 
OF THE NATURE. ETC. 37 
 
 far as any physical factor, or e\en function 
 gives indication or clue. Certain phases of 
 the new phenomenon, the psychic drama, 
 have association with the physical factors 
 effecting the functions of the organism, and 
 these are in initiation of the phenomenal of 
 the new entity. Beyond these, or save in 
 these neither factor nor function of the phy- 
 sical is in evidence as being immediately a 
 part or factor of the new entity coming on 
 to the stage of action. These are the indu- 
 bitable facts and fundamental in the soul 
 phenomenon, giving validity to the concep- 
 tion of the soul as a subjective psychic en- 
 tity. This concept of the nature of the soul, 
 and view of its origin and characteristics 
 are to be made evident as consonant with 
 the approved facts and data of mind phe- 
 nomena, no legitimate facts contravening 
 this, in the briefest manner and largely sug- 
 gestive, in the further argument in this study. 
 
38 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 T T must be well borne in mind that the 
 -^ basis of this conception of the soul is 
 the concept of the organic or the asso- 
 ciational relating, fundamentally, the pres- 
 ent in cosmic factor and phenomena with 
 the prior. This is vital and fundamental to 
 the evolutional. This involves the homo- 
 geneous as preceeding and giving issue to 
 the heterogeneous, and the general becoming 
 focused in the special. These are thought 
 factors competent to the giving a true me- 
 taphysical interpretation of the heretofore 
 soul puzzle. 
 
 And further, it is emphasized that this is 
 a new conception of the soul in that the 
 first view suggested is as to its subjectivity 
 in distinction to the objective psychic direc- 
 tivity which is qualitative of the omnipresent 
 cell protoplasm. This is not a local or a 
 localizing concept of soul, it is, however, 
 specifically an individualizing of the soul, as 
 it is meant to be, and as all soul facts do 
 testify. The subjective psychism, which 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 39 
 
 constitutes the soul and mind, comes into 
 entity in and by means of the individual or- 
 ganism, the evolution of the soul giving 
 entity and identity at the same time. Sym- 
 bolical of this is the prior phenomenon of 
 the evolution of the physial organism. The 
 embryologic evolution and growth of the 
 body is effected by the functions and pro- 
 cesses of that identical body while in the 
 very process of evolution and development, 
 so that a fetus of a few weeks is complete 
 as an organism, and its growth is simultan- 
 eous thruout, generating its own heat and 
 energy in a real tho its own fashion. Po- 
 tentially the organism entire is embodied in 
 the germ — in potency and promise. 
 
 So of the soul. The soul and the life en- 
 ergy are in association, cosmically, with all 
 energy and psychic directivity, and evolu- 
 tionally in and with the organic objective 
 psychism. That is to say, that the objective 
 cosmic directivity is specialized in associa- 
 tion with organic energy, or life, in objective 
 psychism, and with a further and evolutional 
 specialization of the psychic in subjective 
 
40 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 or soul identity. Cosmic psychism focused 
 in organic functionalism in plant and animal 
 phenomena, is thus still further specialized 
 in subjective psychic identity in the human 
 soul. 
 
 Not that the subjective superceed the ob- 
 jective in the human phenomenon; a new, a 
 specialized phenomenon originates as such 
 which, however, while cognate with that 
 which is regnant in the physical organism is, 
 nevertheless, superior by focus in special, 
 acting consonantly a la all evolution. 
 
 So that the soul as subjectively entital in 
 individuality or identity is by evolution, like 
 as the physical organism, tho by evolution 
 in advance and in special. The soul origi- 
 nates in its germ conception. Organic in 
 nature, and thus in relation with life, it is 
 conditioned by heredity. Cosmical by or- 
 ganic association the soul is in relation with 
 the physical organism by which its entail of 
 psychic hereditary potencies are possible of 
 phenomenal attainment. 
 
 The fact of heredity as a principle make 
 it impossible (as a scientific problem) that 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 
 
 41 
 
 the soul ready-made, so to speak, should 
 come into or take possession of the body 
 using it as its instrument or organ. The 
 organic functions are conditional to the com- 
 ing into entity of the soul, and at the same 
 time the soul gives identity to the man in 
 the bodily organism. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge says,* "The soul is that 
 controlling and guiding principle which is 
 responsible for our personal expression and 
 for the construction of the body, under the 
 restriction of physical condition and ances- 
 try. In its higher development it includes 
 also feeling and intelligence and will, and is 
 the storehouse of mental experience. Life 
 is not matter, nor is it energy, it is a guiding 
 and directing principle; and when consid- 
 ered as incorporated in a certain organism 
 it, and all that appertains to it, may well be 
 called the soul or construction and controll- 
 ing element in that organism." 
 
 Xow, unless I misinterpret, this embodies 
 the A'iew and position which I am strenuously 
 antagonizing, that is, the assumption of soul 
 
 *See the Hlbbert Journal, Jan., 1908. 
 
42 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 as something made already to hand, or like 
 Melchizedec without origin or descent in 
 his order. Of course I could have nothing 
 to say save on the basis of evolution, 
 which permits of postulate of the First 
 Cause alone. With feet planted firmly 
 upon this great cosmic principle it may 
 be confidently affirmed of the soul that 
 it too is an evolution, fact and factor. Nor 
 may it be that soul and life are synonymous. 
 Life, mere life is diffuse, abundant in plant 
 and animal, so much so as to be common- 
 place, if not cheap. Too cheap for every 
 life to carry any kind of a soul. Thousands 
 of snowflakes are an abortion to one that 
 comes to perfection in formation. Of fish- 
 spawn, if one in a million of the eggs sur- 
 vive it is doing well. The million save one, 
 could not have been freighted with souls, or 
 what would be cognate to soul concept. 
 
 Life and soul are distinct and different, 
 not only in mental concept but in identical 
 entity and cosmic factorship. This is more 
 consonant with its dignity in status as a 
 cosmic entital factor to be taken into account 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 43 
 
 in an universal philosophy. Rather, life is 
 a grade of organic factor preliminary in soul 
 evolution. Soul and life are both organic, 
 and cosmical in relation and in origin or 
 derivation, soul being a later and a higher 
 evolution in entital identity, and in the 
 unique and specialized subjective psychism 
 in the new phenomenon, man. It is subjec- 
 tively psychic by dint of parental and ances- 
 tral heredity. The soul is in immediate as- 
 sociation by means of parental heredity, for 
 life is from prior life, even to the individual 
 cell, and with the universal phenomenon by 
 the larger ancestral and cosmic heredity. 
 Life is impossible as a scientific concept or 
 as an entital fact, apart from its organic or 
 associationalism. Its energy and its quali- 
 tative property are by its heredity, and there 
 can be no synthesis of physical matter with 
 potencies in organic activities without the 
 prior creation or "jumping of the claim" 
 into the prior parental, ancestral and cosmic 
 hereditary energy and directivity, or objec- 
 tive psychism. On no other basis may the 
 synthesis of living things be achieved. 
 
44 
 
 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 The soul, therefore, and the position is 
 scientifically based, is inclusive of life by 
 cosmic ancestral and the immediate parental 
 heredity. Certainly, "the soul is the controll- 
 ing and guiding principle," and even in the 
 construction of the body, but in a sense and 
 manner needing explanation. Life, embody- 
 ing as it does the qualitative factor in objec- 
 tive psychic directivity, is competent to all 
 the organic phenomena in plant and in ani- 
 mal until mail comes on the stage of action, 
 and here and now a new phenomena origi- 
 nates in the coming into entity of the sub- 
 jective psychism. With the facts and data 
 of life and mind before us particularly the 
 data of heredity, the soul is seen to come into 
 entity as such by germ conception, the crea- 
 tion of its identity coming to focus in com- 
 pletion here and now. Each soul is what its 
 parental and ancestral heredity condition it to 
 be, subject, of course, as in all evolution, to 
 its environmental dawning or coming into 
 entity, and its progressional determinants. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Dawning of a Soul. 
 
 ' I "^ HE coming into entity or dawning of 
 -■- the subjectively psychic soul is ohjec- 
 tiz-e to other souls. This is facile of observa- 
 tion after the first few weeks of birth-life, 
 and continuing there a number of years, 
 more or less, subject in a serious sense and 
 degree to the manipulation of the mother's 
 influence and hand. Something, though lit- 
 tle as yet, is know^n of the control and direc- 
 tion in heredity, of which I do not now 
 speak, but only of the subjective phenomenon 
 in its initiatory in identity. The soul will 
 be what its ancestrol and in particular its 
 parental heredity renders it competent to, 
 subject to the environmental influences and 
 determinants. 
 
 Each soul or mind is different as a per- 
 sonality from each and every soul that went 
 before or that may follow, the characteristics 
 of each being determined as already sug- 
 gested. From every viewpoint man is all 
 soul in essence, the mind being a congeries 
 
46 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 of faculties by which the soul becomes phe- 
 nominal as an entital personality. Being or- 
 ganic in nature and cosmically associational, 
 the soul comes to its kingdom in personal 
 identity through the channels of hereditary 
 descent, the focused stream being evolution- 
 ally extended in each instance, making it ab- 
 solute that this must be the soul's first ap- 
 pearance as such, as well as determinant in 
 the dawning. 
 
 Preparatory and initial in this on-exhibi- 
 tion stage of soul evolution are the embryo- 
 logic and birth epochs, with several weeks 
 of "sentient" life in functional maturation. 
 Then the subjective asserts itself. There is 
 not as yet competence to the "/ think, there- 
 fore / am," soul phenomenon. Self -con- 
 sciousness is an experience in the farther de- 
 velopment or advanced soul evolution. The 
 embryological and adolescent and adult 
 stages of physical life are more than sym- 
 bolical of soul dawning and evolution, and 
 a subjective or self-consciousness is not at 
 once attainable, much less made phenomenal 
 or expressed objectively. The initial stages 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 47 
 
 of soul growth will be evolution moves from 
 the simple to the complex as the facts in 
 opening life show. Consider these. 
 
 A distinguishing characteristic of man is 
 his so-termed "gift of language." But there 
 is nothing in the nature of a gift to him in 
 this, for this is so fundamental a part of him- 
 self that but for this he could not be at all. 
 As the "logus is related to the universe, 
 ... is that without which it does not 
 exist" (Sir O. Lodge) the logos is of the 
 essence of the soul, and by it the soul comes 
 to its individuality. The logos in man is 
 more than speech or language — the word 
 spoken — it is the psychic or subjective soul 
 power in the creation of language, in forma- 
 tion of words, and in the concept of idea or 
 thought necessitating and giving birth to the 
 words in expression. Percept is prior in sub- 
 jectivity in soul evolution, and is dependent 
 for its initial upon the physical, the senses, 
 and as a physician may know better than 
 any oth^r man (not to say woman, the 
 mother), the sense of touch (Helen Keller's 
 one equipment specially) is the first factor 
 
48 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 in medium of communication or introduc- 
 tion to the objective world. 
 
 The Hfe property of irritability, which in- 
 cludes power to respond to environment — to 
 stimuli — is active in initiation of all life 
 phenomena, and this, again, is more than 
 symbolical of soul activities in the functions 
 of the logos. As every practising physician 
 has a thousand opportunities to observe, the 
 touch of the lips of the babe to the breast of 
 the mother awakens, calls out the first ex- 
 pression of personal psychism on the part of 
 the babe. That this is a subjective phenom- 
 enon, as I am maintaining all mind is, I have 
 no direct facts to evidence. The apparent, 
 certainly, same phenomenon is observable in 
 the young of all mammals, of course. But 
 I have indirect facts and data to indicate a 
 psychic response inclusive of more than the 
 merely objective psychism which may fully 
 explain all of the problems as presented in 
 the animal below man, there being in the 
 human a nascent subjectively psychic re- 
 sponse. There are micro-organisms, 
 whether plant or animal science does not 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 49 
 
 pretend to determine, and these are neces- 
 sarily nascent or incipient psychisms with 
 preponderance all in one direction, yet of so 
 extreme a metaphysical character as to deter 
 the modest from loud asseveration. 
 
 It may be ventured, however, even if dif- 
 fidently, that there is the closest association 
 of the sense of touch with the functions of 
 the logos, at least in the early stage of soul 
 dawning, or the coming into vogue of the 
 subjectively psychic mind. What means it 
 that Helen Keller, with but that one sense, 
 with that of smell, is an educated woman? 
 By means of those two senses all the avenues 
 to and from the soul are opened up, and per- 
 cept and concept to all higher evolution of 
 soul experiences are the treasures of that 
 splendidly equiped woman. The logos, with 
 all that it involves is in touch with the sense 
 of touch, and competence to all subjective 
 psychism follows, notwithstanding the lim- 
 itations of the objective in her case. 
 
 Response to touch holds the field for a 
 time in the new born babe, and not so many 
 days after sight adds to the complexity of 
 
50 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 the psychic or mind play. An "attractive" 
 object is the stimulus, a bright light, a 
 strongly colored thing draws the "atten- 
 tion!" The whole body is thrilled and vi- 
 brates. This is not all muscular, these vi- 
 brations are nervous. Does any other young 
 do this ? Yes ; no ; it does more ; it does not 
 do as much, and all answers are correct. Do 
 the muscular and the nervous, that is to say, 
 the physiological and life, explain all we 
 have here? 
 
 But observe further. Thrilled, vibrating 
 from head to toes the babe thrusts out its 
 hands and fingers. What for? is there pur- 
 pose in these moves ? Is it to grasp and hold 
 it, to possess it? No indeed. It does not 
 grasp the object, if near enough it touches 
 it, it pushes it, communicates, talks to it in 
 the incipiency of gesture language. 
 
 How different from the kitten of as many 
 days old. It runs after the rolling ball of 
 worsted, grasps and holds it for a time, then 
 lets go and does not know there was such an 
 object in existence. In this respect the kit- 
 ten is in advance of the babe, who could not 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 51 
 
 co-ordinate its muscles by its mind, or sub- 
 jective psychism — the animal, way in ad- 
 vance, is complexly competent in its ohjcc- 
 tivc psychic directivity. A colt or a calf is 
 equipped from the hour of its birth in virtue 
 of its objective psychism, and vastly in a su- 
 perior manner to the human animal. The 
 most illy equipped of all living mammals, I 
 might say, animals, in its infancy, is the hu- 
 man. The problem of the prolongation of 
 the infantile period in human life elicited 
 from the late John Fiske large interest, and 
 ingenuity in interpretation. Here is the 
 true solution. The tenure of dependence and 
 incapacity of the earlier months and years, is 
 in interest of the coming reign and domi- 
 nance of the soul. In the animal below man 
 there is no coming soul ; and whereas in man 
 the objecti\'e directivity is less in demand 
 with that in view, it is also less in dynamic 
 operation, since so soon will the subjective- 
 ly psychic be regnantly dominant. 
 
 The kitten's superiority to the babe in this 
 regard, and which is marked, is thus ac- 
 counted for, and many problems solved 
 
52 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 otherwise puzzling, as witnesseth much 
 pseudo-science. 
 
 Is there not much to indicate that the 
 babe's first movements here have origin in 
 its "logos," in its incipient ideation function, 
 with aid in gesture language? However one 
 determine as to nascent mental percept 
 through the sense of touch, that may at least 
 have been the forerunner in scanning the 
 track for the passage of the nerve impulses 
 to come when connection to percept of the 
 physically objective should initiate the nas- 
 cent in the mental drama. 
 
 From now on the path in soul develop- 
 ment is clearer, notwithstanding that the 
 course is from the simple to the complex, as 
 again a la evolution, for this must be kept 
 in mind. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AND here a step further must be taken. 
 The relation to and association of the 
 soul with the body is functional, not 
 immediately with the physical. The distinc- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 53 
 
 tion in kind of factor and process of the phy- 
 sical, the functional and the psychic, has been 
 noted, and is particularly important in re- 
 gard to the subjectively psychic or mind. 
 The gist in the conception of the soul hinges 
 here. A function is the product or outcome 
 of the physical activities by which it was at- 
 tained. And as the physical processes were 
 basic to the function, so the functional is 
 basic to the soul or mind. The soul is not 
 a function of the brain, as digestion is of the 
 alimentary organs. Such a view of the soul 
 is utterly incompetent since this ignores its 
 heredity. The soul is organic, and associa- 
 tional with the cosmos. The psychism of the 
 soul is cosmical in origin, and its identity or 
 individuality is by cosmic, ancestral and the 
 immediate parential heredity. The soul is of 
 the functional, though not a function, the 
 organic functionalism in integrity and ma- 
 turity is the basis and condition of the soul 
 entity in personality. 
 
 Functions, too, are from the simple to the 
 complex, from the homogeneus to the hetero- 
 geneus. A simple cycle of grouped physical 
 
54 
 
 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 movements achieves a simple function. 
 More multiplex the physical factors, and 
 more complexly grouped and cycling the 
 activities, the higher the grade of the func- 
 tion effected. Some functions are only ac- 
 complished on the basis and condition of 
 groups of lower and lesser functions, as 
 digestion, or sight, and without the lower 
 and contributary the higher would be unat- 
 tainable. 
 
 And these functions as they rise in com- 
 plexity of condition to achievement are pro- 
 gressively aivay from the physical and ma- 
 terial, and toward the more purely func- 
 tional. This on the basis of evolution is pro- 
 gressively upward, until one comes to func- 
 tions whose physical basis is far off and 
 nearly lost sight of — for instance, the rap- 
 ture on contemplating the sunrise at the sum- 
 mit of Mount Blanc, or in listening for the 
 first time to the incoming tide at the sea- 
 sliore in the evening, and soul engrossment 
 of the awe and magnificence of the experi- 
 ence. There are functions attained only on 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 55 
 
 the basis of function as its immediate 
 efficiency. 
 
 The soul, which is subjectively psychic as 
 a phenomenon, is only possible on the basis 
 of these functions and in their congeried and 
 grouped complement and maturity. This is 
 why the babe of a few days, and during the 
 first few weeks does not sit up and look 
 around and begin its soul life activities, these 
 functions are attaining their complement 
 and their integrity of balance. 
 
 The "logos" a soul faculty and power, is 
 closely in association with the functional of 
 the organic physical equipment, because of 
 its need and use of the special sense provi- 
 sion of hearing and of speech organs, with 
 nervous accompaniment. The percept must 
 be put into concept, and in this is nascent 
 ratiocination, involving ideation and word 
 concept and formation, creation really, be- 
 fore even little progress can be made. The 
 immediate in association and co-operation is 
 the mind with function, and function of com- 
 plexity in grade, as of sight and language, 
 these being functions effected by functions 
 
56 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 in congeries, and achieved in the onset by 
 physical processes themselves grouped and 
 cycling. 
 
 Only in this comparatively remote sense 
 may the mind be associated with the brain, 
 for the brain is the organ of action (and 
 action in the physically phenomenal) and 
 not an organ of thought. Mind is expressed 
 in parity of its nature and status. Mind is 
 magisterial of function, it has no organ, its 
 immediate association is with the functional, 
 whose basis is of the physical basis of life. 
 
 The soul is subjective, it originates in the 
 entital personality and is effected in and 
 from the man. If it were objective as a 
 psychic factor it might perhaps be located, 
 and have a "seat." Being subjective as a 
 psychism, and functional in base, its function 
 cannot be located, much less itself. 
 
 On observing the fish one sees that it is 
 competent to orientation and "peripatetics" 
 apparently power of directivity located, cer- 
 tainly issuing from its tail and fins. The 
 ass puts its proverbial stupidity on exhibi- 
 tion in its four hoofs, which once planted 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 57 
 
 he will not budge until he "has a mind to." 
 The mule, a domestic advance in evolution, 
 and with psychic characteristics just as 
 marked, is content with two hoofs, which he 
 plays quantitively in reverse proportion to 
 that of his parent. However, whether lo- 
 calized or not the psychic directivity is ob- 
 jecthe, and has local points of initiation by 
 means of the nervous system and the brain 
 as the organ governing the physical or spe- 
 cial muscular activities. 
 
 The bee, the ant (and much lower organ- 
 isms) are supposed to give evidence of in- 
 telligence in strategem, and of choice far 
 superior to that of animals much higher in 
 the scale of evolution, and even beyond that 
 of the animal next to man — the ape — whose 
 brain is almost the counterpart of man's, 
 which it should be as the organ of action, 
 not of thought. With all his wealth of 
 brain endowment he is utterly incompetent 
 to the complex and apparently concerted and 
 strategic activities of the bee and the ant. 
 On the basis of the brain as the organ of 
 mind, and intelligence of lower organisms, 
 
58 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 and the fiction of the animal mind, their sim- 
 ple problems are insolvable, in spite of the 
 wealth of learning and skill being lavished 
 upon them. 
 
 On the basis of this principle of objective 
 psychism as against that which must be 
 subjective to the organism, many problems 
 of the impossible so-called animal psychology 
 are facile of interpretation. Essay in the 
 solvement of these in "The Behavior of 
 Lower Organisms," "The Dancing Mouse," 
 "The Animal Mind," etc., entirely fails, not- 
 withstanding the eminence of the authors 
 and the skill employed. The two latter 
 books are said to be "instalments of a series 
 on animal behavior . . . which might give 
 them a place in courses on comparative 
 psychology such as the frog holds in courses 
 in comparative anatomy, . . . for use in 
 American Colleges," which proposition 
 gives animus to the demurrer here raised. 
 What parity is there of frog comparative 
 anatomy, and mouse and other animals, and 
 still lower organisms, as to their so-called 
 comparative psychology? Animal "psychol- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 59 
 
 ogy" is a mere assumption. No concensus 
 of its scientific acceptance is attained. 
 "Among animals, the fuller developments of 
 instinct and of intelligence exclude one an- 
 other" (M. Bergson, a recognized high au- 
 thority on the questions involved). In the 
 present state — suhjudice — of the problems 
 involved in acceptance of animal psychology 
 as a doctrine, the use of the terms "behavior 
 of lower organisms," in the forced and mis- 
 leading sense inevitable, "steals a march," so 
 to speak, on the opponents of such doctrine. 
 And to teach the at present debated matters, 
 which are necessarily crude and tentative 
 only, as science in American Colleges, is 
 surely too premature to command the ap- 
 proval of American psychologists, and is 
 most certainly inconsonant with the severe 
 scientific spirit. 
 
 The conception of the soul cognate with 
 the "mechanism" theory of life as a phenom- 
 enon is in the extreme narrow, and incon- 
 sonant with the nature and evolution grade 
 of the thing in question. The soul as man 
 is the only evolution conception possible. 
 
6o THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 Soul as ameba, as ant, as elephant, as ape, is 
 inconceivable, without man to hint and say, 
 perish the thought! There is no "missing 
 link" between the monkey and man ! What 
 can be missing with his anatomy and ner- 
 vous and brain comparative furnishing ? He 
 lacks nothing but the mindj the soul. No 
 link is missed, man is the next evolution 
 move above the ape. Give the monkey the 
 focused cosmic psychism in organic and 
 physiologic psychic directivity (which he 
 has equally with man, witness his brain en- 
 dowment) but one advance further, in evo- 
 lution move from the general — or objective 
 psychism — to the special, the subjective — as 
 this study exploits, and the monkey is every 
 inch a man. 
 
 Popular conception has drawn too hard 
 and fast lines in understanding of the "links" 
 as lines of demarcation in evolution progres- 
 sive moves. This is owing to the gross 
 "mechanism" hypotheses in vogue, which 
 entail limitations with baneful results. On 
 this gross and limited hypothesis, to be sure, 
 a "link" is needed, since the ape has no soul, 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 6l 
 
 and man's is so great in present potencies 
 and larger promise. Yet it is a fact that no 
 "link" between the ape and man is conceiv- 
 able, no equipment added to the brute which 
 would be an advance toward man but the 
 mind itself, which would constitute the 
 "link" man. What is conceivable, which 
 added to the ape would make more facile the 
 evolution of the soul or mind in that animal ? 
 He has touch and tongue sense, with ner- 
 vous system and brain a jjlenty, what could 
 be added to make him competent to mind 
 development? We know well enough what 
 he lacks, which if supplied would constitute 
 him as competent to soul and mind phenom- 
 ena and experience as man. What the ape 
 needs is the "logus!" but that is not a mat- 
 ter of "links" or mechanism. He has all the 
 so-called "mechanism" the "machinery." 
 He has not the "logos" faculty, that is a 
 functional quality and power. Here we are 
 above the world of the material and physical. 
 Why could not a monkey have that as well 
 as a man? Let science answer, I can't. 
 Given the "logos" faculty and power, what 
 
62 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 would hinder the ape from being a man? I 
 know of nothing, let science raise the de- 
 murrer. 
 
 It must, therefore, appear that the imme- 
 diate association of the soul with the body — 
 the mediate instrumentality — is of the na- 
 ture of the functional, and there is no 
 "scent" of the soul or mind lost in the brain 
 (Hugh Maccoll, The Hibbert Journal). The 
 soul is amenable to search by observation. 
 and that in the sense and by means of sub- 
 jective psychicagency in cognition of the 
 subjectively psychic when transformed into 
 or made objectively phenomenal. This in- 
 troduces to the final chapter or link in the 
 scientific presentation of the argument. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 T N determination of the exact relation and 
 -^ association of the soul with the physical 
 organism, another important phase of the 
 question presents itself. This has seemed 
 not to be fully recognized, if at all. A large 
 array of facts and data ofifer themselves as 
 modifying, if not radically changing inter- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 63 
 
 pretations that have too readily passed mus- 
 ter. I speak of the phenomenal in the sense 
 of the on-exliibition of mentation and soiil 
 experience. 
 
 Soul psychism in self-conciousness (for 
 we ha^"e now reached the "I think, therefore 
 I am" stage), and in subjective thought — 
 thought originating in this ego — (mark 
 that) with joy and sorrow, love or hate, in 
 ratiocination process to purpose and will — all 
 of this is subjective, and may be and remain 
 non-phenomenal. This subjective and active 
 soul and mind experience and phenomena 
 (in the higher sense in use of the term) may 
 be "in recession," so to speak, in the sense of 
 being non-objective, non-phenomenal in the 
 grosser sense and usage of that term. This 
 subjective soul experience, exhilarating or 
 otherwise may be kept non-objective by the 
 putting on exhibition of other mind expres- 
 sion — the joy, sorrow, love, hate, purpose in 
 will, may thus be hidden or kept subjective. 
 The subjective and objective, therefore, are 
 veritably distinct, at least in our concept or 
 thinking and knowledge of them. 
 
64 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 Now what facts are there to indicate asso- 
 ciation of brain action with this subjective 
 soul phenomenon? or to suggest dependence 
 upon brain activity as instrumental in its 
 achievement! If this had a physical factor 
 necessary in its attainment why may it not 
 be located in the pineal gland, or the solar 
 plexus, or the oscalcis, or finger nail in so 
 far as any known facts or factor indicates? 
 It is only when these subjective phenomena 
 are made to be objective in laughter or tears, 
 in purpose expressed by tongue or pen or 
 otherwise, that brain factorship is in requisi- 
 tion, and as motor instrumentality — brain, 
 the organ of action. Percept must and does 
 preceed concept in the incipiency of mind ac- 
 tion. But in the higher and advanced evo- 
 lution in consciousness is this at all in evi- 
 dence in much of soul life ? Is there a shad- 
 dow of evidence in facts of association and 
 dependence — or either one — of soul with 
 brain cell in any soul or mind phenomena 
 save in that of the objective or on-exhibi- 
 tional? This always involves physical action 
 and not merely abstract soul or the sub- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 65 
 
 jective. It is following a will-o'-the-wisp 
 trying to locate mind in the brain. 
 
 Sight or hearing or any sense phenomenon 
 is not strictly a mental faculty or function. 
 In its basis it is a physical process, achiev- 
 ing a life or organic function, and in the 
 metaphysics of it the mentation is something 
 higher yet. Here the physical has associa- 
 tion with the mental, as we have seen, be- 
 cause of the instrumentality of the motor 
 activities. All of this, the physical and func- 
 tional, transpires in his degree in the dog or 
 canary-bird. The objective in sight or sound 
 by means of an afferent impulse is conveyed 
 to the brain centers and elicits such response 
 by efferent instrumentality in motor action, 
 according to the competence in irritability of 
 the dog or bird. No evidence in fact ap- 
 pears of more than this, and this is account- 
 ed for and explained without introduction of 
 the subjective in these animals by the physical 
 and the functional with the related objective 
 psychism in directivity. In man there is the 
 additional subjectively psychic — the ego. 
 
 Man as soul is in relation with the physi- 
 
66 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 cal in mediate association, but immediately 
 with the functional. The physical makes 
 possible and is effective in the functional, 
 the latter being conditional, and giving issue 
 to the subjectively psychic. No such condi- 
 tional and co-operative factorship obtains in 
 regard to the objective psychism in the 
 physiological of the organic phenomena. 
 The same quality of directivity operates in 
 the special activities constituting the organic 
 as in the cosmic, and in the same manner, 
 save that in the organic the psychic qualita- 
 tive factor is in more focused specialization. 
 In its further specialization evolutionally in 
 the subjective soul or mind, it is so unique 
 in character and agency as to constitute a 
 new cosmic factor, effecting a new and origi- 
 nal phenomenon. Having come into entity 
 by the evolution conditional factors and 
 functions, its cousinship always with the 
 functional and not the factors, the associa- 
 tion with the former is more and more in 
 evidence, and to the limiting of the depen- 
 dent relation with the latter. That is to say, 
 in partial repetition for the sake of clearness 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. dy 
 
 and emphasis, that the physical and the func- 
 tional permit the coming into entity and give 
 issue in objectivity of the subjectively psy- 
 chic, the relation and association continuing 
 throughout organic life, but with waning 
 intimacy of dependence upon the lower, the 
 physical. This marks that the purposive in 
 the association of the soul with the physi- 
 cally organic is first, in interest of the com- 
 ing into entity of the soul ego, and second, 
 in interest of association with other egoisms 
 like itself limited by dependence and rela- 
 tion with the physical. The intimacy of as- 
 sociation v.'ith the physical grows less in pro- 
 portion as the dependence wanes, and this 
 as organic life is extended. 
 
 Now an important and pertinent question 
 arises. The soul having come to its king- 
 dom in entital subjectively psychic person- 
 ality, what further need of the objective, I 
 mean the gross phenomenal, save, as already 
 hinted, in interest of association with other 
 and like egoisms, equally limited by associa- 
 tion with the physical? I have used the 
 terms on-exhibition to more than repletion 
 
68 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 with this in mind throughout this study, par- 
 ticularly wishing to emphasize that the ob- 
 jectively phenomenal is only the temporary, 
 and incidental to this tentative and physical 
 life, and also and very largely in interest of 
 association with other souls equally limited 
 temporarily and incidentally. Full place and 
 play have been allowed for these physical 
 and objective factors and considerations in 
 the coming into entity of the ego by their 
 means, and the consequent needs-be of them 
 as said, temporarily and incidentally, the 
 special senses putting in communication with 
 the external world, and with other organisms. 
 This attained, need of and dependence upon 
 these as instrumentalities grow less and less 
 as evolution advance gives competence to 
 the higher — the subjectively psychic — and 
 to the more purely soul acquaintance and in- 
 tercourse with other souls as such. The 
 step above the physical is to the functional, 
 the highest competency and power of or- 
 ganic life, until the new or subjectively 
 psychic in the organic drama begins. And 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 69 
 
 this step above and into the functional is 
 conditional and instrumental to the psychic. 
 
 And ^^•hat is the secret in the functional 
 as giving instrumental competency to the 
 coming into entity of the soul egoism? 
 \\'^hat will account for and explain the facts 
 in this new phenomenon? We may only 
 turn to our conception of the organic with 
 its essential associationalism, not omitting, 
 however, the ever aidful interpreting factor 
 and master key evolution. The organic in 
 relation with and in origin by the cosmic 
 gives energy and qualitative directivity to 
 the physiological. The organic involving 
 the relational or non-sectional of life phe- 
 nomena gives the congeried and cycling of 
 both physical processes and functions, as in- 
 strumental to the acmean achievement of the 
 purposive in the complex organic phenom- 
 enon. And the evolutional in unerring 
 moves from the simple to the complex, and 
 from the general to the special enterprets 
 complexity in congeried functionalism as 
 conditional and instrumental in soul evolu- 
 tion. The congeried complexity in function 
 
70 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 has attained the acme in disturbed equiUb- 
 rium, which is always precurser and agency 
 in advance in life or physiological processes, 
 so in this higher range a new era in progress 
 opens in the unique phenomenon, the ego or 
 soul. 
 
 Now, drop the lower, the physically in- 
 strumental, why not? and behold the soul! 
 a subjective psychic entital cosmical identity. 
 Identity, that is to say, individuality, with 
 unique characterization is fundamental of 
 soul concept. Hence, there may be no in- 
 carnation or reincarnation of the human soul 
 prior to initial appearance in earth life — ^this 
 must be scientifically impossible. What- 
 ever of the "mystic" may be allowed in re- 
 gard to "reincarnation" as a doctrine, or as 
 to incarnation as a fact, science of a surety 
 discounts the scientifically impossible. And 
 since the facts evidence that the identity 
 of each individual soul is immediately de- 
 termined by parental heredity the impossi- 
 bility of a prior existence seems a foregone 
 conclusion. There seems to be scientific pos- 
 sibility for but one authenticated case 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 71 
 
 of human incarnation, and that in the in- 
 stance of Jesus the Christ, and that only on 
 the basis of the true and real virgin birth — 
 which I have discussed elsewhere. These 
 questions, however, must be left here. 
 
 Identity, but not fixity or locality in space, 
 is cognate and fundamental to soul concep- 
 tion. One cannot give the limitation of lo- 
 cality in strictness even to his concept of 
 function. Having filtered the soul of the 
 material is it less entital in thought or es- 
 sence? The gross and physical in soul con- 
 cept is assuredly the tentative and temporary. 
 
 The facts and distinctions here marked 
 are the key to the interpretation of the prob- 
 lems of diseases of the brain, with their in- 
 volvement of mental condition and expres- 
 sion, and those of senility in old age. There 
 are no diseases of the mind. These may 
 only occur in the physical basis of the mind. 
 The effect of these so-called mental diseases, 
 which have their bases in the physical or- 
 gans and structures of the body, interfer- 
 ing with their functions, is a different and 
 more complex question, involving, as it does. 
 
72 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 a higher kind of phenomena than the phy- 
 sical and the functional — the psychic. The 
 basis of a so-called functional disease is in 
 the physical, and conception of "disease" is 
 inseparably connected with the physical mak- 
 ing the functional possible. Of course psy- 
 chology, strictly within its own sphere, has 
 to do with the psychic, and knows nothing, 
 has nothing to do with structural change 
 in degeneration of brain substance. The 
 simple psyche concept is not formed on the 
 basis of chemistry and physics, with atomic 
 and molecular involvement. And should 
 the facts exploited in this thesis find further 
 corroboration, and the objective, or onex- 
 hibition of mentality alone be found to have 
 relation and dependence upon brain action, 
 psychology as now understood will remain 
 mostly unaffected by the change in base — so 
 far — evidencing the distinction in the prob- 
 lems of physical disease and mental change 
 or aberation, say. 
 
 The mind problem must be attacked from 
 the standpoint of its higher and more com- 
 plex kind as a phenomenon, and the merely 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. -j-i, 
 
 symbolical of acconimodational use of the 
 terms employed must be emphasized. There 
 are no afifections, disturbances, abnormali- 
 ties of the mind in its purely subjective ex- 
 istence and operations that have approved 
 scientific facts in the physical to evidence.* 
 Lesians of nervous substance in lobe or con- 
 volution, or ganglionic cell centers, with al- 
 teration structurally, and deterioration quali- 
 tati^'ely, these are well known, and that they 
 efifect disturbances in sensous and motor 
 activities, and the onexhibition of mentation 
 — that is to say, mind activities which de- 
 pend upon these physical instrumentalities 
 for their creation and expression. What 
 effect otherwise have such lesians and phy- 
 sical conditions? And what effect upon the 
 
 *The "autobiography" of Helen Keller, now ap- 
 pearing in The Century Magazine, throws much 
 light upon these questions, and strongly supports 
 the position of the present writer. It is too pre- 
 mature to speak decisively of the important in- 
 vestigations and experiments of Professor Gates, 
 of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C, 
 v.ho speaks of mental emotions, anger, etc., as 
 causing the production of poisons in the body 
 secretions. This does not necessarily affect our 
 questions. 
 
74 
 
 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 purely subjective, that which is to, or may, 
 remain purely subjective, the non-objective, 
 and which may be independent of the im- 
 mediate sensuous and motor of the physical 
 in the objective of mentality? These are 
 metaphysical questions in a high degree, but 
 they are indispensable in the solvement of 
 these problems. And no facts as yet adduced 
 show immediate, necessary relation to and 
 effect of the one upon the other. 
 
 The mind is often seen to be unaffected, 
 save as above specified, when a sudden re- 
 moval of the cause of the brain disturb- 
 ance, after long continuance too, results in 
 a manifestation of mind unimpaired and un- 
 changed. Instances of permanent change of 
 disposition are recorded, to be sure, and a 
 point not easy of dismissal, seeing that we 
 are limited to and by the onexhibition of 
 mentality so largely. We have to depend in 
 much upon the symbolical and the accom- 
 modational, not only as to terminology in 
 expression of ideas, but also in concept and 
 formation of the ideas as to these specifically 
 psychic matters in consideration. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 75 
 
 Clumsily convert a piano into a melodian, 
 the music elicited would be different and not 
 to be compared with that before the change 
 in the instrument. The artist musician might 
 remain unchanged, for a time, at least; but 
 would not it surely drive him crazy ? Every 
 alianist physician has patients exactly in 
 the condition of that unfortunate musician, 
 or much like him, anyway. And don't they 
 get "mad?"' He thinks correctly. He knows 
 the correct thing to say, makes the effort 
 to say it, and says it correctly from the 
 subjective basis, and so thinks he has. He 
 is at the subjective and you at the objective 
 end, and in the specific instance they are not 
 the same, and the objective is at fault, and 
 the subjective thinks the stupidity is all 
 yours. First he is impatient of your stu- 
 pidity. Then he becomes obstreporous and 
 "mad" and ungovernable, and all the while 
 he — the subjective — was right, and he knew 
 it, it was the objective which he did not 
 know, and could not know, that was wrong. 
 
 When we come to investigate the ques- 
 tion of the effect of the continuance of these 
 
76 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 conditions upon the "disposition," say the 
 subjective psychism, we have the question 
 raised several figures. The brain lesion is 
 there from the first. The functions of those 
 nervous organisms are interfered with from 
 the first. Soul, mind is based upon function, 
 not immediately upon material motion of 
 body or brain substance. In "permanent 
 change of disposition" in specific instances 
 only, we have to do with repeated and con- 
 tinued interference with functions, and those 
 the highest, the most complex, those which 
 are magisterial in the sensuous and motor 
 activities of the organism as such. These 
 are the highest of all bodily functions — sen- 
 sory and motor — closely related to the con- 
 scious and willing mind, and upon which 
 the mind is really dependent for power of 
 expression of itself. Lesian of the material 
 brain affects its function, this affects the sen- 
 sory and motor of the organic phenomena, 
 and this the objective or onexhibition of 
 mentality. This is as far as our facts per- 
 mit us to go. The subjective — the mind 
 proper— is above and beyond the objective 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. yy 
 
 of mentality. The basis of this, immediately, 
 is function, and a function is not entital as 
 is the physical which achieves it, and our 
 "facts" give out in persuing the question of 
 the soul right here. 
 
 What effect then has the brain lesian on 
 the mind? None, immediatel}'. What ef- 
 fect has the disturbance or destruction of 
 the cognate function? Immediate and 
 marked interferance of the onexhibition, or 
 objective of mind phenomena, and all of it 
 which relates to the sensory and motor phase 
 of mentality. What efifect, then, may these 
 functional and objective phenomena have 
 upon the inner and higher yet, the subjec- 
 tive, the egotistic or soul? None that may 
 be traced or evidenced on our present line 
 of investigation. We step up into another 
 region, and our platform and standpoint of 
 inquiry must be raised and enlarged. 
 
 Psychiatry has much to say in regard to 
 the matters in review but it is all on the one 
 side, it has solely to do with the objective 
 of mind phenomena. 
 
 Now age in senility is manifest precisely 
 
78 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 in the same manner. In regard to the sub- 
 jectivity of the soul, and that is its real 
 status, senility is inversely as that of the ob- 
 jective or the phenomenal. As age length- 
 ens the tendency is more and more to the 
 introspective, to live within. The power of 
 reflection — introspective — grows stronger 
 with age, which is inconsistent with the 
 principle of senility. Is the part of the brain 
 supposed to be in activity in the "act" or 
 experience of introspection and reflection 
 localized? Where should one look for it? 
 The thinking that would bring into requi- 
 sition the aid of memory, of a person, an 
 event, which involved at the far off time the 
 use of the senses, would have some sugges- 
 tion of locality in the center giving origin to 
 that nerve tract, but- only so far as the sight 
 of the person, or sounds of the concert at- 
 tended at the time were concerned. Those 
 would be merely incidental or contributary 
 to the intellectual phenomenon. 
 
 But in age and senility those are the 
 phases of mentality which are affected, the 
 sight, the hearing, the use of the tongue and 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 79 
 
 limbs, and the memory, but with this to be 
 marked, the memory which requires the use 
 of the senses. The song heard the other day 
 is forgotten, because closely asociated with 
 the physical sense organs which are senile. 
 The song of fifty years ago is "remembered" 
 as if heard the other day. Why the differ- 
 ence? Is this a hard question to ask? It 
 certainly involved the material sense of hear- 
 ing at the time. It cannot depend upon that 
 now. Nor may it be explained on the basis 
 of "layers of memory cells" (like "records" 
 for a phonograph?). Senility affects the phy- 
 sical structures, and their functions conse- 
 quently ; hence memory depending upon these 
 should be less, not greater, that of fifty 
 years ago as compared with that of the otl.er 
 day. Had there been the accessories of the 
 former attending the latter, and making it 
 pass into the soul as an abiding experience 
 would not the song of the other day be "re- 
 membered" as fully? 
 
 "I am eighty years old today, I never felt 
 so young as I do this morning," wrote the 
 late Dr. McCosh. Yet his hearing was some- 
 
8o THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 what impaired, other sense organs too, so 
 that mind in its expression was interfered 
 with in so far. But his soul eyes were un- 
 dimmed, his soul force unabated. Never 
 so young as on that eightieth anniversary 
 day for he was still attaining competence to 
 greater things. The position that man has 
 achieved his best at forty can only have 
 relevancy to the physical or phenomenal in 
 man, and then subject to adjustment to the 
 larger and partly unrecognized facts inter- 
 pretive of his nature and potential compe- 
 tences. 
 
 The late Pontiff, who died several years 
 ago, was a noble iluustration in point too. 
 His giant soul coming, struggling may it be 
 said, into entity and maturity in association 
 with and by means of a frail physical organ- 
 ization, and so handicapped thru life, was 
 yet virile and all dominant thru a long life, 
 exhibiting his mind prowess to the last days, 
 and even hours, and almost moment. The 
 experiences of the last months of his life re- 
 vealed a veritable struggle to hold intact a 
 while longer the necessary physical frame 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 8l 
 
 until the soul purposes in process of achieve- 
 ment were attained, — a marked dominion of 
 mind over the physical and a lesson in pschol- 
 ogy to be appreciated. Men do not pass so 
 leisurely thru life, or so leisurely out of it as 
 did the patriarch who, feeling his end near, 
 "gathered up his feet into the bed and died," 
 being full of days. Rather life's tenure is 
 too short. Death too often breaks in upon 
 and untimely cuts short and prevents com- 
 pletion of what seems the most important 
 and momentous of life's working day. Wit- 
 ness the princely Virchow, aged yet busy, 
 accidentally breaking a limb, but recovering 
 and resuming his toil only in a few months 
 to come to his decease. Or, again, the im- 
 mortal Pasteur. Arrested suddenly in his 
 work, with some special experiments along 
 the lines that had made his name great in 
 the world, and in a few days in the very 
 article of death, his lips moving were heard 
 to whisper, "We must keep working; wi 
 must keep on working," and his great soul 
 passed on to "join the majority" where they 
 are still working, if to fulfill ones destiny 
 
82 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 in the great evolution purpose may be so 
 designated. 
 
 No indissoluble bond exists between the 
 soul and the body. The shuffling off of the 
 mortal coil is readily effected, for the in- 
 strument no longer efficiently available for 
 use, and less and less needed to effect the 
 ever enlarging higher soul life, it is at last 
 dropped, and the functionally attained ego 
 continues its subjective psychic identity in- 
 dependently of the physical. Here we are 
 face to face with the so-termed mystery of 
 death. 
 
 And, indeed, death is an equal problem 
 with life, which not ending all, rather ends 
 nothing. Death initiates change, what more ? 
 And if evolution have meaning it is change 
 in interest of continuance of the fit and in 
 progression to the larger and the higher. 
 
 There is no need of the physical to the 
 purely subjective of soul psychism, nor for 
 association with souls like itself delimited of 
 the restrictions of the earth life. We have 
 seen that the elements of the soul were psy- 
 chic in their cosmic or general relationships. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 83 
 
 In the more specific or organic life associa- 
 tion the psychism was fostered in and by 
 evolution filtering of the material, by imme- 
 diate functional dependence, and in process 
 of the superceeding of the lower and basic 
 by dissolution from the base. What then 
 may hinder the entrance into and the per- 
 sistence in and of the psycho-functional? 
 the base in which functionalism is the pur- 
 posive! Before the penetration of this soul 
 vision, even on the basis of science facts, the 
 clouds forming the mysticism of death begin 
 to separate. 
 
 Here, then, we may rest our case from the 
 scientific point of view. Beyond this sci- 
 ence does not go, having shown possibility 
 in veritable fact, and even needs-be of con- 
 tinance in soul life. The end or cessation of 
 mere life potency is seen in the million save 
 one of fish eggs, and of the seventy thousand, 
 less a dozen at most of human ova, of each 
 individual organism in both species. Is there 
 hint the slightest in any fact known to sci- 
 ence of ending of that which is psychic — the 
 "stuff" which constitutes souls? All science 
 
84 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 facts, in so far as they speak, proclaim the 
 contrary. Evolution princple, which must 
 be admitted "The Master Key"' here, pro- 
 claims the - phenomenon impossible. Is the 
 human ego — a psychic entity or verity — a 
 factor in cosmic phenomena? Then put by 
 its side the eternal and universal principle 
 (regnant in all things) from the homogen- 
 eous to the heterogeneous, and from the gen- 
 eral to the special, and by that token the 
 soul must and will continue so long as the 
 psychic phenomenon endures. The conser- 
 vation of energy is unthinkable save on the 
 basis of an Eternal Energy. The ending 
 of a human soul, or break in its onward evo- 
 lution to the more highly specialized and 
 perfect, is impossible and unthinkable, unless 
 one stultifies his intelligence and denies evo- 
 lution facts. 
 
 Ah! it is truly great to have come into 
 entity as a soul, to be a factor in soul phe- 
 nomena, and to play a part in the egoistic 
 drama — a factor to be reckoned with, and 
 to be accounted for in any cosmic philosophy. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 85 
 
 "Were I as tall as to reach the 'pole' 
 Or grasp the ocean in a span, 
 
 I must be measured by my soul, 
 
 The mind's the standard of the man." 
 
 And what a homily is Helen Keller read- 
 ing- us in her "autobiography?" Souls are 
 souls by cosmic evolution. But souls in their 
 entital identity are "created" ! What would 
 she have been without the aid of her teacher ? 
 The teacher was the factor in the manipula- 
 tion of her organic potencies, those on which 
 depend the coming into entity of the egoistic 
 soul. The teacher was to her what the ob- 
 jective psychism is to normal organisms. The 
 functions of the missing sense organs and 
 properties were the means and the compe- 
 tences in the use of which the soul came to 
 egoism. In the teacher this was both in- 
 ferior and superior to the normal — the sense 
 organs and functions. He was as sight to 
 her, but of course imperfect as such. But in 
 the initiation of the psychism of sight — the 
 induction of the mental percept, the sense 
 idea passing into the intellectual — the teacher 
 was more than the sense organ, since in him 
 
86 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 the psychism was subjective and consequent- 
 ly purposive in greater specialization, and so 
 more effective, or effective in this higher de- 
 gree. 
 
 And in the coming into egoism of this 
 now splendidly equipt woman how necessary 
 as well as important was the part borne by 
 the teacher ! Hellen Keller's spiritual awak- 
 ening, as she terms it, did not occur until 
 the teacher began his manipulation of the 
 existant and conditional, tho inactive func- 
 tions and competances to soul development. 
 She says, "I did not know that 'I am.' I 
 lived in a no-world. I had neither will nor 
 intellect. I was carried along to objects and 
 acts by a blind natural impulse. I never 
 viewed anything beforehand or chose it. 
 Never in a start of the body or a heart-beat 
 did I feel that I loved or cared for anything. 
 My inner life was a blank. From remi- 
 niscenses like these I conclude that it is the 
 opening of these two faculties, freedom of 
 the will, or choice, and rationality, or the 
 power of thinking from one thing to another, 
 which makes it possible to come into being, 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 87 
 
 first as a child and afterward as a man. It 
 was not touch that brought me knowledge, it 
 was the awakening of my soul that first ren- 
 dered my senses their value, and the cog- 
 nizance of objects, names, qualities and prop- 
 erties. Thought made me conscious of life, 
 joy, and all emotions. I was eager to know 
 and understand, then to reflect on what I 
 knew and understood, and the blind impulse 
 which before had driven me hither and 
 thither at the dictates of my sensations, van- 
 ished forever." 
 
 This is well nigh precisely whaf, occurs in 
 the dawning of the soul during infancy and 
 childhood, extended over more years of time, 
 and varied by the conditions obtaining. In 
 the abnormal case the awakenings were more 
 sudden, coming more in bounds and leaps, 
 and larger in extent, but the same soul dawn- 
 ing and coming into entital identity. 
 
 But what a revelation of the possibilities 
 in the hands of the mother of mental or soul 
 manipulation is its dawning, awakening, or 
 coming into entity in egoism, as the best 
 terms commandable. The world as yet is 
 
88 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 largely peopled by half-formed and illy 
 formed, and deformed souls. Not only 
 or chiefly in our Ghettoes and Bow- 
 eries and cellars, and perhaps not 
 much more there than in our com- 
 fortable homes or the mansions of the mil- 
 lionaires. Souls are permitted to "grow" 
 into identity, like topsy, when they might, 
 would and should be guided, called out. 
 manipulated and molded in their budding and 
 unfolding. What! the world needs today for 
 its redemption is competent motherhood. 
 This does not touch the question or sphere 
 of religion. Christianity cannot, was not 
 intended to make a holy (whole) man of a 
 soulmonstrosity. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 r^ ONCLUSIVE from the conception of 
 ^^ the soul here exploited, and the facts 
 educed in evidence and elucidation of the 
 views maintained, principles of interpretation 
 of the problems presented are here afforded. 
 Competent explanations and accounting for 
 of the factors and the facts are possible, 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 89 
 
 A\hich, in no other way, and on no other 
 basis in principle, offers a scientific solve- 
 ment of the problems involved, or of so 
 many of them. A brief discussion of these 
 may lead to the final thought with which 
 this study shall close. 
 
 It is a fact easily verifiable that the con- 
 cept force, energy, is as entital to our con- 
 sciousness as is the material. Not to com- 
 mon experience and thinking are these two 
 factors or objects entital in the same sense 
 a difference in kind of entity is recognized; 
 nevertheless, force is as real and intensive 
 in the consciousness of which it is the object 
 and cause, as is the material object. So, 
 in the organic phenomenon, no factor is 
 more entital and real than is the concept and 
 experience we designate, the psychic. No 
 factor omitted, non-recognized, would leave 
 as large a blank or missing link as this 
 would entail. Hence, the force of the illus- 
 tration, not original here, the house swept 
 with a broom, and, also, with a purpose, 
 the "purpose" as real, as veritable as the 
 broom. 
 
90 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 "Purpose" qieaks volumes! The psychic 
 is non-material. In concept, it is two re- 
 moves from the material, as factor in 
 thoug-ht. Coming up, it is from material to 
 energy, and from force to psychism, or the 
 purposive. These are distinctions, not 
 merely possible to consciousness, but also 
 imperative, and specifically in ratiocination. 
 Verital to consciousness, the psychic in the 
 "purposive," purpose to an end to be at- 
 tained, is outside the category of the physi- 
 cal and material, more cognate as a concept 
 in consciousness with energy, yet distinct 
 from both. Force by association with the 
 material may become phenomenal, in other 
 words, assume on exhibition phase. The 
 psychic, as a conscious concept, more cognate 
 with energy than matter, is distinct from 
 both, as evidenced in the fact that force may 
 become phenomenal by association with mat- 
 ter, force being regnant and initiative in 
 the phenomenon as sequal of the association, 
 the phenomenon being contingent upon the 
 co-partnership. Association of force with 
 psychism in the "purposive," or "directivity," 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. gi 
 
 the material the objective, the phenomenon 
 accruing is the organic; matter the physical 
 basis, force the medium of communication 
 and agent in potentiality, the psychic, still 
 distinct in nature and role, magisterial and 
 dominant in all. 
 
 Hence the degree of discount of Spencer's 
 principle of essential alliance of energy and 
 matter, and impossibility of concept other- 
 wise. Consciousness by association with en- 
 ergy gives degree in feeling, emotion, appre- 
 hension, which, while expressed in much 
 physiologically, is contained in functions 
 which have no immediate physical basis, and 
 which, at the most, may be only said to be 
 contingent on a basis of prior achieved func- 
 tions. In a word — Complement and hetero- 
 geneity of function are basic in the coming 
 into entity and life of the ego or soul. 
 
 The psychic, in particulate, is a realm of 
 the metaphysical of grades, and of distinc- 
 tions, because it is a realm of "quality" and 
 of qualities, and the incipiancy of the present 
 stage of evolution physically renders our 
 best conception of these things little more 
 
92 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 than crude, a point to be remembered in our 
 dealing with these metaphysical facts. 
 
 In the text of the foregoing sections the 
 distinction of the objective and the sub- 
 jective in psychism is cardinal in considera- 
 tion, a line of demarcation, and the master 
 key in the solvement of the problems in 
 psychology of the plant and the animal 
 worlds — man being apical in the latter cate- 
 gory. Leaving out the human species in the 
 animal category, and no hint of distinction 
 in psychism as to kind, in potentiality desig- 
 nated vital, or living, or in protoplasm, the 
 physical basis alike in kind, and of all living 
 things, appears. It is only when the homo- 
 geneity has attained the evolutional hetero- 
 geneity of such complexure and complement 
 as is found in human organic phenomena 
 that distinction in kind of the psychic factor 
 and energy is suggested. The suggestion 
 of difference in kind, not degree merely, 
 grows out of the riddle of unevolutional in 
 the disposition and activity of the factor and 
 principle in consideration. On all evolution 
 principle — from the homogeneous to the 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 93 
 
 hetorogeneous, from the simple to the com- 
 plex — the larger and more intensive in de- 
 gree of psychism should be reserved to the 
 later and higher grades of organisms, while 
 the lesser and incipient in degree should 
 mark the lower and earlier in evolution 
 grade. The converse of this is actually what 
 obtains. So marked is "The psychic life of 
 micro-organisms'' that this gives title to 
 treatises upon the same. In so much do the 
 physical activities of lower organisms re- 
 semble the actions of human beings that 
 these are dubbed "behavior," and interpreta- 
 tions on that basis are attempted. It is but 
 a step further to the "animal mind." But, 
 the riddle is only seen to its greatest advan- 
 tage when is put into observation and com- 
 parison the "behavior" of ants and bees by 
 the side of that of our asserted recent prede- 
 cessors, the apes. What a "descent" from 
 the ant to the ape! but to the eternal dis- 
 credit of the latter, in point of evolution, as 
 to "common sense," social organization and 
 the strategic in conduct. Nothing in the ape 
 conduct is comparable with that in the ant. 
 
94 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 Now, here is presented a riddle of the 
 universe in miniature proportions as com- 
 pared with the greater riddle. Two alterna- 
 tives arise. The abandonment of the prin- 
 ciple of evolution, or there must be another 
 kind of psychic factor and principle, on the 
 basis of which the riddle of the imevolu- 
 tional, as presented in the conversed status 
 and degree of objective psychism in the 
 lower and higher organisms may be solved. 
 Plowing with Sampson's heifer his riddle 
 was resolved, so the simple incident of the 
 mother's special attentions to the child un- 
 able as yet to walk, as compared with the 
 lesser aid given to the one running about 
 with trained and stouter limbs, suggests 
 nature's profusion in endowment in objective 
 or psychic directivity to the lower organism, 
 in view of the higher competance to needs in 
 the more complexly functioned higher or- 
 ganism. 
 
 The psychism of living phenomena is 
 that factor and principle which moves the 
 homogeneous on towards and in heterogen- 
 eity to the functional, in constitution of the 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 95 
 
 organic, or living. It may be allowed that 
 the physics and chemistry in the formation 
 of earths, and rocks, and metals be desig- 
 nated physiological, why not? It is the ad- 
 vance in heterogenity, etc., marked by the 
 generation of the life germ, the physical 
 basis of its phenomena, or manifestation, 
 which brings into entity and activity the 
 cycling in character, the congeried in com- 
 plexity of these cycling physical processes, 
 issuing or achieving function, which is 
 essential or constituant of the organic. In all 
 of this, in all classes and grades of complex- 
 ity and heterogeneity of organic or living 
 phenomena, the psychism is same in kind, 
 differing only in degree in objective activity. 
 It is objective, not subjective, because of 
 absence of any fact in evidence of conscious 
 relation or association in the phenomenon of 
 which it is a factor. 
 
 Now a subjective psychism is easy of dis- 
 tinction of concept from the objective. A 
 subjective psychism is only thinkable on a 
 basis of consciousness, and, of course, pre- 
 supposes consciousness as egoism. It is sub- 
 
96 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 jective, because it is not a factor, it is here, 
 not there, it is entital and identital, and had 
 a beginning or an origination, precisely, per- 
 haps, as had the first germ of hfe with its- 
 physical basis, the coming into entity in 
 egoism, as unique a phenomenon as the origi- 
 nation of that first germ of Hfe. Thus is . 
 marked as pyramidal in all cosmic and or- 
 ganic phenomena, the psychism coming to 
 focus and issue in the subjective egoism of 
 the human soul and mind. 
 
 And this is truly and pre-eminently soul 
 and mind. The conserving energy its 
 source. The channels and streams of its 
 cosmic focus and concentration, ontologic, 
 and in subjective phenomenal egoism, origi- 
 nating and initiating by and from the organ- 
 ism in which it is potentially active. 
 
 No organism inferior to man in organ- 
 ized functionality is competant to this sub- 
 jective, volitional mentality. Animals be- 
 low the human attain the goal of their evolu- 
 tion role in their competancy to organic de- 
 velopment; their highest function is bearer 
 or depository and exhibitor of that objective 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 97 
 
 psychism, unique in kind and degree of activ- 
 ity effecting the functional in physiologic 
 phenomena, and marking the distinction in 
 the inorganic and the living. 
 
 The assertion is ventured that the con- 
 ception of mind here set forth will aid ma- 
 terially in attainment of a more correct or- 
 ganic philosophy, and by exposition of error 
 in past and current thinking in the depart- 
 ments of science involved. 
 
 Even the late Mr. Herbert Spencer, per- 
 haps the greatest of modern thinkers, seems 
 not to have attained a correct or adequate 
 conception of the mind in potential activity, 
 witness when he speaks of "An object 
 known to have wrought on * * * con- 
 sciousness a certain group of changes,' etc.* 
 Now, the potential and its initiation in 
 activity efifecting the phenomenon in ques- 
 tion — "a group or groups of changes in 
 consciousness" — originate in and by the 
 mind or consciousness as ego. Conscious- 
 ness is not passive, being "wrought upon," 
 and by an "object," the lesser producing the 
 •See First Principles, p. 151. 
 
98 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 greater. No interpretation is possible of any 
 phenomenon of mind or mentation, on such 
 a conception of the factors or agencies and 
 their activities. Rather the mind is the 
 agent effecting these changes in conscious- 
 ness, this being the response of the potential 
 entity to the action at a distance of the 
 object or body. The mind as the ego is 
 regal and dominant in its own kingdom, and 
 not passive and wrought upon. Again, on 
 page 1 86, it is asserted as "a conspicuous 
 fact that mental action is contingent on the 
 presence of a certain nervous apparatus,' etc. 
 This is a half-truth only, which needs de- 
 fining and limiting before accepting, as this 
 discussion has endeavored to show. Of 
 course this half-truth is held as the truth 
 on the basis of the brain as the organ of 
 mind. But the mind has no such limited 
 and limiting organ as that would prove to 
 be. The brain is the seat and centre of 
 energy, whence initiates impulse to activity. 
 This is the role of the brain, or so-called 
 headquarters of the nervous apparatus. Its 
 further role of association with and con- 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 99 
 
 tingency to intellectuality is matter for fur- 
 ther designation and determination. The 
 association of the nervous substance and 
 structures, and the contingency of their ac- 
 tion to mental action are certainly secondary 
 to its magisterial role as center and organ 
 of sensuous and motor impulse. Its regal 
 function tnay be achieved in complete ab- 
 straction from relation to or co-operation 
 with intellectuality. The association and co- 
 action of nerve-ganglion or centres is only 
 mediate, and in relation zvith its primal 
 function, truths which are evident in the 
 nature of the organ, and in the facts of its 
 activities. Mere animals immediately and 
 otherwise below man have this organ, and 
 in full complement of its primal function, 
 as in man himself. Its role in intellectual 
 functions (for these are functions rather 
 than actions, or processes), in the sense and 
 degree of nervous action contingent to con- 
 sciousness and intellection, would constitute 
 this supererogate to the primal function. The 
 brain is misconceived and mis-or over-inter- 
 preted as the organ of mind. Estimate of 
 
lOO THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 the nature and the significance of its associa- 
 tion with mind and soul needs to be recon- 
 ceived and constructed. And when so re- 
 vised and reconstructed the primal design 
 and function and potential of the cortex of 
 the cerebrum and their centers, with their 
 prolongations, may be discovered to be ex- 
 tended in heterogeneity and complexity of 
 their functional potentiality, giving com- 
 petance to response to the higher evolutional 
 demands in the added or evolved superero- 
 gaie suggested. Nevertheless, the primal 
 function and role of the organ, the brain, 
 will remain in its regality, and its extended 
 function in association with intellectuality 
 is the higher, yet temporary and passing 
 glory and role of its supererogative.* And 
 do not these facts and their significance for- 
 ever brush away the figment of "thought, a 
 secretion of the brain," and all like incon- 
 sonant and incongruous notions? 
 
 A notable and comparatively new depar- 
 ture in the realm of intellectuality and 
 
 *The repetitive iise of this term saves time 
 and, ink! 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. loi 
 
 morals is the splendid "purposive," and the 
 means employed in attainment of those ends, 
 in the work of Professor E. Gates of the 
 Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C, 
 namely, the building up, so termed, of brain 
 structures in the effort to modify and im- 
 prove the character of youth. The distinction 
 in kind of the factors and objective to be dealt 
 with, "The Mind and the Brain," is a point 
 vital in the extreme in its bearing on the 
 proposition in purpose. ■ The psychic phen- 
 omenon is the objective to be affected in 
 change and modification, and only m so far 
 as the conception of the soul and mind, in 
 nature and characteristics and mode in con- 
 sciousness, and in the effecting of changes 
 and groups of changes in these, approaches 
 the real and veritable, may the proposition 
 in question be hopeful in promise. This in- 
 volves almost as specifically and vitally the 
 question of the relation of brain action to 
 mental function. And the question, how far 
 this relation in association, and in function 
 of contingency goes, and the potential of 
 these in the mind phenomenon is of the 
 
I02 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 highest moment. To the best of the writer's 
 obtained information the work of the above 
 institution is pregnant with promise.'^ 
 
 Mr. Luther Burbank, who has achieved 
 such wonderful results in changes in mor- 
 phology — and even more than mere morphol- 
 ogy — of flowers and fruits, has at least sug- 
 gested probability of like achievements with 
 the "human plant.'' 
 
 Even in his first purposive — change in 
 the form and external of the plant, he wisely 
 manipulated, mediately, the plant forces of 
 hereditary vitality. Of his modus operandi 
 in regard to manipulation of the human 
 plant I have little or no informiation. 
 
 In some work done in the Chicago Uni- 
 versity, and later in that of California, and 
 still prosecuted by Professors Loeb and 
 Mathews, in manipulation, etc., of phenom- 
 ena involving the "nervous apparatus," and 
 the phenomenon of reproduction, in induced 
 parthenogenesis, the chemical and electrical 
 forces are the ones brought into requisition. 
 
 *See The Mind and the Brain, Theosophical 
 Publication Company, New York. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 103 
 
 The purpose put into execution, at least in 
 the earher years, was, confessedly, the ma- 
 nipulation and control of organic phenomena 
 sectionally, a quite limited proposition in the 
 case, to be sure, and, of course, with results 
 accordingly. But when the purpose was en- 
 larged to embrace and promise the produc- 
 tion of foods — vegetables and fruits — with 
 expected potency and promise of the for- 
 mation of life in animal organization, ap- 
 parently without cognate enlargement of the 
 purposive in use of other than the chemical 
 and laboratory forces and factors which had 
 evidenced competance to modification in ma- 
 nipulation of the very limited sectional part 
 of life phenomena, then, to be sure, a will-o'- 
 the-wisp arose. Hence the unscientific 
 proposition of the synthesis of foods, and 
 the equally unscientific position in attempt to 
 give "a physical explanation of life." 
 
 The relevancy and cognation of the special 
 points to which, perhaps, apparent drifting 
 in our argument has led, may yet be per- 
 ceived, and a further word be permitted in 
 
I04 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 reinforcement of position and demurrer in- 
 volved. 
 
 Two lines of thought will evidence valid- 
 ity in demurrer and antagonism to the 
 pseudo-science averred.* First: A syn- 
 thetic achievement, in factor and process, is 
 that alone to which simple chemistry and the 
 constructed laboratory are competant, and a 
 synthesis is not a counterpart of physiologic 
 growth. The former is impotential to the 
 effecting of the latter, a kind in force being 
 a missing factor in the synthesis. This has 
 been evidenced in the earlier sections of this 
 discussion. Second : Because it is demon- 
 strated by the factors and facts in the 
 phenomenon of growth, as in all organic 
 phenomena, that there is in verital existence 
 and operation an objective psychic factor and 
 potential, effective in direction and control of 
 the material factors and processes in the 
 
 *See the author's critique of "Some of the 
 Present-Day Problems of Biological Chemistry, 
 (Professor Chittenden) in Medical Fortnightly, 
 St. Louis, August, 1908. Also "Development of 
 Life by Expert Chemistry," to appear in American 
 Medicine, New York. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 105 
 
 phenomena of a living thing. A synthetic 
 process and phenomenon is minus this factor 
 and potential. This is the secret in attain- 
 ment of the congeried cycling of the physi- 
 cal processes v.'ith function achieved, unique 
 to living phenomena, " crystal isation" itself 
 having no semblance of it. And to speak 
 of "a principle of crystalization, or a prin- 
 ciple of fire, as much as a principle of life," 
 (John Burroughs), may be dismissed as 
 hasty and short-thoughted. 
 
 Truly, it is this psychic factor and quality 
 which is the distinguishing characteristic of 
 the organic or living realm. 
 
 Truly, also, is it that this psychic factor 
 and quality in heterogenetic focus and con- 
 centration, contingent to the subjectivity 
 constituting the egoism of personality, is the 
 essential in the pyramidal and kingly estate 
 which is man's rightful and sufficient crown 
 of rejoicing. 
 
 My closing thought and word must be of 
 the dawning and coming into entity of this 
 human soul. This has ferity, and also mode 
 and means. 
 
io6 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 The soul comes into entity and thus be- 
 comes identical, for there must be periods 
 as to point of origin. When the focus of 
 heredity in source is attained then the soul 
 dawns, and identitality is achieved. The 
 mother in an unique sense is the instrument 
 and means in this. She is the arsenal, so to 
 say, of accumulation of the streams of hered- 
 itary potencies, now to issue forth in another 
 and a new psychism in destiny. Paternal- 
 ism fills an equally large role, but only in 
 a sense, and with a significance which con- 
 servative thought may determine.* Con- 
 fluence and focus of all heredity with which 
 the soul to be will be endowed is consumated 
 in conception. Afterwards the mother is 
 regal in model instrumentality in soul dawn- 
 ing, and, in a sense and manner well nigh 
 overwhelming to contemplation, in determi- 
 nation to destiny. 
 
 The dawning soul is a plastic thing, and 
 the mother-role and power in the immedi- 
 
 *See the author's study, Is a human partheno- 
 genesis a Possibility In Science? "The Word," 
 Theosophlcal Society, New York. 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 107 
 
 ately after-birth time is of marvelous effec- 
 tiveness in psychic manipulation. Literature 
 abounds as to embryologic period and possi- 
 bility, but not of this equally important time. 
 
 In the soul's dawning, like the opening of 
 the bud into the flower, the mother as no 
 other soul may, in soul ways, and by 
 psychic manipulation, open, call out, direct 
 and aid by influence in stimuli, and give 
 direction to the coming into entity and activ- 
 ity of the potencies and evolution possibili- 
 ties of her child. Or, she may leave unaided, 
 or even misdirect and distort and mar, 
 rendering knotted and knarled, an abortion 
 or a monstrosity what might have been 
 symmetrical and graceful in its proportions, 
 and altogether a thing of beauty and a joy 
 forever. Oh! the importance and possibili- 
 ties of these first months and dual or so of 
 natal years! Determinative and destinal to 
 the child, potential and possible in the hands 
 of the mother, and in that in which her 
 whole soul and life are involved and com- 
 mitted. 
 
 And what mother in a thousand is of such 
 
io8 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 entail of heredity (father, too) as to offer 
 the best of promise in impartation of soul 
 qualities? And what mother in ten thou- 
 sand is equipped and efficient to this function 
 and event in soul dawning? The need of 
 the race and of the hour is competant 
 motherhood. Large, Rooseveltian families 
 if you will, but of a grade and strain in 
 heredity little thought of and less attempted 
 as yet. The redemption and reclamation of 
 the human race in this primal and basic 
 sense is in solvemently of this soul problem, 
 and in quality and competancy of mother- 
 hood. 
 
 What does woman want, a "sphere"? 
 Here it is ! Even the gods may envy her. 
 
 A competent mother is the highest 
 achievement of cosmic source and endow- 
 ment thru and in organic evolution. 
 
 When the last enduring canvas and color- 
 ing and marble bearing the world's greatest 
 and renowned artists' creations shall have 
 centuries and ages ago crumbled into dis- 
 integration, the mother's achievements shall 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. 109 
 
 be but in the beginnings of their evolutional 
 realization. 
 
 The work of teacher and institute — and 
 the inspiration and moral purification and 
 rebirth of soul, only in role, and in appre- 
 hension of their meaning and significance, in 
 the realm of the religious and spiritual — all 
 of this is to follow, and is supplemental to 
 that of soul dawning, and motherhood in 
 efficiency. But all of this that may follow 
 will be curtailed and limited in effectiveness 
 and results by lack and inefficiency in 
 motherhood in the prior. 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 Any view or doctrine of the nature of the 
 soul or of human psychology, with animal 
 psychology, so-called, that has not taken in- 
 to account the facts and points emphasized 
 in the system of philosophy of M. Bergson 
 in his latest work, "L' EvolutionrCreatrice," 
 is premature and incompetent. New con- 
 ceptions with facts long known are uniquely 
 presented, constituting a formidable array 
 against the heretofore favorably received 
 systems of cosmic philosophy, and particu- 
 
no THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 larly the modern trend of thought to which 
 these have led. His main position puts him 
 in antagonism with all interpretations of the 
 organic and even cosmic phenomenon on the 
 basis of a principle of mechanism. Life is 
 absolutely inexplainable thus, and must be. 
 Intellectual processes thus interpreted fail to 
 account for the process of evolution, itself 
 being a part of the evolution phenomenon. 
 
 Knowledge, the basis of intellectual pro- 
 cesses, gives the power to handle or domi-i 
 nate the inert, the material, and this brings 
 lis face to face with something that is abso- 
 lute and real, as against all else which is but 
 apparent and relative. It is something other 
 than and back of the intellectual, something 
 supra-physical, and even supra-intellectual. 
 
 The mental processes are a "specialized 
 and organized department" of the life phe- 
 nomenon. "The theory of life and the the-_ 
 ory of knowledge are mutually dependent — 
 part of one whole." It is shown that "the 
 unchanging me is created by the increment 
 of the experiences of the ens rationis," but is 
 distinct from these, "A sort of self-rolling 
 
OF THE NATURE, ETC. m 
 
 snowball determining its own direction ac- 
 cording to the new exigences of each mo- 
 ment. . . . The self never stops 'rolling' 
 and growing. . . . We drag the grow- 
 ing totality of our past experience — personal 
 and hereditary — along with us at every step. 
 The brain is an organ of action rather than 
 thought. It is no repository of images and 
 ideas. . . . An unending process of self- 
 creation — that is what . . . existence 
 means." 
 
 Intelligence was formed, created on the 
 basis of matter, "made for matter," and so 
 unable to get at the reality of life, conscious- 
 ness, etc., hence, as already said, something 
 ultra to the intellect is supposed and neces- 
 sitated (at least so I take it), and "that in 
 every way the process of life, like that of 
 our conscious existence, is one of inventive, 
 creative self-evolution." The "complex de- 
 vise of the eye ... is the invention and 
 creation of that consciousness, that vital ef- 
 fort ('elan) of which intelligence itself is an 
 invention and specialization, and which we 
 
112 THE METAPHYSICS 
 
 attain immediately and intuitively in our 
 diffused self-consciousness." 
 
 The foregoing remarks are suggested by, 
 and the excerpts are from a review of M. 
 Bergson's volume, in the January issue of 
 The Hibbert Quarterly Journal, by the Rev. 
 G. Tyrrell. The few disjointed quotations 
 are made and here recorded because of their 
 evident support of the position taken by the 
 present writer in this brochure. They have 
 a basis in fact, which cannot be ignored. 
 M. Bergson's conclusions reached from an 
 a priori standpoint and proceedure reinforce 
 the writer's a posteriori attained conception 
 and position — an apology for so brief a ref- 
 erence to so important a work the review of 
 it coming to hand after the M. S. was 
 finished.