Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/515

No. 5.] manifestations of energy in the nerve-centres of the brain. Now, we call manifestations of energy 'kinetic' manifestations, and we use the term 'kinesis' for physical manifestations of this order. Similarly, we may call concomitant manifestations of the mental or conscious order 'metakinetic,' and may use the term 'metakinesis' for all manifestations belonging to this phenomenal order. According to the monistic hypothesis, every mode of kinesis has its concomitant mode of metakinesis, and when the kinetic manifestations assume the form of the molecular processes in the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations assume the form of human consciousness. All matter is not conscious, because consciousness is the metakinetic concomitant of a highly specialized order of kinesis. But every kinesis has an associated metakinesis; and parallel to the evolution of organic and neural kinesis there has been an evolution of metakinetic manifestations culminating in conscious thought" (p. 467).

This doctrine may be restated in other terms as follows: Being is essentially one, but has two aspects; one of these is known to us as physical energy (kinesis) and may be represented by the convex side of a curve; the other is known as a psychical concomitant (metakinesis) and may be represented by the concave side of the curve. Neither can exist without the other, any more than a line can be convex on one side without being concave on the other. They are correlated aspects of the same reality. At its lower stages of development, this reality does not manifest to us its psychic side, because that can be known only to a subject, that is, to a being in whom the psychic elements are converged and unified in a consciousness. But at that level of development where the psychic aspects of the modes of being are unified into a consciousness, this aspect of being becomes directly known. But it is never known except subjectively. The psychic life of other men can be known to us only through expressive movements of voice, gesture, and significant signs. The only mind that any man can know is strictly his own mind. All else is inference. But it is necessary inference, for we also convey our ideas through these same media and can explain the responses we receive only on the supposition that thought