Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/27

Rh the entire individual, mind and body, with the development of the germ, it does not assert that "matter" is the cause of "mind" either in the germ or in the adult. It must not be forgotten that germ cells are living things and that we go no further in associating the beginnings of mind with the beginnings of body in the germ than we do in associating mind and body in the adult. It is just as materialistic to hold that the mind of the mature man is associated with his body as it is to hold that the beginnings of mind in the germ are associated with the beginnings of the body, and both of these tenets are incontrovertable.

It seems to me that the mind is related to the body as function is to structure; there are those who maintain that structure is the cause of function, that the real problem in evolution or development is the transformation of one structure into another, and that the functions which go with certain structures are merely incidental results; on the other hand are those who maintain that function is the cause of structure and that the problem of evolution or development is the change which takes place in functions and habits, these changes causing corresponding transformations of structure. Among adherents of the former view may be classed many morphologists and Neo-Darwinians, among proponents of the latter, many physiologists and Neo-Lamarckians. It seems to me that the defenders of each of these views fail to recognize the essential unity of the entire organism, structure as well as function; that neither of these is the cause of the other, though each may modify or condition the other, but that they are two aspects of one common thing, viz., organization. In the same way I think that the body or brain is not the cause of mind, nor mind the cause of body or brain, but that both are inherent in one common organization or individuality.

In asserting that the mind develops from the germ as the body does, no attempt is made to explain the fundamental properties of body or mind. As the structures of the body may be traced back to certain fundamental structures of the germ cell, so the characteristics of the mind may be traced back to certain fundamental properties and activities of the germ. Many of the psychical processes may be traced back in their development to properties of sensitivity, reflex motions, and persistence of the effects of stimuli. All organisms manifest these properties and for aught we know to the contrary they may be original and necessary characteristics of living things. In the simplest protoplasm we find organization, that is, structure and function, and in germinal protoplasm we find the elements of the mind as well as of the body, and the problem of the ultimate relation of the two is the same whether we consider the organism in its germinal or in its adult stage.

In some way the mind as well as the body develops out of the germ. What are the germinal bases of mind? What are the psychical anlagen in embryos and how do they develop? In this case, even more than in the development of the body, we are compelled to rely upon the