Page:The Monist Volume 2.djvu/101

89. potentiality of feeling. Mind, as we know it in experience, is no monon, no indivisible unit, but a unitary system of feelings and thoughts produced through external impressions upon one part of the world by the rest of the world which surrounds it. Mind is an abstract term; it does not denote a part of the world, but a certain quality of a part of the world, viz. the feelings and thoughts of special kinds of organisms. Mind is produced through external impressions, but it does not consist merely of external impressions. Mind, as we have stated before, is not passive; it is active. It consists of the reactions which take place in response to impressions and also of the accumulated products of these reactions. Thus every mind is the concentrated effect of the whole cosmos upon one special part of the cosmos, not as it takes place in one moment, but as it has taken place in a definite and continuous period up to date. The accumulation of these effects makes the mind grow and expand and the system of the growth constitutes its specific character. We can as little think of the mind as appearing suddenly by an act of special creation as we can think that an oak tree can be created out of nothing or that it can exist without previous growth. The law of continuity holds good as much in the realm of the human mind as in the domain of animal and plant-life. So far we have borne in mind the philosophical and scientific aspect only of the continuity of evolution. There is another aspect however of no less importance, that is the religious view of the subject. We do not believe that science and religion are two different spheres of thought and that something may be true in science which is not true in religion. Since the theory of evolution has revolutionised almost all our sciences, we ask, what influence must this change of thought exercise upon religion? Is not the religious idea of God destroyed and the whole system of religion overturned?

We think not. An old and very powerful system of theology which has been considered as orthodox for centuries will become untenable as soon as the idea of evolution and the continuity of evolution are recognised in their sweeping importance; but religion itself will enter into a new phase of evolution and the idea of God