Page:The Monist Volume 2.djvu/98

86. only. The word "kind," it is true, is at least as vague as the word species and a naturalist may often be doubtful where to draw the line. Man and monkey are different in kind, and they are also more different in origin than Carl Vogt assumed, for man is not the descendant of any of the monkey families now existent. But this does not disprove that they are of a still remoter common origin or at least that they originated in the same way in some amœboid form as simple life-substance.

New formations which originate through combining are as much new creations, i.e. things new in kind, as if they were produced through special-creation acts of God which are said to be creations out of nothing and not mere transformations.

Man builds houses out of bricks and timbers. Is not the house something different in kind from the trees and the clay from which the materials have been taken? Is not the boiler of a steam-engine different in purpose and accordingly also different in kind from a tea-kettle? Is not every invention something different in kind? And is not the same true of the products of thought? Is not a triangle something different in kind from a line? And the origin of the former is not more miraculous than that of the latter. A triangle is more complex than a line, but its existence in the mind is not more of a mystery than the existence of the line. Difference in kind need not include difference of origin. Harmony is different in kind from melody. Notes in succession produce melody, while simultaneous notes produce harmony. In either case it is simply a matter of combination.

Professor Romanes when speaking of the passivity of sense-impressions seems to think of the unconsciousness of the process. We are not conscious of the transformation of impressions into sensations while we can become aware of our efforts to change the sense-material into concepts. Yet the nature of mind is throughout activity. And no one has perhaps insisted more strongly on the activity of mind than Prof. Max Muller. But Prof. Max Müller distinguishes between the activity of the mind and the ego which as he supposes performs that activity. He says ("Science of Thought," p. 63):