_) Some other thinkers have taught that the inner life of thought and
feeling is only, as it were, an echo of the really important
activity--that of the body and brain. Ideas are just foam-bells on the
hurrying streams and circling eddies of matter and energy that make up
our physiological life. To most of us this theory is impossible, because
we are quite sure that ideas and feelings and purposes, which cannot be
translated into matter and motion, are the clearest realities in our
experience, and that they count for good and ill all through our life.
They are more than the tickings of the clock; they make the wheels go
round.

(_c_) There are others who think that the most scientific position is
simply to recognise both the bodily and the mental activities as equally
important, and so closely interwoven that they cannot be separated.
Perhaps they are just the outer and the inner aspects of one
reality--the life of the creature. Perhaps they are like the concave and
convex curves of a dome, like the two sides of a shield. Perhaps the
life of the organism is always a unity, at one time appearing more
conspicuously as Mind-body, at another time as Body-mind. The most
important fact is that neither aspect can be left out. By no jugglery
with words can we get Mind out of Matter and Motion. And since we are in
ourselves quite sure of our Mind, we are probably safe in saying that in
the beginning was Mind. This is in accordance with Aristotle's saying
that there is nothing in the end which was not also in kind present in
the beginning--whatever we mean by beginning.

In conclusion

What has led to the truly wonderful result which we admire in a creature
like a dog or an otter, a horse or a hare? In general, we may say, just
two main processes--(1) testing all things, and (2) holding fast that
which is good. New departures occur and these are tested for what they
are worth. Idiosyncrasies crop up and they are sifted. New cards come
mysteriously from within into the creature's hand, and they are
played--for better or for worse. So by new variations and their sifting,
by experimenting and enregistering the results, the mind has gradually
evolved and will continue to evolve.

VIII

FOUNDATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE

THE WORLD OF ATOMS

Most people have heard of the oriental race which puzzled over the
foundations of the universe, and decided that it must be supported on
the back of a giant elephant. But the ele