s a function of living organisms, which belongs also to a goose and a
chicken."

In the Horseherd such language was excusable, but for philosophers to talk
in the same style is strange, to say the least. How can such an assertion
be made without any proof whatever, without even a few words to explain
what is meant by the term "mind"? The German like the English language
swarms with words that may be used interchangeably, though each of them
has its own shade of meaning. If we translate Geist (Spirit) as mind, then
we must consider that "spirit," in such expressions as "He has yielded up
his spirit," means the same as the principle of life or physical life. The
same is true of "spirit" in such a phrase as "his spirit has departed."
But easy as it is to distinguish between spirit in the sense of the breath
of life, and spirit in the sense of mind, the exact definition of such
words as intellect, reason, understanding, thought, consciousness, or
self-consciousness becomes very difficult, to say nothing of soul and
feeling in their various activities. These words are used in both English
and German so confusedly that we often hesitate merely to touch them. Now
if we say that the mind is a development, and is not a _prius_, what idea
ought it to suggest? Does this mean the principle of life, or the
understanding, or the reason, or consciousness? We suffer here from a real
and very dangerous _embarras de richesse_. The words are often intended to
signify the same things, only viewed under different aspects. But as there
were various words, it was believed that they must also signify various
things. Different philosophers have further advanced different definitions
of these words, until it was finally supposed that each of these names
must be borne by a separate subject, while some of them originally only
signified activities of one and the same substance. Understanding, reason,
and thought originally expressed properties or activities, the activities
of understanding, of perceiving, of thinking, and their elevation to nouns
was simply psychological mythology, which has prevailed, and still
prevails just as extensively as the physical mythology of the ancient
Aryan peoples.

It would be most useful if we could lay aside all these mouldy and decayed
expressions, and introduce a word that simply means what is not understood
by body, the subject, in opposition to the objective world. It would by no
means follow that what is not b