ths of the inner cohesions between psychical states must be
proportionate to the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it
follows that the development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple
principle that experience of the outer relations _produces_ inner
cohesions, and makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer
relations are persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely
this:--Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by mind,
seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it requires
mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only legitimate
answer to this question is, that these outer relations _may_ be regulated
by mind, but that, in view of the evolution theory, we are certainly not
entitled to infer that they _are_ so regulated, _merely_ because it
requires mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly character.
For if it is true that the human mind was itself evolved by these outer
relations--ever continuously moulded into conformity with them as the prime
condition of its existence--then its process of interpreting them is but
reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the
inner ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an
objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that
this objective macrocosm is _of itself_ sufficient to evolve a subjective
microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter to conclude
that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely
because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly
objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations
were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive
how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever
have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of
discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now
engaged upon is,--Granting that the existence of such orderly relations is
actual, whether with or without mind to account for them; and granting also
that these relations are _of themselves_ sufficient to produce
corresponding subjective relations; then the mere fact of our conscious
intelligence being able to discover numerous and complex outer relations
answering to those which they themselves have caused in our intelligence,
doe