rises
above this situation. The external world and everything that has ever
happened on its face are not merely objects external to himself, which
contain all their qualities in themselves. Somebody has to experience
all this, and that somebody that experiences all this is _mental_ in his
nature, however much this nature has been conditioned by _physical_
things in the past or present.
Eucken emphasises this fundamental fact in all his books. Wherever a
being is capable of _experiencing_ impressions and of giving _meanings_
to these, we are bound to conclude that the power which does this is
something quite other than physical in its nature. It may be that such
a power has never been known except in connection with what is physical;
it may be that various chemical changes give the truer and clearer
explanation of its origin, as far as its origin can be known at all;
it may be that there was nothing of the _mental_ visible in the early
stages of its development; but all this is very different from stating
that [p.39] no potentiality for mental evolution was there. And it is
this potentiality which is the issue at stake. We have no warrant for
stating that it does not exist because it does not lend itself to be
verified by the senses. Where does _mind_ manifest itself to the senses?
It is something which does not exist in space as a horse or a tree. It
may be that consciousness has emanated from simple chemical beginnings
and combinations, but it is not a simple or a chemical thing _now_. We
divide worlds into inorganic and organic. The main principle of division
is necessitated on account of the fact that some characteristics are
present in the former which are absent in the latter. It is precisely
the same between Body and Mind, with one difference. Body and Mind are
indissolubly connected, but one cannot be reduced into the other.
However much the connection on one side may influence the other side,
the difference between a _meaning_ and a _thing_ remains. And it is this
fundamental difference which makes it absolutely necessary to
acknowledge _a world_ of consciousness in contradistinction to a world
of matter and its behaviour, whether such matter is to be found in the
human body with its mechanical and chemical changes and transformations
or in the physical universe outside our body.
It is only when the mind becomes aware of its own existence--an
existence not to be established as being in Space (or entirely in [
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