of
life is independent of that of their objects, since thought may be
prophetic or reminiscent and is intermittent even when its object enjoys
a continuous existence. Mental facts are similar to their objects, since
things and images have, intrinsically regarded, the same constitution;
but images do not move in the same plane with things and their parts are
in no proportionate dynamic relation to the parts of the latter.
Thought's place in nature is exiguous, however broad the landscape it
represents; it touches the world tangentially only, in some ferment of
the brain. It is probably no atom that supports the soul (as Leibnitz
imagined), but rather some cloud of atoms shaping or remodelling an
organism. Mind in this case would be, in its physical relation to
matter, what it feels itself to be in its moral attitude toward the
same; a witness to matter's interesting aspects and a realisation of its
forms.

[Sidenote: Perception represents things in their practical relation to
the body.]

Mental facts, moreover, are highly selective; especially does this
appear in respect to the dialectical world, which is in itself infinite,
while the sum of human logic and mathematics, though too long for most
men's patience, is decidedly brief. If we ask ourselves on what
principle this selection and foreshortening of truth takes place in the
mind, we may perhaps come upon the real bond and the deepest contrast
between mind and its environment. The infinity of formal truth is
disregarded in human thought when it is irrelevant to practice and to
happiness; the infinity of nature is represented there in violent
perspective, centring about the body and its interests. The seat and
starting-point of every mental survey is a brief animal life. A mind
seems, then, to be a consciousness of the body's interests, expressed in
terms of what affects that body, as if in the Babel of nature a man
heard only the voices that pronounced his name. A mind is a private
view; it is gathered together in proportion as physical sensibility
extends its range and makes one stretch of being after another tributary
to the animal's life, and in proportion also as this sensibility is
integrated, so that every organ in its reaction enlists the resources of
every other organ as well. A personal will and intelligence thus arise;
and they direct action from within with a force and freedom which are
exactly proportionate to the material forces, within and without the