union will be denaturalised and, so far as philosophy goes, actually
destroyed, if we seek to carry it on into logical equivalence. If we
isolate the terms mind and body and study the inward implications of
each apart, we shall never discover the other. That matter cannot, by
transposition of its particles, _become_ what we call consciousness, is
an admitted truth; that mind cannot _become_ its own occasions or
determine its own march, though it be a truth not recognised by all
philosophers, is in itself no less obvious. Matter, dialectically
studied, makes consciousness seem a superfluous and unaccountable
addendum; mind, studied in the same way, makes nature an embarrassing
idea, a figment which ought to be subservient to conscious aims and
perfectly transparent, but which remains opaque and overwhelming. In
order to escape these sophistications, it suffices to revert to
immediate observation and state the question in its proper terms: nature
lives, and perception is a private echo and response to ambient motions.
The soul is the voice of the body's interests; in watching them a man
defines the world that sustains him and that conditions all his
satisfactions. In discerning his origin he christens Nature by the
eloquent name of mother, under which title she enters the universe of
discourse. Simultaneously he discerns his own existence and marks off
the inner region of his dreams. And it behooves him not to obliterate
these discoveries. By trying to give his mind false points of attachment
in nature he would disfigure not only nature but also that reason which
is so much the essence of his life.

[Sidenote: They form one natural life.]

Consciousness, then, is the expression of bodily life and the seat of
all its values. Its place in the natural world is like that of its own
ideal products, art, religion, or science; it translates natural
relations into synthetic and ideal symbols by which things are
interpreted with reference to the interests of consciousness itself.
This representation is also an existence and has its place along with
all other existences in the bosom of nature. In this sense its
connection with its organs, and with all that affects the body or that
the body affects, is a natural connection. If the word cause did not
suggest dialectical bonds we might innocently say that thought was a
link in the chain of natural causes. It is at least a link in the chain
of natural events; for it has determinate