ELEMENTS OF MIND CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY THIS chapter is intended to be a key to the understanding of what is believed to be an original theory, which in the succeeding pages of the volume is explained in detail. I have realised the necessity of this explanation from the fact that certain scientists to whom I am indebted for reading my work in manuscript form, experienced a difficulty in differentiating the parts containing the views for which I claim originality, from others to which I make no such claim, although I have availed myself of the latter in the working out of my theory. As the theory described in this work is generally spoken of as the Greater Mind Theory, the student will naturally inquire: What is meant by Greater Mind? I may here state that the term "Greater Mind" does not imply a new mind; it is simply a new name-a comprehensive one-given to wellknown mental and physical phenomena exhibited in a greater or less degree by every kind of organism, whether animal or vegetable. A Modern scientists generally agree that life is comprised of mind, matter, and force, each of which it may be assumed possesses its own various elements, and by Greater Mind I mean all the initiative forces in life, whether they be those of mind, matter, or of physical force. Thus Greater Mind here implies not only the mind of the brain, but also all the initiative forces which are instrumental in the performance of all the functions of life, such as the processes of digestion, the circulation of the blood, &c. And it also includes the forces which promote the growth of the tissues and bones, and so on. But in this theory Greater Mind does not represent the whole of life. It represents life's essence -that which in all forms of life is equivalent to what is commonly supposed to be confined to mankind, namely, the soul. In the first part of this work an attempt is made to set a limit upon speculative metaphysics, and only the known is considered. But in the later chapters the Greater Mind is speculatively regarded, and analysed, and an endeavour is made to explain, through its medium, the mysteries of the universe. The position I take in the first part is that, so far from this Greater Mind theory being speculative, its existence is firmly established by experimental analyses. The fundamental part of my theory is confined to Mind and Life; it argues that the ultimate con stitution of the universe, and what is generally called the unknowable, is herein considered to be only of subsequent importance, and to be regarded rather as a test whether the theory is capable of offering a solution of the difficult problems it deals with. What I claim to be entirely of my own finding in this theory are the hitherto unknown substances which constitute the elements of mind; and it is the discovery of these elements (apart from those of matter and force)-which will be described subsequently-upon which my theory is built; and for its proper understanding it is necessary that the inquirer shall conceive their existence, and fully comprehend their nature and character. Of these elementary substances, seeing that they are new to science, the student can have no previous knowledge; and therefore, in the absence of an intimation that such substances are in existence, and a sort of general idea of what they are, he would of course be unable to follow the author in his researches into their nature and character. Under the conditions, as I have stated them, there must of course be many points wherein the Greater Mind theory follows other, and older, theories. But the former also sets forth views which are nowhere else to be found. Among the discoveries which I claim to have made, and which I here summarise, are: First, that of the differentiated substances of which Mind is composed, as distinct from the elementary |