And while we may prefer to restrict the use
of the word _mind_ to the series of nervous processes going on in the
human organ of thought, in so far as these processes are carried on by the
peculiar tissues of the nervous system they cannot be finally
distinguished from the functional products or accompaniments of the same
kind of active tissues and organs in lower creatures. Thus the subject of
mental evolution becomes much clarified at the outset by understanding
that nervous processes and nervous systems evolve together.
In the direct treatment of the facts and principles of mental evolution we
can use exactly the same classification and subdivisions of the materials
of study as heretofore, because psychological data are the correlates of
material organic systems, and also because the former, being natural
phenomena, are subject to the methods of analysis which can be employed
for any series of objects that have undergone evolution. Separating the
matter of fact from the question as to the method, and recalling the main
bodies of evidence as to the reality of evolution, we may establish four
sections of the subject before us: these are (1) the anatomy, (2) the
embryology, and (3) "palaeontology" of mind, and (4) an inquiry into the
way nature deals with the psychical characteristics of organisms in
accomplishing their evolution.
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