Among inorganic things the mind-stuff units are combined in
relatively simple ways, and the "stuff" does not give any outward
evidences of "mind" as such. Living things are almost infinitely complex
as regards their chemical organization, and even in the very lowest of
them we can discern a cell-reflex element which, combined with others like
it, forms the unit of the compounds we call instinct, intelligence, and
reason. Hence through an analysis of mental evolution we are enabled to
form the larger conception of a continuous universe whose ultimate
elements are the same everywhere.
VII
SOCIAL EVOLUTION AS A BIOLOGICAL PROCESS
We now reach a critical juncture in our study of the foundations of
evolutionary doctrine, for we must pass at this point to an inquiry into
the nature and origin of human social relations. In undertaking this task
we may seem to leave the field which is properly that of organic
evolution, and many perhaps will be unwilling to view such aspects of
human life as materials for purely biological analysis, arrangement, and
explanation. But even before the reasons for doing so may be made
apparent, every one must admit that the subject of mental evolution, which
comprises so large a bulk of details expressly social in their character
and value, virtually compels us to scrutinize the history of the economic
and other interrelationships maintained by the human constituents of
civilized, barbarous, and savage communities.
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