advantageously by arranging them in serial order, and such arrangement is the characteristic function of conciousness.
Psychology is a division of biology. We must nevertheless make a distinction between subjective and objective psychology. Objective psychology consists of the natural science of the material processes with which the phenomena of consciousness are ordinarily associated. Subjective psychology rests upon introspection and forms the correlate of all the other sciences; with the single difference, that it treats of the knowledge process as such, whilst all others treat of the objects of knowledge.
In the sphere of consciousness we again discover the general characteristics of evolution: concentration, differentiation and determination. We rise by gradual transitions from reflex movement through instinct and memory to reason in a constantly increasing concentration, and likewise from the simplest sensory discriminations to the most refined distinctions of the intellect. And we find that each stage is modified by the necessary correspondence with the conditions of life and its relations.
Spencer seems to be somewhat vacillating on the problem of the relation existing between consciousness and matter. He at first conceives this relation as a case of metamorphosis of natural forces according to which consciousness bears a relation to the brain process analogous to that of heat to motion. Later on however he regarded mind and matter as two irreducible empirical forms of universal energy. This theory however has not been consistently carried out in his works. The task which Spencer had set for himself was to discover the fundamental principles of the evolutionary theory in
