3 i 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



spond to a stimulus as much even as many plants do. Had the egg, 

 instead of being broken by the cook, been left under the hen for a 

 certain time, the yolk would have passed by infinitesimal gradations 

 through a series of forms ending in the chick, and by similarly infini- 

 tesimal gradations would have arisen those functions which end in the 

 chick breaking its shell; and which, when it gets out, show themselves 

 in running about, distinguishing and picking up food, and squeaking if 

 hurt. When did the feeling begin, and how did there come into ex- 

 istence that power of perception which the chick's actions show ? 

 Should it be objected that the chick's actions are mainly automatic, 

 I will not dwell on the fact that, though they are largely so, the chick 

 manifestly has feeling and therefore consciousness, but I will accept 

 the objection, and propose that instead we take the human being. 

 The course of development before birth is just of the same general kind ; 

 and similarly, at a certain stage, begins to be accompanied by reflex 

 movements. At birth there is displayed an amount of mind certainly 

 not greater than that of the chick there is no power of running from 

 danger, no power of distinguishing and picking up food. If we say 

 the chick is unintelligent, we must certainly say the infant is unintelli- 

 gent. And yet from the unintelligence of the infant to the intelli- 

 gence of the adult, there is an advance by steps so small that on no 

 day is the amount of mind shown appreciably different from that 

 shown on preceding and succeeding days. Thus the tacit assumption, 

 that there exists a break, is not simply gratuitous, but one that is nega- 

 tived by the most obvious facts. 



And now, having dealt with the essential objections raised by Mr. 

 Martineau to the Hypothesis of Evolution as it is presented under that 

 purely scientific form which generalizes the process of things, firstly as 

 observed, and secondly as inferred from certain ultimate principles, 

 let me go on to examine that form of the Hypothesis which he pro- 

 pounds Evolution as determined by Mind and Will Evolution as 

 prearranged by a Divine Actor. For Mr. Martineau apparently aban- 

 dons the primitive theory of creation by " fiat of Almighty Will " and 

 also the theory of creation by manufacture by "a contriving and 

 adapting power," and seems to believe in Evolution ; requiring only that 

 " an originating mind " shall be taken as its antecedent. Let us ask, 

 first, in what relation Mr. Martineau conceives the " originating mind " 

 to stand to the evolving universe. From some passages it is inferable 

 that he considers the " presence of mind " to be everywhere needful. 

 He says : 



"It is impossible to work the theory of Evolution, upward from the bot- 

 tom. If all force is to be conceived as one, its type must be looked for in the 

 highest and all-comprehending term; and Mind must be conceived as there, 

 and as divesting itself of some specialty at each step of its descent to a lower 

 stratum of law, till represented at the base under the guise of simple Dynamics." 



