3 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them. But very often, when the subject of a proposition has been 

 thought of as something known, and when the predicate has been 

 thought of as something known, and when the relation alleged between 

 them has been thought of as a known relation, it is supposed that the 

 proposition itself has been thought. The thinking separately of the 

 elements of a proposition is mistaken for the thinking of them in the 

 combination which the proposition affirms. And hence it continually 

 happens that propositions which cannot in truth be rendered into 

 thought at all are supposed to be not only thought but believed. The 

 proposition that Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. 

 The two terms are separately intelligible ; but they can be regarded in 

 the relation of effect and cause only so long as no attempt is made to 

 put them together in the relation. 



The only thing which any one knows as mind is the series of his 

 own states of consciousness. The mind so known to each person, and 

 inferred by each to be present in others, has the essential characters, 

 that its components are limited by one another, and that it is itself 

 localized both in time and space. If I am asked to frame a notion of 

 mind, divested of all those structural traits under which alone I am con- 

 scious of mind in myself, I cannot do it. I know nothing of thought 

 save as carried on in terms originally derived from the effects wrought 

 by objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible phrase if I am not 

 to regard it as an act in which states of consciousness are severally 

 assimilated to other states in the series that has gone by, and in which 

 the relations between them are severally assimilated to past relations 

 in this series. I cannot give any meaning to the word Will, unless I 

 am to think of it in terms of contemplated ends, of which some one is 

 preferred. 



If, then, I have to conceive Evolution as caused by an " originating 

 Mind," I must conceive this mind as having attributes akin to those 

 of the only mind I know, and without which I cannot conceive mind 

 at all. I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence resulting, by 

 asking how the " originating Mind " is to be thought of as having 

 states produced by things objective to it ; as discriminating among 

 these states, and classing them as like and unlike ; and as preferring 

 one objective result to another. I will simply ask, What happens if we 

 ascribe to the " originating Mind " the character absolutely essential 

 to the conception of mind, that it consists of a series of states of con- 

 sciousness? Put a series of states of consciousness as cause, and the 

 evolving universe as effect, and then endeavor to see the last as flow- 

 ing from the first. It is possible to imagine in some dim kind of way 

 a series of states of consciousness serving as antecedent to any one of 

 the movements I see going on ; for my own states of consciousness are 

 often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But how if I at- 

 tempt to think of such a series as antecedent to all actions throughout 

 the universe to the motions of the multitudinous stars through space 



