MR. MARTIN EAU ON EVOLUTION. 321 



to the revolutions of all their planets round thern, to the gyrations of 

 all these planets on their axes, to the infinitely-multiplied physical pro- 

 cesses going on in each of these suns and planets ? I cannot even think 

 of a series of states of consciousness as causing the relatively small group 

 of actions ffoinsr on over the earth's surface ; I cannot even think of it 

 as antecedent to all the various winds and the dissolving clouds they 

 bear, to the currents of all the rivei-s, and the guiding actions of all 

 the glaciers ; still less can I think of it as antecedent to the infinity of 

 processes simultaneously going on in all the plants that cover the 

 globe, from tropical palms down to polar lichens, and in all the ani- 

 mals that roam among them, and the insects that buzz about them. 

 Even to a single small set of these multitudinous terrestrial changes, I 

 cannot conceive as antecedent a series of states of consciousness 

 cannot, for instance, think of it as causing the hundred thousand break- 

 ers that are at this instant curling over the shores of England. How, 

 then, is it possible for me to conceive an " originating Mind," which I' 

 must represent to myself as a series of states of consciousness, being 

 antecedent to the infinity of changes simultaneously going on in worlds 

 too numerous to count, dispersed throughout a space that baffles im- 

 agination ? If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes every- 

 where going on, " Mind must be conceived as there under the guise 

 of simple Dynamics," then the reply is that, to be conceived as there, 

 Mind must be divested of all attributes by which it Is distinguished ; 

 and that when thus divested of its distinguishing attributes, the concep- 

 tion disappears the word Mind stands for a blank. If Mr. Martineau 

 takes refuge in the entirely different and, as it seems to me, incongru- 

 ous hypothesis of something like a plurality of minds if he accepts, as 

 he seems to do, the doctrine that you cannot explain Evolution " un- 

 less among your primordial elements you scatter already -the germs of 

 Mind as well as the inferior elements " if the insuperable difficulties I 

 have just pointed out are to be met by assuming a local series of states 

 of consciousness for each phenomenon, then we are obviously carried 

 back to something like the old fetichistic notion, with the difference 

 only, that the assumed spiritual agencies are indefinitely multiplied. 

 Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an " originating Mind " is the 

 cause of Evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only 

 as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged 

 relation. But when the attempt to unite them is made, the proposi- 

 tion turns out to be not simply unprovable, but unthinkable. 



Here let me guard myself against a misinterpretation very likely to 

 be put upon the foregoing arguments especially by those who have 

 read the Essay to which they reply. The statements of that Essay 

 carry the implication that all who adhere to the hypothesis it combats 

 imagine they have solved the mystery of things when they have 

 explained the processes of Evolution as naturally caused. Mr. Mar- 

 tineau tacitly represents them as believing that, when every thing has 

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