THE SEVEN WORLD-PROBLEMS. 43 5 



intelligence and free-will, apparently by including it in the closest con- 

 nection with the second, that of reason, as the highest degree of the 

 consciousness already given, with sensation. The second problem, B, 

 that of sensation, on the other hand, he holds to be unsolvable. I 

 grant that one might more readily enlighten me, if he should say to 

 me : '"A, that is life, is and must remain inexplainable ; but that once 

 given, sensation and thought follow of themselves that is, by natural 

 development ' ; or, if it were stated in the inverse sense, ' A and B may 

 indeed be comprehended, but the understanding is strained at C, or 

 self-consciousness.' Either of these views appears to me more accept- 

 able than the one that the middle station only is impassable." 



Strauss has not touched the marrow of my observation. I called 

 astronomical knowledge of a material system such knowledge as we 

 might have of the planetary system, if all the observations were ac- 

 curate and all the difficulties of the theory overcome. If we had astro- 

 nomical knowledge of what is going on in ever so obscure an organ of 

 the animal or vegetable body, our demand for a causal agency would 

 be as well satisfied, so far as the nature of our intellect permits with 

 reference to that organ, as with reference to the planetary system ; 

 but, if we had astronomical knowledge of what occurs within the brain, 

 we would still not be advanced a hair's breadth with reference to the 

 origin of consciousness. In regard to these problems, Laplace and 

 Leibnitz, whose minds were so immeasurably superior, yet similar to 

 ours, were no wiser than we ; and if Leibnitz had realized his fiction 

 that he could compose a homunculus, atom by atom, molecule by mole- 

 cule, he might, perhaps, make his creature think, but not comprehend 

 how it thought. 



The primary origin of life in itself has nothing to do with con- 

 sciousness, but is a question only of the arrangement of atoms and 

 molecules and of the production of certain movements. Consequently, 

 not only is astronomical knowledge thinkable of what we call original 

 production, spontaneous or equivocal generation, or heterogeny, but it 

 would satisfy our demand for a causal agency for the primary origin 

 of life as well as in regard to the motions of the heavenly bodies. 

 This is why, speaking with Strauss, " in the ascending development of 

 nature " the gap in our apprehension does not open at the point A, but 

 at B. I have not maintained that, sensation being given, every higher 

 stage of mental development becomes comprehensible ; that problem 

 C is made solvable without further steps. I attached weight to the 

 incomprehensibility of the simplest sensations on mechanical grounds, 

 only because the incomprehensibility of all the higher mental proc- 

 esses follows from it by an a fortiori argument. 



The origin of life seems to have become veiled in a deeper obscurity 

 since men have hoped with the aid of the microscope to see the living 

 come from the dead in their laboratories. According to M. Pasteur's 

 researches, heterogeny is underlaid by panspermy, and, where life was 



