FORM 8 OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 259 



allow that there are consciousnesses of a lowly and sluggish nature in 

 connection with the lowly and sluggish life of the plants. This, it 

 will be remembered, was a point defended on other grounds by the 

 great psychologist Fechner, and which has since been upheld by not a 

 few, among whom we may mention a man of as high position as 

 Paulsen. 



But this point we must pass over with this mere mention, for we 

 have problems of greater interest to consider. 



The final test of any theory lies in the explanation it gives of the 

 mysterious; and it is a very cogent argument in favor of the broad 

 view of the nature of consciousness thus taken that in connection with 

 these conceptions we have a completely satisfactory -answer to the old 

 time puzzle as to the moment of the beginning of the individual 

 soul life. 



Perhaps it may be well at this juncture to recall two points made 

 above. 



1. That a fully developed human consciousness is a complex sys- 

 tem of minor psychic systems — a system of minor, less developed con- 

 sciousnesses ; and that consciousness under the broader conception just 

 reached corresponds with the activities in a fully developed physical 

 system which is a system of minor less developed physical systems, of 

 which the nervous system is of preeminent importance indeed, but 

 not alone of significance. 



2. That if any one of these minor physical systems is cut off from 

 the whole physical system a minor consciousness may be held to cor- 

 respond with the activities in this cut off minor system. 



In the human species, to which in this connection we may confine 

 our attention, the unfructified germ cell is a living protoplasmic 

 particle which is cast off from the body of the female; and, under 

 such a view as we have above been led to hold, so long as it is a living 

 particle, it has corresponding with its exceedingly lowly activities, an 

 exceedingly lowly form of psychic existence. 



While it was part of the body of the female it had its little part 

 in forming the totality of those systemic physical activities to which 

 corresponded the female's consciousness. 



If the germ cell happens to be fructified, and attaches itself to the 

 internal tissues of the body of the female, notwithstanding that this 

 attachment is only of such nature that our biologists call it parasitic; 

 nevertheless, under the view here taken the cell again becomes part of 

 the whole bodily system of the mother, and its activities again play 

 their lowly part in the production of the systemic action of the whole 

 body, which has its correspondent in the whole of the consciousness of 

 the adult female. 



