7 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



either entirely wanting in the oyster, or are of the most rudimentary 

 nature. 



The nervous structure of an oyster is so low that we can no more 

 detect consciousness than we can detect the physical structure of an 

 atom. In man the nervous organization is exceedingly complicated, 

 and centres in a massive brain unparalleled in its activity; to this are 

 added the special senses (probably entirely wanting in the oyster), 

 through which alone all knowledge comes to the mind. Now, we ob- 

 serve that all the inflexible laws that, in the same way, limit and govern 

 these extremes of organic life, are of the infinite order, having their be- 

 ginnings beyond the scope of the senses, while the differences are of 

 the finite order and grow out of the relation of one thing to another ; in 

 other words, the difference is one of degree, and therefore finite. There 

 was a time, in the infantile development of every man, when he was as 

 unconscious of all his higher functions as the passive oyster ; but there 

 came a time when, through the special senses, he began to take on 

 thought, which is an impression made upon the brain by external action, 

 and these impressions multiply and accumulate as we come more and 

 more in contact with surrounding objects, until the accumulated thoughts 

 are called knowledge ; that is to say, the mind is evolved from without, 

 and not from within. It is utterly impossible for us to conceive of any- 

 thing beai'ing no likeness to anything we have ever seen, or heard, or 

 felt, because our thoughts are the result of impressions already made. 

 We certainly can form no conception of a color unlike any of the pris- 

 matic colors and their combinations, because, through the organ of vision, 

 no other impressions have been made upon the brain. 



The difference in the scope of the receptive and perceptive faculties 

 of the lower order of organisms, as compared with those of the higher, 

 is vast and almost incomprehensible, just as is the difference in distance 

 between two contiguous atoms and two of the most widely-separated 

 visible stars, but it is a difference of degree and is finite. The great 

 underlying life-principles are the same in each, and for want of a better 

 name we call them principles of the infinite order. 



Now, we insist that a well-defined line may be drawn between 

 simple forces of the infinite order and a result growing out of the 

 changed relation of one force to another a difference between simple 

 and resultant forces the one constant and unvarying, the other for- 

 ever changing. We may fashion metallic wheels and put them into 

 certain relations to each other, and by employing weights or springs 

 construct a clock that shall mark time in minutes or seconds, and by 

 changing the relation of parts we may measure weeks or months, 

 omitting to note the subdivisions, varying these results at pleasure ; 

 but in all this we create nothing, nor do we in any way modify a pre- 

 existing principle. The mathematical laws of multiples, by which the 

 results of all the wheel-movements are determined, preexisted in the 

 infinite and indestructible laws of numbers and of motion, and the 



