458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But Science does not yet understand, nor does it pretend to under- 

 stand, the enigma. Like all previous systems of knowledge, it fails to 

 detect the actual concatenation, the necessary connection or continuous 

 transition, by which these two seemingly heterogeneous experiences are 

 bound together and unified in reality. It does not conceive how motion 

 can possibly generate sensation, or indeed how motion and sensation 

 can in any way be related to each other. Yet, to the vindication of the 

 hypothesis of evolution, it is quite indispensable to establish either the 

 essential identity of motion and sensation, or the gradual transforma- 

 tion of one of these modes of existence into the other. For how can 

 evolution maintain its pretensions to universality, if the ideal world 

 remains foreign to it a mysteriously correlated entity, merely in close 

 correspondence with the outer world, but having with it no genuine 

 and intrinsic sameness of actuality ? 



The penetration and elucidation of this ancient dilemma of motion 

 and sensation would furnish the data for the solution of what may be 

 called the psychical phase of the problem of life. 



But intermediate between these two extreme aspects of the problem 

 the one demanding the explanation of the origin of vitality and or- 

 ganization ; the other the proof of the identity or direct phenomenal 

 continuity of motion and sensation there is disclosed by the require- 

 ments of the evolution hypothesis a third essential and very peculiar 

 aspect of the same problem. As the experience of sensation, the state 

 of so-called feeling is an exclusive attribute of vitality ; it is evident 

 that, granting the evolution hypothesis, feeling must make its appear- 

 ance and take its rise at some definite moment in the course of organi- 

 zation. The demonstration of the specific conditions of organization, 

 which constitute the starting-point of feeling or subjective experience, 

 would furnish the initial data for the solution of what we may call the 

 physico-psychical phase of the problem of life. 



We have now gained some information regarding the ground which 

 has to be accurately explored before the hypothesis of continuous de- 

 velopment can be said to be adequately established. Having indicated 

 the exact points at which our scientific appreciation meets with the most 

 abrupt and startling breaks in the supposed continuity, we find ourselves 

 in a favorable position to estimate what, above all, has to be accomplished 

 before evolution can take the field as a consistent monistic system. 



We have to show how life originates and how organization takes 

 its rise ; we have to demonstrate how in the course of organic develop- 

 ment the state which we call feeling is established ; and we have, 

 finally, to prove that this feeling is in essence identical with that which 

 is felt. How are we to set about this seemingly hopeless and endless 

 task? Are we to rummage the vast stores of accumulated facts in 

 search of the missing links ? Assuredly, had they been forged and 

 ready for the purpose, more competent and assiduous searchers would 

 have discovered them long ago. 



