XV 
DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 
475 
quite beyond and apart from chemical changes, however 
complex; and it has been well said that the first vegetable 
cell was a new thing in the world, possessing altogether new 
powers—that of extracting and fixing carbon from the carbon- 
dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction, 
and, still more marvellous, the power of variation and of 
reproducing those variations till endless conqfiications of 
structure and varieties of form have been the result. Here, 
then, we have indications of a new power at work, which we 
may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter 
all those characters and j:>roperties which constitute Life. 
The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely 
beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and 
forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness, 
constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication 
of structure producing the result is out of the question. We 
feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain 
stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary 
result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into 
existence, a thing that feels, that is conscious of its own existence. 
Here we have the certainty that something new has arisen, a 
being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in 
power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher 
animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation— 
such as the statement that life is the result of the molecular 
forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic 
universe from the amseba up to man was latent in the fire-mist 
from which the solar system was developed—can afford any 
mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the 
mystery. 
The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man 
of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, 
those which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up 
possibilities of almost indefinite advancement. These faculties 
could not possibly have been developed by means of the same 
laws which have determined the progressive development of the 
organic world in general, and also of man’s physical organism . 1 
1 For an earlier discussion of this subject, with some wider applications, see 
the author’s Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, chap. x. 
