THE ORIGINS OF MIND II7 



as those of the "sleep" movements of the leaves, which de- 

 pend on light and dark periods, can be changed experimen- 

 tally; and the induced rhythms will continue some time after 

 the external excitation has ceased. 



As to whether one can assume that any kind of conscious- 

 ness exists in these primitive forms is, of course, another 

 matter. In protoplasm "consciousness" may be a property of 

 the steady state, a specific condition of an extremely delicate 

 balance which must be maintained. There is organization. 

 The orderly changes which go on in a cell have been de- 

 scribed by Sir Charles Sherrington: 



We seem to watch battalions of specific catalysts, like Maxwell's 

 demons, lined up, each waiting, stop watch in hand, for its mo- 

 ment to play the part assigned to it, a step in one or another great 

 thousand-linked chain process. ... In the sponge-work of the 

 cell, foci coexist for different operations, so that a hundred, or a 

 thousand different processes go forward at the same time within 

 its confines. The foci wax and wane as they are wanted. . . . The 

 processes going forward in it are cooperatively harmonized. The 

 total system is organized. The various catalysts work as co- 

 ordinately as though each had its own compartment in the honey- 

 comb and its own turn and time. In this great company, along with 

 the stop watches run dials telling how confreres and their sub- 

 strates are getting on, so that at zero time each takes its turn. Let 

 that catastrophe befall which is death, and these catalysts become a 

 disorderly mob and pull the very fabric of the cell to pieces. 

 Whereas in life as well as pulling down they build and build to a 

 plan.* 



And E. W. Sinnott in his book Cell and Psyche adds: 



It is this building to a plan which is so characteristic of all life. 

 I Such a physiological plan, refined and far more complex in the cells 

 I of our nervous system, ... I believe is that which in man can be 

 experienced as conscious purpose. Its roots are deep in the regu- 

 latory behavior of protoplasm. ... It is clearly impossible, of 

 course, to speak of conscious purpose at such a primitive level as 

 this (protoplasm) or even of consciousness at all. From such humble 

 beginnings, however, the consciousness which we experience so 



* Sir Charles Sherrington, Ma?! on His Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge 

 University Press, 1945), pp. 78-79. 



