CONSCIOUSNESS Z2$ 



welfare of Homo sapiens in any sense. Rather I contend 

 that the human kidney manufactures the kind of urine 

 that it does, and it maintains the blood in the composi- 

 tion which that fluid has, because this kidney has a cer- 

 tain functional architecture; and it owes that architec- 

 ture not to design or foresight or to any plan, but to the 

 fact that the earth is an imstable sphere with a fragile 

 crust, to the geologic revolutions that for six hundred 

 million years have raised and lowered continents and 

 seas, to the predaceous enemies, and heat and cold, and 

 storms and droughts; to the unending succession of vicis- 

 situdes that have driven the mutant vertebrates from 

 sea into fresh water, into desiccated swamps, out upon 

 the dry land, from one habitation to another, perpetually 

 in search of the free and independent life, perpetually 

 failing, for one reason or another, to find it. 



There are those who say that they can extrapolate from 

 purpose in the organism to purpose in the cosmos, from 

 personality in man to a personality transcending the stars 

 and nebulae. This, I must question. Purpose in the or- 

 ganism issues from its molecular structure, as does per- 

 sonality in man; and both are transient patterns in the 

 swirhng foimtain of matter and energy that in a few 

 thousand miUion years has spewed galaxies in incon- 

 ceivable nimibers and at inconceivable speeds into the 

 impenetrable depths of space. It is scant modesty for 

 man, even if he is the liighest vertebrate,' to presume 

 that he can predicate the cosmic plan on the intensity 

 of his joy or pain, or cement the stars together with even 

 his highest aspirations. 



No less than his lowly predecessors, he continues in 

 the search of the free and independent life, for it is in 

 the nature of all life to move into that equilibrium 

 where the totaUty of desire is balanced against the total- 

 ity of restraint. But because he is the highest vertebrate 

 he can do what no other vertebrate can do: when, out 



