222 Transactions of the Society. 



future advance our knowledge. All that can be learnt by observation 

 is conclusive in favour of a very close relationship between life and 

 consciousness, and the sudden acquisition of the latter characteristic 

 is not conceivable. On the other hand, to assert that life is a pro- 

 perty of protoplasm, just as polarity is a property of a magnet, is 

 utterly unreasonable. You cannot devitalize and revitalize the 

 same matter, but you can magnetize and demagnetize the same 

 piece of steel many times. The " impassable chasm " is between 

 the non-living matter and that which lives, not between the latter 

 and consciousness. 



Consciousness, it is asserted by Dr. Allman, is as " absolutely 

 distinct" from unconscious life as it is "from any of the ordi- 

 nary phenomena of matter." To this statement I entirely demur, 

 and maintain, on the contrary, that consciousness and unconscious 

 life are intimately related, and that both are so very far removed 

 from any of the phenomena of ordinary matter, that it is doubtful 

 whether one should be considered nearer to or farther from them 

 than the other. The further statement, that " the chasm between 

 unconscious life and thought is deep and impassable," I therefore 

 regard as altogether incorrect, and opposed to the fact of develop- 

 ment where life is certainly at first unconscious, but where con- 

 sciousness is slowly and gradually, but not suddenly manifested. 

 It seems much more in accord wdth what is known of nature to 

 infer that out of the unconscious state the conscious gradually 

 emerges, than to assume that consciousness is something that is 

 somehow suddenly superadded or evolved, in some manner that 

 cannot be suggested. 



Psychical Phenomena. 



If the term psychical is extended to animals, it must un- 

 doubtedly be extended to plants, and to every form of living matter. 

 And certainly every form of living matter manifests actions which 

 cannot be included in physics or chemistry, and might be termed 

 psychical, though not the same form of psychical action as thought. 

 In the simplest forms of living matter the vital action seems to 

 emanate from the centre of the living particle, and to influence 

 matter in a direction from centre to circumference. In nutrition 

 and growth the non-living matter pursues the very opposite direc- 

 tion, from circumference to centre. The precise part of a living 

 particle where the matter is changed from the non-living into 

 the living state is the centre. The change is psychical (?). 

 Instead of vital actions depending upon the influence of external 

 agencies acting from without and exciting a response, they always 

 tend to act from within, and the degree of their activity depends 

 upon the extent to which the external restrictions under which the 

 living matter is placed, are removed. I believe that, in the same 



