276 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



as to what is prudent, kindly, or right, are actions 

 wholly within our consciousness. There is no trace 

 of explanation of them within the ramifications of the 

 nerves and nerve-cells. The facts of our own life are 

 the surest to us, and those selected are quite ordinary 

 examples. The familiar agency of thought in its 

 direction of our conduct, is known to us all, even to 

 those who know nothing of nerve-fibres and nerve- 

 cells. 



Observe now how the argument stands. Nerve- 

 structure accounts for all that belongs to the sensi 

 bility of our bodies, and for all that illustrates the 

 power of our muscles. Structure of brain accounts 

 for concentration and co-ordination of the two sets of 

 movements, accomplished by apparatus, such as is 

 within all organism, and is of uniform structure 

 within all. Consciousness includes no trace of the 

 antecedent molecular movements, within fibres and 

 cells. Consciousness alone gives the knowledge of 

 our own experience, in the direction of our reflections, 

 and in the determination of our actions, involving 

 government of our impulses, and management of our 

 bodily movements. Physiology includes no trace of 

 all this. After the molecular movement has reached 

 its terminus in the nerve-cell or cells, the nerve- 

 system offers no further contribution to knowledge, 

 until we come back to the sphere of the muscular 

 sense. There are thus two distinct phases of activity; 

 so distinct, that the one is not continuous with the 

 other, in respect of energy and movement, though 

 continuous in time. The continuity manifest in or 

 ganic action is broken, being transcended and supple 

 mented in human life. Unity of life is undoubted at 



