THE EVOLUTION OF MIND 



a name. A wise friend advises you not to worry 

 about it; &quot;it will come to you in a little while.&quot; 

 And so it does. You have set the unconscious 

 mind a little task, and, on its conclusion, your 

 consciousness is presented with the product. If 

 your friend were a psychologist, he would say, 

 &quot;Don t worry about it; leave it to your subcon- 

 sciousness.&quot; 



Now it seems to me that evolution, the master- 

 key, furnishes an explanation of these facts as of 

 those of multiple personality. I have often been 

 asked whether a baby is ever conscious before 

 birth, or whether it is asleep all the time. (A 

 curious feat, that of &quot;sleeping&quot; on one s head for 

 months together, yet we have all done it in our 

 time !) I am not prepared to answer the question ; 

 but I am quite certain that I cannot conceive of the 

 earliest stages of the baby the pencil-point stage, 

 for instance as conscious. Yet I am compelled to 

 believe that mind is present there mind in em 

 bryo associated with body in embryo. 



Now it has already been argued that life is po 

 tential in matter; that life-energy is not a thing 

 unique and created at a particular time in the past. 

 If evolution be true, living matter has been evolved 

 by natural processes from matter which is, ap 

 parently, not alive. As long as the argument is 

 confined to the production of a bacillus or an 

 amoeba, no concern will be felt by the alarmed 

 supernaturalist -as if nature were not the garb 

 of supernature! but if life is potential in matter, 



i73 



