190 Evolution of Will. CHAP. 



in his recent work on the Science of Thought, every 

 word in its origin is a result of abstraction. 



These considerations throw light on the evolution 

 of Will and self -consciousness. Mind has been 

 evolved from sensation as from a germ. We have no 

 means of knowing how far down in the animal scale 

 sensation really begins ; but it appears certain that 

 in its first beginning, sensation exists only as a guide 

 to muscular action ; and that all muscular actions, 

 such as the motion of the mouth in closing on food, 

 are performed in immediate response to a nervous 

 stimulus. But when the conditions of life so change 

 that the animal can no longer obtain food by merely 

 closing its mouth upon it, as a sea-anemone does, 

 but has to use some of the arts of a hunter; and 

 when at the same time the first developed single 

 ganglion further develops into a rudimentary brain ; 

 then when the nervous stimulus, coming probably 

 from the eye, reaches the brain, and the animal has 

 to watch its prey instead of at once closing upon it, 

 it is probable that the impulse to close upon its prey, 

 inherited from the ages before its brain was developed, 

 is still transmitted ; but is counteracted by an 

 inhibitory impulse engendered in the brain itself, and 

 throwing the nervo-muscular system into a state of 

 strain between the two opposing impulses ; while at 

 the same time the arrest of muscular action heightens 

 the consciousness which the sensory impression excites 

 in the brain ; for it is a well-known law, that con- 

 sciousness is heightened when muscular action is 



