THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND MIND 79 



electricity something so mysterious that we must rush 

 beyond nature for the explanation ? When we remember 

 the enormous chemical complexity of their texture, the high 

 sensitiveness of much simpler compounds and of many 

 plants, etc., it would not be very rational to do so. A 

 beautiful radiolarian like the Lychnaspis miranda will no 

 doubt impress the imagination of the inexpert. It must 

 have something equivalent to memory as well as the power 

 to create a most artistic structure, since it always builds as 

 its progenitor did. But the whole activity of the structure- 

 less speck of jelly is undoubtedly unconscious ; and we can 

 arrange the four thousand species of radiolaria in an evolu- 

 tionary series, and trace the utilitarian growth of the shell. 

 The vegetal diatom also forms at times a wonderfully pretty 

 shell. We have no ground to say that these feeble psychic 

 powers are beyond the range of the intricate plexus of 

 inorganic forces that we know to exist in the unicellular 

 body. 



When we rise to the first stages of the multicellular 

 animal there is no material change. The aggregation is 

 loose, and each cell retains its general sensitiveness. At 

 last division of labour sets in. Some cells confine them- 

 selves to reproduction, some to digestion, some to locomo- 

 tion, some to sensitiveness. Does the mere fact of division 

 of labour, or the differentiation of cells for particular 

 functions, demand the acquisition of an immaterial 

 principle ? I And if not, there is no reason why natural 



1 Bear in mind, too, that such an admission would explain nothing. 

 This applies to Sir O. Lodge's theory generally. The moment you 



