THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND MIND 83 



a consistent proof of the gradual advance of intelligence. 

 From the amoeba to man there is no startling break that 

 would justify us in deserting natural agencies. 



We began with the gathering of a few sensitive cells in the 

 fore part of a lowly worm. We end with a brain of in- 

 conceivable complexity. The sensitive cell in the lower 

 organism differs little from the others : the ganglionic cell in 

 the human brain is a microcosm in itself. It is one of the 

 largest cells in the body, has a structure of astonishing 

 intricacy, and is connected with its neighbours by an 

 elaborate network of fibrils. Millions upon millions of these 

 cells are woven into the gray bed or cortex of the brain, 

 with which intelligence is associated. To say that all this 

 complexity is only for the purpose of letting in a spiritual 

 principle from another world is gratuitous in the extreme. 

 It is more scientific to suppose that the sensitive cells and 

 their function have advanced in a normal and natural fashion. 



Sir O. Lodge nowhere alludes to this vast and significant 

 array of facts that seem to point to consciousness as a 

 function of the brain. He prefers to dub it " Materialism," 

 and quote Huxley as a warning to " would-be Materialists"; 

 while he makes it perfectly clear in other parts (such as p. 75 

 and p. 1 08) that he does not himself accept those idealist 

 principles which lie at the root of Huxley's strictures, and 

 which are accepted by few men of science to-day. Later, 

 however, he offers us a few considerations which purport to 

 convince us that mind may, after all this evolution (of which 

 he says nothing), not be a function of the brain at all. 

 These are mostly in the form of analogies. 



