66 A CRUMB FOR THE [v. 



of science is thoroughly materialistic, though pro- 

 bably not more so than the language of ordinary 

 discourse. It is intensely materialistic for us to 

 speak of the table as if it had some objective 

 existence, independent of a cognising mind ; and 

 yet, in common parlance, we invariably allude to 

 the table in terms which imply or suggest such an 

 independent existence. Just so in theoretical science. 

 In describing the development of life upon the 

 earth's surface, when we say that consciousness 

 appeared on the scene part passu with the appear- 

 ance of nervous systems, it is not strange if we 

 are supposed to mean that consciousness some- 

 how produced by a peculiar arrangement of nervous 

 tissue that "spirit" is in some 1 way or other 

 evolved from "matter." 



In reality, however, nothing of the kind is in- 

 tended. Laxity of speech is mainly responsible for 

 the misapprehension. The evolutionist, in describing 

 the course of life upon the earth, is simply impart- 

 ing to us, so far as he is able, a piece of historical 

 information. Through various complex and indirect 

 processes of inference, he has become capable of 

 telling us, with some probability, how things would 

 have looked to us in the remote past if we had 

 been there to see. He tells us that if we had 



