EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



atom being a unit of matter. Now the atoms 

 were in constant movement, and the movement 

 was so important that we might conveniently 

 sum all things as consisting of matter and motion. 

 Certain facts, however, indicated the existence 

 of a subtler stuff, believed to be omnipresent, 

 which was called the ether. Some said that this 

 was atomic, some that it was continuous and 

 homogeneous ; some thought it imponderable, oth- 

 ers ponderable; but at any rate it could only be 

 thought of as a subtler form of matter. There 

 was also, by-the-way, a certain curious manifes- 

 tation, hardly to be called an entity, but per- 

 haps worth mentioning, which was known as mind. 

 When certain atoms arranged in an exceptionally 

 complex fashion, and moving in a peculiar way, 

 were observed, it was noticed that their clashing 

 produced a sort of disturbance, somewhat different 

 from those of sound and heat, which we could call 

 consciousness, or mind. This was only a by-product 

 or epi-phenomenon to use the term applied to 

 it by Professor Huxley ; and as a by - product it 

 could hardly enter into an ultimate category of 

 the all. 



That creed was good enough for some in the 

 seventies, and doubtless contents a few to-day, 

 though I have never met one. We need waste no 

 space in criticising it here, save to remark upon 

 the amazing ingratitude shall we say? which 

 degraded mind, the percipient of all else, matter, 

 ether, and motion, to the level of a by-product. 

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