EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



actly the same number of milligrammes of phos- 

 phorus are oxidized during an hour's conscious- 

 ness whether of a Shakespeare or a sot who 

 will declare that those two conscious entities, even 

 though accompanied by exactly equal amounts of 

 chemical change, are equal? Burn a gramme of 

 phosphorus, in a brain or a pan, and you will always 

 obtain an invariable amount of heat. But one 

 brain will yield, meantime, the prelude to " Parsi- 

 fal," another the "Washington Post March," while 

 the pan yields nothing at all but the heat. The law 

 of the conservation of heat -energy is observed, 

 but to resolve mind into energy (which is, as a 

 fact, a material concept) you must demonstrate 

 that the prelude to "Parsifal," Mr. Sousa's march, 

 and nothing are equal. We wish you joy of the 

 task. 



The law of the conservation of energy might be 

 stated as the law of the conservation of not-mind. 

 If it could be demonstrated to be applicable to 

 mind, the discovery would be welcomed by those 

 who seek for evidence of the persistence of the 

 individual consciousness after death; 1 but it has 

 not been so extended ; nor is there any conceivable 

 method of such extension. Meanwhile the theory 

 that not-mind is the reality which philosophy 

 seeks must be rejected. 



1 "Thought, we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows 

 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 

 By sightless lightning?" " ADONAIS." 

 328 



