210 NATURAL SELECTION 



Matter is Force 



The foregoing considerations lead us to the very 

 important conclusion that matter is essentially force, and 

 nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, 

 does not exist, and is, in fact, philosophically inconceivable. 

 When we touch matter, we only really experience sensations 

 of resistance, implying repulsive force ; and no other sense 

 can give us such apparently solid proofs of the reality of 

 matter as touch does. This conclusion, if kept constantly 

 present in the mind, will be found to have a most important 

 bearing on almost every high scientific and philosophical 

 problem, and especially on such as relate to our own conscious 

 existence. 



and run the same course as the parent mass. This is growth and reproduction 

 in their simplest forms ; and from such a simple beginning it is possible to 

 conceive a series of slight modifications of composition, and of internal and 

 external forces, which should ultimately lead to the development of more 

 complex organisms. The LIFE of such an organism may, perhaps, be nothing 

 added to it, but merely the name we give to the result of a balance of internal 

 and external forces in maintaining the permanence of the form and structure of 

 the individual. The simplest conceivable form of such life would be the dew- 

 drop, which owes its existence to the balance between the condensation of 

 aqueous vapour in the atmosphere and the evaporation of its substance. If 

 either is in excess, it soon ceases to maintain an individual existence. I do 

 not maintain that vegetative life is wholly due to such a complex balance of 

 forces, but only that it is conceivable as such. 



With CONSCIOUSNESS the case is very different. Its phenomena are not 

 comparable with those of any kind of matter subjected to any of the known 

 or conceivable forces of nature ; and we cannot conceive a gradual transition 

 from absolute unconsciousness to consciousness, from an unsentient organism 

 to a sentient being. The merest rudiment of sensation or self-consciousness 

 is infinitely removed from absolutely non- sentient or unconscious matter. 

 We can conceive of no physical addition to, or modification of, an unconscious 

 mass which should create consciousness ; no step in the series of changes 

 organised matter may undergo, which should bring in sensation where there 

 was no sensation or power of sensation at the preceding step. It is because 

 the things are utterly incomparable and incommensurable that we can only 

 conceive of sensation coming to matter from without, while life may be con- 

 ceived as merely a specific combination and co-ordination of the matter and 

 the forces that compose the universe, and with which we are separately 

 acquainted. We may admit with Professor Huxley that protoplasm is the 

 "matter of life" and the cause of organisation, but we cannot admit or con- 

 ceive that protoplasm is the primary source of sensation and consciousness, or 

 that it can ever of itself become conscious in the same way as we may perhaps 

 conceive that it may become alive. 



