XV DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 475 



quite beyond and apart from chemical changes, however 

 complex ; and it has been well said that the first vegetable 

 cell was a new thing in the world, possessing altogether new 

 powers — that of extracting and fixing carbon from the carbon- 

 dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction, 

 and, still more marvellous, the power of variation and of 

 reproducing those variations till endless complications of 

 structure and varieties of form have been the result. Here, 

 then, we have indications of a new power at work, which we 

 may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter 

 all those characters and properties which constitute Life. 



The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely 

 beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and 

 forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness, 

 constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication 

 of structure producing the result is out of the question. We 

 feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain 

 stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary 

 result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into 

 existence, a thing ihdX feels, that is conscious of its own existence. 

 Here we have the certainty that something new has arisen, a 

 being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in 

 power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher 

 animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation — 

 such as the statement that life is the result of the molecular 

 forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic 

 universe from the amaeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist 

 from which the solar system was developed — can afford any 

 mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the 

 mystery. 



The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man 

 of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, 

 those which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up 

 possibilities of almost indefinite advancement. These faculties 

 could not possibly have been developed by means of the same 

 laws which have determined the progressive development of the 

 organic world in general, and also of man's physical organism.^ 



^ For au earlier discussion of this subject, with some wider applications, see 

 the author's Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, chap. x. 



