A Crumb for the " Modern Symposium" 67 



minology of science is thoroughly materialistic, 

 though probably not more so than the language 

 of ordinary discourse. It is intensely material- 

 istic for us to speak of the table as if it had some 

 objective existence, independent of a cognizing 

 mind ; and yet, in common parlance, we invari- 

 ably allude to the table in terms which imply or 

 suggest such an independent existence. Just so 

 in theoretical science. In describing the develop- 

 ment of life upon the earth's surface, when we 

 say that consciousness appeared on the scene pari 

 passu with the appearance of nervous systems, it 

 is not strange if we are supposed to mean that 

 consciousness is somehow produced by a peculiar 

 arrangement of nervous tissue that " spirit " is 

 in some 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 imparting 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 prob- 

 ability, 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 been on hand in palaeozoic 



