402 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



taclied to their host a successive obliteration of their distinctive 

 characters takes place, so that they become so simplified as to be 

 no longer referable to their proper class, but susceptible, as Prof. 

 Vogt remarks, of being united in a single division. A similar 

 process is observed in the structural degeneration of the Lernean 

 parasites, which are at first free, but afterward become parasitic 

 on fishes. There is in this instance a coincidence between degen- 

 eracy of structure and loss of compulsory activity : not only is 

 every function of their sluggish lives automatically performed, but 

 consciousness itself must experience little stimulus. 



From what has preceded, it is evident that automatism is at 

 once the product and the antagonist of evolution, and that it is 

 represented in structure by specialization. It appears also that 

 consciousness is the condition of the inauguration of new habits, 

 and this is only possible to structures which are not already too 

 far specialized. This is doubtless true, whether osseous and mus- 

 cular tissue be concerned in evolution, or whether it be nervous 

 and brain tissue. Hence in the highest form of development, 

 that of brain mechanism, automatism is the enemy, and con- 

 sciousness the condition of progress. As a product of develop- 

 ment, automatism is the condition of stationary existence, and 

 constitutes its effective machinery, but every additional step re- 

 quires the presence of consciousness. This may be expressed in 

 the every-day language of human affairs, by saying that routine 

 and progress are the opposite poles of social economy. 



VI. THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 



This question has not yet been touched upon, nor is it neces- 

 sary to give it prolonged attention at present. Consciousness is 

 in itself inscrutable to us, and the contrast which it presents to 

 physical and vital forces is the great fact of life. It is obvious 

 enough that certain molecular conditions are essential to its ap- 

 pearance; drugs intensify or obscure it ; concussions and lesions 

 destroy it. It will doubtless become possible to exhibit a parallel 

 scale of relations between stimuli on the one hand, and the de- 

 grees of consciousness on the other. Yet for all this it will be 

 impossible to express self-knowledge in terms of force. The ques- 

 tion as to whether the product of the force conversion involved is 

 the consciousness itself, or only a condition of consciousness, may 

 receive light from the following consideration. 



Nowhere does '*the doctrine of the unspecialized" receive 



