4:04 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



well as the vital ; their present unconscious condition being possi- 

 bly due, as in the case of the vital, to automatism : the automa- 

 tism being the expression of the atomic type of the substance ex- 

 hibiting it. And, doubtless, the simple quantitative relations of 

 the lowest types of forces are related to correspondingly simple 

 geometrical conditions of matter, both representing the simplest 

 grade of automatic action and machinery. We may also suppose 

 that all of these primary conditions were necessary to the produc- 

 tion of protoplasm, the only form of matter known to us in which 

 consciousness can persist. 



In conclusion, it is obvious that the metastatic condition of 

 protoplasm necessary to the persistence of consciousness could not 

 be supported without a constant source of supply by assimilation. 

 Hence it would ai3pear that the preliminary creation of dead and 

 unconscious substances and organisms were a necessary antecedent 

 to the accomplishment of this end : at least under circumstances 

 of temperature under which living beings or protoplasm exist on 

 this planet. Without the unconscious inorganic and organic prod- 

 ucts of nature, consciousness could not exist on the earth for a 

 day. No animal can maintain consciousness without food ; and 

 that food must be, in the main, protoplasm. Protoplasm is manu- 

 factured from inorganic matter by the (suijposed) unconscious 

 protoplasm of the plant. What form of matter originally gave 

 origin to protoplasm is yet unknown, but it is obvious that the 

 ordinary physical forces must have existed as conditions of its 

 creation, since now they are absolutely necessary to its persistence. 

 Hence we may view the succession of automatic activities some- 

 what in the light of the fagots used by the elephant to lift itself 

 from the well into which it had fallen. One placed upon another 

 finally raised the footing to an elevation which enabled the animal 

 to obtain its freedom. 



Consciousness is the essential condition of personality ; so that 

 in this view of the case we are led to a primitive personality, al- 

 though not to what we call life. And the reason why this person- 

 ality is to us so obscure a conception is probably to be found in 

 the fact that it, as well as ourselves, is conditioned in its rela- 

 tions to matter by necessary laws of ''mathematical" truth. 



