416 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION 



Eaymond lias not found it to be acceptable to his nearest contem- 

 poraries. He says : " The opposition which has been offered to 

 my assertion of the incomprehensibility of consciousness on a me- 

 chanical theory, shows how mistaken is the idea of the later phi- 

 losophy, that that incomprehensibility is self-evident. It ap- 

 pears, rather, that all philosophizing upon the mind must begin 

 with the statement of this point." In stating this point some 

 years ago we used the following language :* "It will doubtless 

 become possible to exhibit a parallel scale of relations between 

 stimuli on the one hand and the degrees of consciousness on the 

 other. Yet for all this it will be impossible to express self-knowl- 

 edge in terms of force." And again : f "An unprejudiced scru- 

 tiny of the nature of consciousness, no matter how limited that 

 scrutiny necessarily is, shows that it is qualitatively comparable 

 to nothing else. . . . From this stand-point it is looked upon as 

 a state of matter which is coeternal with it, but not coextensive." 



It is probable then that consciousness is a condition of matter 

 in some peculiar state, and that wherever that condition of mat- 

 ter exists consciousness will be found, and that the absence of that 

 state implies the absence of consciousness. What is that state ? 



It would be a monstrous assumption to suppose that conscious- 

 ness and life are confined to the planet on which we dwell. I 

 presume that no one would be willing to maintain such an hypoth- 

 esis. Yet it is obvious that if there be beings possessed of these 

 attributes in the planets Mercury and Saturn, they can not be 

 ■ comjjosed of protoplasm, nor of any identical substance in the 

 two. In the one planet protoplasm would be utterly disorganized 

 and represented by its component gases ; in the other it would be 

 a solid, suitable for the manufacture of sharp-edged tools. J But 

 as it is probable that protoplasm is adapted for the phenomena of 

 consciousness by a certain peculiarity of its constitution, it seems 

 evident that other substances having a similar peculiarity may 

 also be able to sustain it. I have elsewhere attempted to discover 

 what this is, in the following language : ^ 



"Nowhere does 'the doctrine of the unspecialized ' receive 

 greater warrant than in the constitution of protoplasm. Modern 

 chemistry refers compound substances to four classes, each of 



* "Consciousness in Evolution." "Penn Monthly," July, 1875. 

 f " The Origin of the Will." " Penn Monthly," 1811, p, 439, 

 X Frazer in "American Naturalist," 1879, p. 420. 



* "Consciousness in Evolution," 1S75, p. 573. 



