ON CATAGENESIS. 425 



without exertion, either consciously or unconsciously, and in those 

 functions now removed from the influence of the unconscious 

 mind such acts are called reflex. The origin of the acts is, how- 

 ever, believed to have been in consciousness, not only for the rea- 

 sons above stated, but also from facts of still wider application. 

 The hypothesis of archfEsthetism then maintains that conscious- 

 ness as well as life preceded organism, and has been the primum 

 mobile in the creation of organic structure. This conclusion also 

 flows from a due consideration of the nature of life. I think it 

 possible to show that the true definition of life is, energy directed 

 bg sensibiUtg, or by a mechanism lolilcli has originated under the 

 direction of sensibility. If this be true, the two statements that 

 life has preceded organism, and that consciousness has preceded 

 organism, are co-equal expressions. 



II. CONSCIOUSNESS, ENERGY, AND MATTER. 



Eegarding for the time being the phenomena of life as energy 

 primitively determined by consciousness, let us look more closely 

 into the characteristics of this remarkable attribute. That con- 

 sciousness, and therefore mind, is a property of matter, is a neces- 

 sary truth which to some minds seems difficult of acceptance. 

 That it is not an attribute of all kinds of matter is clear enough, 

 but to say that it is not an attribute of any kind of matter is to 

 utter an unthinkable proposition. To my mind the absence of 

 tridimensional matter is synonymous with nothingness or abso- 

 lute vacuity. To say that phenomena have a material basis, is for 

 me only another way of saying that they exist. It being granted 

 then that consciousness is an attribute of matter, or a certain 

 behavior of matter, it remains to trace its relation to energy, 

 which is here used in the sense of motion. Consciousness is clearly 

 not one of the known so-called inorganic forces. Objects which 

 are hot, or luminous, or sonorous, are not, as is well known, on 

 that account conscious. Consciousness is not then a necessary 

 condition of energy. On the other hand, in order to be conscious, 

 bodies must possess a suitable temperature, and must be suitably 

 nourished. So energy is a necessary condition of consciousness. 

 For this reason some thinkers regard consciousness as a form or 

 species of energy. For my own part, in classification, I prefer to 

 keep very different things apart. To classify consciousness with 

 heat, light, sound, etc., does violence to my sense of fitness and 

 to all proper definitions. This is well shown by Prof. Clifford in 



