258 From Matter to Man. 



But consciousness, as so defined, is withdrawn from 

 the immaterial world and classed as a mere physical 

 performance, hence we cannot draw the line of con- 

 sciousness at the plants ; for a compass needle in 

 recognising the presence and polarity of a magnet 

 is equally entitled to be called conscious. We have 

 already assumed this in previous chapters, and carried 

 out the deduction to its logical conclusion by retracing 

 consciousness and intelligence from the animals and 

 vegetals, down through the minerals until we unearth 

 its genesis in the intelligent attractions and repulsions 

 of the atoms, of which the universe and all it contains 

 are composed. Below this we cannot go. 



Mind thus does not originate mind ; nor does a 

 divine mind necessarily precede a human mind any 

 more than a universal time-piece precedes our watches. 

 Stephenson did not require a locomotive to be in 

 existence before he invented one ; all he needed was 

 the hundred and one odds and ends of machinery 

 which by skilful and original adjustment, fitted and 

 refitted in hundreds of different ways, eventually grew 

 to be a new thing, a locomotive. 



Similarly, the universe is not a mind, nor does it 

 require a presiding mind to direct it, or to evolve 

 animal minds. The only necessaries are, for the 

 universe as a whole, the presence of all-comprehensive 

 laws ; and for animal minds, the thousand and one 

 intellectual constituents of organisms, in the shape of 

 atoms, cells, pseudopodia, fibres, nerves, etc. These 

 by infinite adjustment and re-adjustment, almost 



