Evolution of Mind. 271 



lowest mineral, vegetal, and animal forms to the 

 assumed highest in man himself, consists simply 

 in the ever-increasing likeness attained by the 

 mechanisms to a telegraph machine, the ever-increas- 

 ing complexity and subtlety of the organisms' sensory 

 mechanism, and the consequently ever-increasing 

 complexity and subtlety of all their physical and 

 mental motions. 



In other words, that there is no greater mystery in 

 the automatic evolution of human intelligence from a 

 basis of physical atomic motions, endless in action, 

 and capable of infinite complexity, than in the evolu- 

 tion of a metaphysical or other philosophy from an 

 alphabet of letters capable of infinite combinations. 

 To reply that the difference is explained by an 

 intelligent man shuffling the letters in the latter case, 

 while brute, inanimate, or unintelligent action is the 

 agent in the former instance, is to insolently place 

 man above nature. To any sane mind, man is but an 

 insignificant unit among the million mechanisms 

 which together constitute the great Being, Nature ; 

 and as he is himself, so ought his science, religion, 

 and philosophy to be. 



Human mind, consciousness and intelligence thus 

 only mean the sum of the reflex or complex motions 

 of atoms and senses incessantly throbbing in man's 

 brain and body ; even as the order, design, instinct, 

 and acting laws of all nature consist of what are 

 virtually identical, the reflex motions of matter in the 

 intelligent things of existence. 



