14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



phenomenal universe was not apparent. External Nature 

 could be regarded as a mechanical contrivance under those 

 conditions of belief. Science has forced us to abandon this 

 position. At the same time, the continual experience of mind 

 within ourselves precludes a gross irrational materialism. The 

 fact that we merely know mind in its human differentia, and 

 can form no conception at present of its manifestations in 

 other stages of being, is plainly one of our abiding dis- 

 abilities the incapacity under which we suffer of transcending 

 our own sphere. Yet I have already pointed out that the 

 analysis of mind in man proves that intellect is only the 

 highest function, within our range of vision, to which 

 successive stages of vital organism ascend by complication of 

 structure and development of consciousness. 



We may approach this problem of the universal mind 

 upon another path, following the indications suggested by the 

 Correlation of Forces. 



Mind appears to us human beings as the final synthesis 

 of biological functions, attaining to self-consciousness by a 

 gradual progression from the simplest forms of animated 

 things to the most complex organism known to us Man. 



If we are serious Evolutionists that is to say, if we refuse 

 to recognise a breakage in the sequence which connects man 

 with the lowest types of life upon the planet, and if we 

 repudiate the hypothesis of special creation to account for 

 the phenomenon which we term mind in its final elaboration 

 known to us then we are forced to admit that inorganic 

 Nature is implicated in the process of mental development. 

 We may not indeed be able at present to demonstrate the 

 transition from inorganic to organic modes of the world- 

 substance ; but we are brought to the following dilemma : 

 either we must postulate the evolution of life and mind out of 

 primordial inorganic elements, or we must postulate a special 

 act of creation whereby the rudiments of mind were com- 

 municated together with life to the earliest organised beings. 

 Accepting the latter alternative, we cease to be Evolutionists ; 

 for we have conceded creative interference at one moment of 

 the universal sequence, which is tantamount to abandoning 



