2o The Evolution Hypothesis. 



ciple should be realized in thought ; for to apprehend 

 the unity of itself and its objects, consciousness must 

 transcend itself, and contemplate the relation from 

 without. But such an achievement is manifestly 

 impossible : it would be fatal ; for consciousness must 

 perish in the act. The law of continuity is violated 

 in every exercise of conscious intelligence. Self-con- 

 sciousness is an insuperable barrier in the way of the 

 complete unification of knowledge. 



(3). Life manifested in organisms endowed with 

 sensibility presents another wide and distinct depart- 

 ment of phenomena, which has hitherto defeated all 

 attempts at reducing it to knowable unity with other 

 modes of concrete existence. The animal kingdom is 

 divided by an impassable separation from that of 

 vegetable life. It may be alleged that the lowest 

 forms in both are hardly distinguishable from eachi 

 other. But even though these lowest forms should 1 

 be to us indistinguishable, it does not follow that they 

 are not distinct. The higher organisms are not dis- 

 tinguishable in their earliest stage ; yet these germs, 

 whose differences are indiscernible, pursue, with un- 

 erring and infallible certainty, paths of development 

 which result in clearly differenced structures. The 

 germs out of which animals of different species are 

 developed, must have, though not discernible by us, 

 characteristics by which they are discriminated. Even 

 in the same species the germs, though altogether in- 

 distinguishable, are of quite distinct varieties. That 



