Sensation 85 



consciousness depends on responsiveness, the 

 undifferentiated cell would be most capable of 

 it. No cell can be less specialized than the 

 germ cell, from which all others originate. If 

 the brain is a sex organ, an enclosed ovary 

 capable of creating sex products, it would 

 have undifferentiated cells that might become 

 the seat of consciousness. Keep this loose 

 colony of germ cells from separating, and the 

 grouping of cells necessary to a vivid conscious- 

 ness would result. 



Sensation is, then, not a simple state of con- 

 sciousness, but the product of numerous com- 

 plex conditions. The organism must attain 

 considerable complexity before it becomes cog- 

 nizant of the external world. And yet these 

 conditions fall back on a few simple ones that 

 are easily perceived if the complex conditions 

 of survival are eliminated. If survival is the 

 ultimate condition and starting-point of life, 

 then life is complex and hard to explain. But 

 if mere continuity is the first end, its laws are 

 plain. There must be a rhythm of action due 

 to katabolic changes, and the envelope must 

 develop to resist the tendencies to disruption 



