ii4 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



But, with the coming of life, we see the appear- 

 ance of indetermination. A living being, no 

 matter how simple, is a reservoir of indetermina- 

 tion and unforeseeability, a reservoir of possible 

 actions or, in a word, of choice. And in it, too, 

 we find that faculty of imagining future eventuali- 

 ties (or, speaking more generally, of anticipating 

 the future), and at the same time of storing up 

 the past for that purpose, which is the faculty of 

 consciousness. 



If this be so, consciousness and matter would 

 appear to be antagonistic forces, which, neverthe- 

 less, come to a mutual understanding and manage 

 somehow to get on together. They are antagon- 

 istic in this, that matter is theoretically the realm 

 of fatality, while consciousness is essentially that 

 of liberty ; and yet life, which is nothing but con- 

 sciousness using matter for its purposes, succeeds 

 in reconciling them. Life, therefore, must be 

 something which avails itself of a certain elasticity 

 in matter slight in amount as this probably is 

 and turns it to the profit of liberty by stealing into 

 whatever infinitesimal fraction of indetermination 

 that inert matter may present. Now I believe 

 that this twofold conclusion is precisely what we 

 shall come to after following certain other lines 

 of facts, and that in following these lines we may, 

 moreover, catch a glimpse at once of how con- 

 sciousness finds matter an obstacle, and how, not- 

 withstanding, it succeeds in making use of it. I 

 will begin with the last point. 



