The Development of Life 49 



which I will not now express an opinion ; 

 but, at any rate, as it stands, it is not science, 

 and its formulation gives no sort of con- 

 ception of what life and will and conscious- 

 ness really are. 



Even if it were true, it contains nothing 

 whatever in the nature of explanation : it 

 recognises the inexplicable, and relegates it 

 to the atoms, where it seems to hope that 

 further quest may cease. Instead of tack- 

 ling the difficulty where it actually occurs ; 

 instead of associating life, will, and conscious- 

 ness with the organisms in which they are 

 actually in experience found, these ideas are 

 foisted into the atoms of matter ; and then the 

 properties which have been conferred on 

 the atoms are denied in all essential reality 

 to the fully developed organisms which 

 those atoms help to compose ! 



I show later on (Chapters V. and X.) 

 that there is no necessary justification for 

 assuming that a phenomenon exhibited by 

 an aggregate of particles must be possessed 

 by the ingredients of which it is composed ; 



4 



