174 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



that possibility only postpones the end. Those other 

 systems, like that of our sun, will have their day and 

 cease to be, and the consciousness associated with 

 organic matter would cease with them. Not only 

 have we to face the problem of the existence of the 

 Universe with its evolution of organic consciousness, 

 but the further problem of its possible future dis- 

 appearance. If there be nothing behind it and nothing 

 after it, the thing becomes meaningless. 



Of course if we like we can leave the problem there, 

 and say it is meaningless, or, at any rate, must remain 

 meaningless to us. But that is not a scientific attitude 

 of mind, and, moreover, that is an attitude of mind 

 which the human intelligence, for some reason or other, 

 has always declined permanently to accept. We must 

 assume that the scheme of the Universe, like the sub- 

 ject-matter of the humblest science, is intelligible. 



It does not follow that we are yet, or ever shall be, in 

 a position to investigate the problem satisfactorily. But 

 the problem is there, clamouring for solution, even on the 

 ultra-mechanical hypothesis we have hitherto followed. 

 Even if " the mind secretes thought " and consciousness 

 " as the liver secretes bile," we have got to find some 

 intelligible meaning for a mechanical Universe which 

 includes consciousness in its mechanism. 



We may with M. Bergson give a rudimentary con- 

 sciousness even to unicellular organisms if they be 

 mobile. We may go further, and, with certain other 

 philosophers, assign a still more rudimentary conscious- 

 ness to molecules, atoms or perhaps electrons. We 

 do not get rid of the problem, or alter its essential 

 character. The evolution of consciousness, the seem- 



