294 MAN AND THE WORLD. 



than the most active display of power. The Irre- 

 sponsive and Impassive Inertia, against which we 

 dash ourselves In vain, binds us with more rigid and 

 yet securer bonds than any our fancy could have 

 Imagined. Matter constrains us by a necessity we 

 can neither resist nor resent, and to dispute its sway 

 would not only be a waste of time and strength, 

 but display a ludicrous lack of the sense of the 

 ridiculous. 



But If Matter be a controlling mechanism, we can 

 see also why the lower beings possess a less com- 

 plex organization. A simpler and coarser machinery 

 depresses their consciousness to a very low point, 

 and so they have not the intelligence seriously to 

 affect the course of events. On the other hand, in 

 order to permit of the higher manifestations of 

 consciousness, admitting of greater spontaneity, of 

 greater powers for good and for evil, a more com- 

 plex, elaborate and delicate mechanism of Matter 

 Is required, to secure the necessary control of the 

 resultant action. Slaves may be driven by the lash, 

 governed by simple and violent means, but free men 

 require to be guided by subtler and more compli- 

 cated modes of suasion. Or, to vary the metaphor, 

 if the material encasement be coarse and simple, 

 as in the lower organisms, It permits only a little 

 intelligence to permeate through it ; if It is delicate 

 and complex, it leaves more pores and exits, as it 

 were, for the manifestations of consciousness. Or, 

 to appeal to the analogy already found so service- 

 able (§ 24), it is far easier for the operator to pul 

 his hypnotized subject asleep than to produce th( 

 higher manifestations in which the consciousness o| 

 the subject is called forth, but guided by the will oi 

 the operator ; and these require far more elaborat( 



