THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



of witchery, that is to say, an origin of things 

 without any causal connection, without any prem- 

 ise, without adequate reason. Life is supposed 

 to have arisen in its most primitive form by a 

 miracle. There are a great number of people 

 who fancy that they have rescued their entire 

 world-philosophy by asserting a miracle at this 

 one point. But most of them are of the opinion 

 that they cannot accept the idea of evolution, and 

 the animal descent of man from a protozoon, un- 

 less we admit a second miracle further up in the 

 scale. Just as the first life cell at the lowest end 

 of evolution is supposed to have been a miracle 

 without cause, so the first genuine rise of con- 

 sciousness, far at the top, in the first genuine 

 human being, is explained by a miracle, regard- 

 less of any logical connection with the process of 

 evolution. However, this last speculation is ac- 

 tually superfluous, even from the standpoint of 

 those who champion it. 



In my opinion, the fundamental facts of con- 

 sciousness are found in every simple sensation. I 

 feel this or that impression, light or dark, pleasure 

 or pain ; that, it seems to me, is the simplest form 

 of "becoming conscious of anything," and this 

 simplest form of sensation was doubtless pos- 

 sessed by the most primitive living cell. We may 



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