THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



observe it in the very lowest forms of life. 

 Moreover, modern scientific research cannot dis- 

 pense with it as an inseparable quality of every- 

 thing to which we apply the term "life." Of 

 course, a uni-cellular protozoon, a radiolarian or 

 an amoeba, does not reflect any stimuli in the 

 same way that the infinitely more perfected and 

 sensitive thought apparatus of human conscious- 

 ness does. But these first animals nevertheless 

 have the basic element, of this reaction in their 

 simplest sensation, such as avoiding light or 

 twitching at a touch. Such an animal feels itself 

 directly as an "I," if not consciously reflecting, 

 then at least intuitively. The differentiation of 

 sensations throughout the scale up to man is 

 merely a question of an infinite chain of develop- 

 ment without any interruption. But if it be as- 

 sumed that the life of a protozoon, or an amoeba, 

 was created by a miracle, then this same miracle 

 simultaneously created consciousness, and all the 

 rest could be left to the operation of the laws of 

 transformism. 



The question is only whether we must admit 

 such a miracle even at this very first point of de- 

 parture, were it only as- a logical help, as a Ijv,- 

 pothesis *even acceptable to the inductive method 

 of scientific Darwinism and natural history. So 



