398 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



by becoming energetic, its energy produces the means of its own 

 increase. Unlike the physical forces whose expenditure renders 

 matter ever more inert, growth-force when expended adds mate- 

 rial which, as a profitable addition, increases the power of the cen- 

 tral machine from which the force emanates, by furnishing an in- 

 creased supply of food.* 



Thus it is evident that growth-force is not concentric nor j)olar 

 in its activity, as are the physical forces, and that its determina- 

 tions are antagonistic to these. Its existence in the earth has 

 been a succession of conquests over polar force, and, if preceding 

 assumj^tions be true, the gradual progress presented by animals in 

 abandoning the symmetrical forms exhibited by the lower types 

 has doubtless been due to the constantly increasing amount of 

 consciousness. 



V. THE DOCTRINE OF THE UXSPECIALIZED. 



It is, however, evident that the directing power of conscious- 

 ness is limited by the nature of the matter with which it has to 

 deal. There are certain fundamental necessities to which it must 

 conform. No one supposes that any degree of power can make 

 twice two equal to six, cause two solid substances to occupy the 

 same space at the same time, or make an absolutely solid sub- 

 stance out of incompressible atoms of different forms. These in- 

 volve the absurdity that something can be made out of nothing, 

 or nothing out of something. From the present conduct of the 

 inorganic world, it would appear to possess properties which ren- 

 der consciousness impossible to it. This is doubtless due to the 

 relations existing between the atoms or molecules of which its 

 various species consist. The movements it displays are polar. 

 The colloid molecular state is, so far as this planet is concerned, 

 the only one which we know to be capable of consciousness, and 

 then only while in a state of active transformation. As we have 

 seen, when protoplasm is once organized and working automati- 

 cally, consciousness need not be present ; and when this is absent, 

 the rate of transformation, that is, the amount of food consumed, 

 is greatly lessened. The excess of expenditure during conscious 



* It is incorrect to say that growth-force is "potential" in highly organized- 

 types, as it is undoubtedly expended in the movement of nutritive pabulum to a 

 given locality. The maintenance of it in that locality is due to ordinary molecular 

 cohesion, which can only be set free by greater molecular consolidation. 



