418 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



^^ The cause of tlie difference between conscious and uncon- 

 scious force must be secondarily due to different conditions of 

 matter as to its atomic constitution ; consciousness being only 

 possible, so far as we can ascertain, to matter which has not fallen 

 into fixed and automatic relations of its atoms." 



Protoplasm in the form of food is not conscious ; and tissue 

 formed of protoplasm is not conscious, excepting certain cells 

 where the forming process is in action. Nor is consciousness 

 present in all cells where nutrition is active. From the increased 

 consumption of energy, and the increased expenditure of energy 

 (heat, Lombard) which takes place during conscious processes, we 

 may well believe that the decomposition of protoj^lasm is more 

 considerable in such processes than in other forms of nervous ac- 

 tivity. We can imagine simple nutrition to be a condition of the 

 elements of this substance in which the chemical force is simul- 

 taneously combining and dissolving its combination, and that dur- 

 ing the process there is a condition in which the chemism is for 

 the time being unsatisfied, though present. The direction which 

 this nutrition or metastasis takes, is due to the arrangement of the 

 molecules already existing in the tissue, the new molecules taking 

 the form of the old ones in replacement, so long as no extraneous 

 force interferes. That they are rearranged under the influence of 

 consciousness is apparent in the origin of variations of structure 

 in accordance with the views of evolution already entertained. It 

 is the arrangement of the molecules which constitutes the auto- 

 matic machinery of nutrition as well as of other activities, so that 

 consciousness necessarily only appears in that stage of nutrition 

 while the matter is in a transition state, and unformed. Whether 

 chemism must be regarded as suspended, or only unsatisfied, at 

 this stage, can only be imagined. As non-satisfaction is probably 

 the tem|)orary condition in all nutrition, it is not unlikely that sus- 

 pension may be the condition of consciousness. 



Perhaps the character of the components of protoplasm is such 

 that the movements of their atoms, i. e., their chemism, mutually 

 interfere and destroy each other, as in the cases of the interference 

 of the waves of light and sound. 



The colloid form of protoplasm is especially favorable to inter- 

 nal movements which shall not destroy the integrity of the mass, 

 perhaps more so than a gaseous state in a compound of similar con- 

 stitution. It is, moreover, more favorable to the preservation of 

 molarity than a gas could be, on account of the ease with which 



