420 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTIOIN'. 



sary inference. In spite, however, of the insufficiency of the data, 

 men still suggest new yiews or cling to old ones, and an occasional 

 flight into this region of thought at least brings the thinker into 

 sympathy with the thoughts of his fellow-men. 



The admission of the possibility of the existence of conscious- 

 ness in other forms of matter than protoplasm, and in other regions 

 than the Earth, lends countenance to a rational belief in the so- 

 called ^^supernatural" (better called the supersensuous) so preva- 

 lent among men in irrational forms. The question naturally 

 arises. Is there any generalized form, of matter distributed through 

 the universe which could sustain consciousness ? The presump- 

 tion is that such a form of matter may well exist. Evolution or 

 specialization has only worked up part of its raw material in the or- 

 ganic world. Wherever primitive conditions remain, there primi- 

 tive organisms abound. Protozoa are yet numerous on land, and 

 the Protolatliyhius inhabits the depths of the sea. Highly spe- 

 cialized forms of life are in fact numerically a minority of living 

 beings. May not this be true also of inorganic beings ? It is 

 thought that various celestial bodies reiDresent unfinished worlds. 

 Is it not probable that the grand sources of matter not yet spe- 

 cialized into the sixty odd substances known to us, may still sus- 

 tain the primitive force not yet modified into its species, and that 

 this combination of states may be the condition of persistent con- 

 sciousness from which all lesser lights derive their brilliancy ? 

 There is much to warrant such a view in the observed facts of life, 

 taken in connection with the general course of evolution. More- 

 over, that some form of matter connects the interstellar S2oaces, is 

 thought to be proved by the transmission of light in some cases, 

 and light and heat in others. That such a form of matter per- 

 vades all spaces whatever, is the theory of some physicists. If it 

 be so generalized as to be capable of sustaining consciousness, it 

 becomes the source from which other substances derive it, so soon 

 as they, through the energy of nutrition, which resists death, 

 maintain the same primitive and unformed constitution capable 

 of exhibiting it. 



Of course there is no evidence in our own memory of the ex- 

 istence of our personality prior to our human experience. No 

 one on awaking from unconsciousness remembers having been 

 anywhere in particular during the interval. These facts may be 

 harmonized with the theory here presented, on the supposition 

 that memory is lost on a transfer of consciousness from one physi- 



