THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC. 199 



enough even to discover that we do not know it. It 

 lias seemed less to us because farther from our eye ; 

 more simple because our vision could not trace it. 

 We have seen life no farther than the life that is 

 like our own extends. 



In another form we may perceive a similar result 

 of om^Jimited apprehension of nature ; namely, in 

 our belief that consciousness is confined to the 

 animal creation and mysteriously associated with one 

 portion alone of their physical structure. Perceiving 

 all nature as unconscious, save ourselves, and crea- 

 tures organized like ourselves, we assume that nature 

 is an unconscious thing, and that hero and there 

 a little consciousness is imported into it from without. 

 But what are the facts ? At one small corner of 

 nature we perceive it (we may say) directly, we are 

 in immediate contact with it namely, in our brain : 

 and there we feel it as conscious. At every other 

 point we perceive it only indirectly, through chan- 

 nels which hide as well as reveal; and there it 

 appears unconscious ; or conscious only by inference, 

 from resemblance to ourselves. Where man and 

 nature touch, he feels nature to be not only the pos- 



