148 PSYCHOLOGY. 



we found ourselves passing without break from the phenomena 

 of bodily life to the phenomoua of mental life." * And Mr. 

 Tyndall, in the same Belfast Address from which we just 

 quoted, delivers his other famous passage : 



" Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make 

 before you is that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of 

 the experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we, in our 

 ignorance and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, 

 have hitherto covered with opprobrium the promise and potency of 

 every form and quality of life." t 

 — mental life included, as a matter of course. 



So strong a postulate is continuity ! Now this book will 

 tend to show that mental postulates are on the whole to be 

 respected. The demand for continuity has, over large tracts 

 of science, proved itself to possess true prophetic power. 

 We ought therefore ourselves sincerely to try every possible 

 mode of conceiving the dawn of consciousness so that it 

 may not appear equivalent to the irruption into the universe 

 of a new nature, non-existent until then. 



Merely to call the consciousness ' nascent ' will not 

 serve our turn.:}; It is true th°at the word signifies not yet 



* Psychology, §131. f 'Nature,' as above, 317-8. 



X ' Nascent ' is Mr. Spencer's great word. lu showing how at a certain 

 point consciou.sness must appear upon the evolving scene this author fairly 

 outdoes himself in vagueness. 



" In its liigher forms, Instinct is probably accompanied by a rudimen- 

 tary consciousness. There cannot be co-ordination of many stimuli without 

 some ganglion through which they are all brought into relation. In the 

 process of bringing them into relation, this ganglion must be subject to 

 the influence of each — must undergo many changes. And the quick suc- 

 ces.sion of changes in a ganglion, impl3ang as it does perpetual experiences 

 of differences and likenesses, constitutes the raw material of con.sciousness. 

 The implicatwii is that as fast as Instinct is developed, some kind of con- 

 sciousness becomes nascent." (Psychology. § 195.) 



The words 'raw material' and 'implication' which 1 have italicized 

 are tlie words which do the evolving. They are supposed to have ad the 

 rigor which the ' synthetic philosophy ' requires. In the following passage, 

 when 'impressions' pass through a common 'centre of communication' 

 In succession (much as people might pass into a theatre through a turnstile) 

 consciousness, non-existent until then, :s supposed to result : 



"Separate impressions are received by the senses — by different parts of the 

 body. If they go no further than the places at which they are received, they 

 are useless. Or if only some of them are brought into relation with one an- 

 other, they are useless. That an effectual adjustment may be made, they must 

 be all brought into relation with one another. But this implies some centre 

 of communication common to then all, through which the}' severalli' pass ; 



