v.] " Modern Symposium." 67 



been on hand in palaeozoic ages we should not 

 have seen the phenomena of consciousness mani- 

 fested in connection with a fragment of porphyry 

 or a handful of sand or a tree-fern, any more than 

 we see such things to-day, but only in connection 

 with animals endowed with nerves. In thus extend- 

 ing the results of present experience to the past, 

 the element of sequence in time is introduced in 

 such a way as to suggest the causation of conscious- 

 ness by nerve-matter. Nevertheless the assertion 

 of the evolutionist is purely historical in its import, 

 and includes no hypothesis whatever as to the 

 ultimate origin of consciousness ; least of all is it 

 intended to imply that consciousness was evolved 

 from matter. It is not only inconceivable how 

 mind should have been produced from matter, but 

 it is inconceivable tJtat it should have been produced 

 from matter, unless matter possessed already the 

 attributes of mind in embryo, — an alternative which 

 it is difficult to invest with any real meaning. The 

 problem is altogether too abstruse to be solved with 

 our present resources. But it is curious to hear 

 honest theologians gravely urging against Mr. Spencer 

 that you cannot obtain mind from the "primordial 

 fire-mist " unless the germs of mind were somehow 

 present already. I hope I am not accrediting Mr. 



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