CONSCIOUSNESS. 2 1 



gen, carbon, phosphorus, and so on, it can be otherwise 

 than indififerent how they lie or move; here, therefore, 

 is the other Hmit to the knowledge of natural science. 

 Even the mind imagined by Laplace cannot go beyond 

 this, to say nothing of our own. Whether the two limits 

 to natural science are not, perchance, identical, it is, more- 

 over, impossible to determine." 



In these last words the possibility is indicated that 

 consciousness may be an attribute of matter, or may 

 appertain to the nature of the atoms. And we may add, 

 that the attempt has of late been repeatedly made to gen- 

 eralize the sensory process, and to demonstrate it to be 

 the universal characteristic of matter, as by von Zollner, 

 in his work on the Nature of Comets, which has created 

 such a justifiable sensation. He holds that, if by means 

 of delicately-formed organs of sensation it were possible 

 to observe the molecular motions in a crystal mechan- 

 ically injured in any part, it could not be unconditionally 

 denied that the motions, hereby excited, take place ab- 

 solutely without any simultaneous excitement of sensa- 

 tion. We must either renounce the possibiHty of com- 

 prehending the phenomenon of sensation in the organ- 

 ism, or " hypothetically add to the universal attributes 

 of nature, one which would cause the simplest and 

 most elementary operations of nature to be combined, 

 in the same ratio, with a process of sensation." 



It might be imagined that reflections of this kind 

 would lead to the delusive abysses of speculation; but 

 if, still speaking only of organisms, we descend from 

 the manifestations elicited by sensations of desire and 

 aversion in the higher consciousness of man and of the 

 superior animals, till we see all reaction to external ex- 



