THE ORIGIN OF MAN 251 



chemist with " units " of matter, or atoms, " funda- 

 mentally of one kind," can make little progress in 

 building up material compounds. Allotropic condi- 

 tions are few and comparatively unimportant, so that 

 there is no certain foundation in material units for 

 the assumed units of feeling of one kind only. 



Spencer assumes that all the atoms of different 

 kinds of matter are probably fundamentally alike. 

 The positive teaching of chemistry is that there are 

 many kinds of atoms fundamentally unlike. He then 

 assumes that all mental phenomena are made up of 

 " units of feeling," and then further assumes that 

 these units of feeling are "fundamentally of one 

 kind." 



By calling all psychic phenomena feelings, and then 

 resolving feelings into " nervous shocks " the science 

 of Psychology is immensely simplified, if indeed it is 

 not rendered more luminous. 



He tells us: "Mind is, certainly in some cases and 

 probably in all, resolvable into 'nervous shocks.' "* 

 And yet he says, " That a unit of feeling has nothing 

 in common with a unit of motion becomes more than 

 ever manifest when we bring the two into juxta- 

 position." 



This admission, it seems to me, renders it impossi- 

 ble to account for the origin of even the simplest 

 feeling, from inorganic matter by the process of evo- 

 lution. And yet it is necessary that the chasm be- 

 tween the dead unconscious world and the living 

 conscious world should be bridged. 



There is no mental process by which we can con- 

 ceive the origin of any feeling from matter or from 

 matter and motion. 



Mind persistently refuses to be identified with mat- 

 ter. The Ego and the Non-ego — the subject and the 

 * Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 156. 



