THE ORIGIN OF MAN 261 



itself alone it might be constrained to believe that all 

 existence is conscious, — that the universe is mind 

 alone ; but looking also at the extenal world, it invari- 

 ably contrasts itself with matter and force, and judges 

 itself to be essentially different. It is not difficult for 

 even the most untutored savage to believe that his 

 soul is different from his body and from all the exter- 

 nal world. The common sense of mankind in all ages 

 has given a uniform decision in the matter of the ex- 

 istence of the soul, and it has ever thought it neces- 

 sary to explain mind by referring to some power 

 beyond the physical forces of nature. 



After all, if we were to affirm that matter is con- 

 scious it would be saying that mind is, so far as we 

 know, indestructible and eternal. If mind and mat- 

 ter ape identical, then mind is secure through eternity. 

 If moving molecules are mind, then moving atoms are 

 also mind. 



If molecules of brain composed of carbon, hydro- 

 gen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus are conscious 

 and think and will, then each of these five simple sub- 

 stances must embody in itself or be in itself a certain 

 portion of consciousness, for the sum cannot be 

 greater than all the parts that compose it. 



To affirm that organized matter is conscious — that 

 mind is a property of organized matter — is at bottom 

 to affirm that simple forms of matter also are con- 

 scious. So far as it can be traced in the laboratory, 

 organized matter consists of molecules made by the 

 union of elementary substances, 



Mind has a scope of conscious relations to time, 

 space, matter, force, and to mind, that are entirely 

 different, so far as we can ascertain, from the rela- 

 tions of matter and force to each other. 



Mind alone looks backward and forward in time, 

 searches space, determines the qualities of matter, 



