5o8 PRIMARY FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 



ing one. One thing is certain, the organization of the 

 mechanism of habits is its enemy. It is clear that in 

 animals, energy, on the loss of consciousness, undergoes a 

 retrograde metamorphosis. 



"To regard consciousness as the primitive condi- 

 tion of energy, contemplates an order of evolution in 

 large degree the reverse of the one which is ordinarily 

 entertained. The usual view is, that life is a deriva- 

 tive from inorganic energies as a result of high or com- 

 plex molecular organization, and that consciousness 

 (^sensibility) is the ultimate outcome of the nervous 

 or equivalent energy possessed by living bodies. The 

 failure of the attempts to demonstrate spontaneous 

 generation will prove, if continued, fatal to this theory. 

 With our present evidence it may be affirmed that not 

 only 'has life preceded organization,' but that con- 

 sciousness was coincident with the dawn of life. ''^ 



The facts cited, and the doctrines defended in the 

 preceding pages lead to one inference as to the relation 

 of consciousness to its physical basis. The condition 

 of matter necessary to the maintenance of conscious- 

 ness is, in the language of morphology, generalized; in 

 the language of chemistry, neutral; in the language of 

 physics, non-equilibrated. The materialist and the ani- 

 mist can alike agree as to this generalization. The 

 difference between the two positions is a difference of 

 view as to the mutual relations of the two members of 

 the partnership. Is the permanent absence of equi- 

 librium of living protoplasm due to control by con- 

 sciousness ? or is consciousness a product of an absence 

 of equilibrium, which is due to chemical and physical 

 action? The latter proposition is untenable, because 

 the inevitable tendency of chemical and physical ener- 

 gies is to an equilibrium. Is, therefore, the other al- 



