WHAT IS DARWINISM ? 167 



guished naturalist, as teaching that the first of 

 these great problems, viz. the origin of life, ad- 

 mits of explanation on scientific (i. e., in his 

 sense, materialistic) principles ; and even the 

 third, viz. the origin of reason ; but the second, 

 or the origin of consciousness, he says, " is 

 perfectly inscrutable." Dubois-Reymond holds 

 that " the most accurate knowledge of the es- 

 sential organism reveals to us only matter in 

 motion ; but between this material movement 

 and my feeling pain or pleasure, experiencing 

 a sweet taste, seeing red, with the conclusion 

 ' therefore I exist,' there is a profound gulf; 

 and it ' remains utterly and forever inconceiva- 

 ble why to a number of atoms of carbon, hy- 

 drogen, etc., it should not be a matter of in- 

 difference how they lie or how they move ; nor 

 can we in any wise tell how consciousness 

 should result from their concurrent action.' 

 Whether," adds Strauss, " these Verba Mag- 

 istri are indeed the last word on the subject, 

 time only can tell." * But if it is inconceivable, 

 not to say absurd, that sense - consciousness 

 should consist in the motion of molecules of 

 matter, or be a function of such molecules, it 

 can hardly be less absurd to account for 



1 The Old Faith and the New. Prefatory Postscript, xxi. 



