464 On Archcesthetism. [June, 



force is an attribute of matter. This view is maintained in a 

 fashion of his own by G. H. Lewes. Professor Raymond 1 says 

 in support of the same position : 



" 'More temperate heads betrayed the weakness of their dialec- 

 tics in that they could not grasp the difference between the view 

 which I opposed, that consciousness can be explained upon a 

 mechanical basis, and the view which I did not question, but sup- 

 ported with new arguments, that consciousness is bound to mate- 

 rial antecedents.' This position has been maintained by various 

 writers, among them Professor Allman 2 and the writer. But Pro- 

 fessor Raymond has not found it to be acceptable to his nearest 

 cotemporaries. He says, ' The opposition which has been offered 

 to my assertion of the incomprehensibility of consciousness on a 

 mechanical theory, shows how mistaken is the idea of the later 

 philosophy, that that incomprehensibility is self-evident. It ap- 

 pears rather, that all philosophizing upon the mind must begin 

 with the statement of this point.' In stating this point some 

 years ago, we used the following language : 3 ' It will doubtless 

 become possible to exhibit a parallel scale of relations between 

 stimuli on the one hand and the degrees of consciousness on the 

 other. Yet for all this it will be impossible to express self-know- 

 . ledge in terms of force.' And again, 4 « An unprejudiced scrutiny 

 of the nature of consciousness, no matter how limited that scru- 

 tiny necessarily is, shows that it is qualitatively comparable to 

 nothing else. * * From this standpoint it is looked upon as a 

 state of matter which is coeternal with it, but not coextensive.' " 



It is probable then that consciousness is a condition of matter 

 in some peculiar state, and that wherever that condition of mat- 

 ter exists, consciousness will be found, and that the absence of 

 that state implies the absence of consciousness. What is that 

 state ? 



It would be a monstrous assumption to suppose that conscious- 

 ness and life are confined to the planet on which we dwell- I 

 presume that no one would be willing to maintain such an hypoth- 

 esis. Yet it is obvious that if there be beings possessed of these 

 attributes in the planets Mercury and Saturn, they cannot be 

 composed of protoplasm, nor of any Identical substance in the 

 two. In the one planet protoplasm would be utterly disorganized 

 and represented by its component gases ; in the other it would be 



