534 | The Relations of Mind and Matter. [June, 
of which natural selection acts, though it is customary to apply 
this principle to only the second of these phases. These are the 
chemical, the functional and the psychical. So far as organic 
evolution is now concerned, chemical development has become of 
minor importance. Yet originally it was of supreme importance. 
In fact, the whole vast range of inorganic chemical development 
was a necessary preliminary to organic existence, and constituted 
the primary phase in that grand whole of evolution which is a 
continuous and not a broken chain. 
Very probably, in the primeval period, inorganic chemism 
yielded far more complex compounds than any it now presents, 
The conditions of temperature at that period, and the fluid state 
of many elements which are now found only as rigid solids, must 
have aided such a chemical activity. Even now more complex 
compounds than we find would doubtless exist but for a reason 
to be considered further on. This primeval chemical evolution 
may have gone on for ages without impediment, yielding steadily 
higher and more complex products, every fixed stage of which 
formed the basis for a new upward step of material development, 
until finally a stage approximating to that of protoplasm was 
reached. But long before this stage was attained, it is highly 
probable that functional evolution came into play, and at once 
acted as a check to the rapid progress of chemical development. 
As soon as an unstable colloid compound was thus produced, so 
constituted as to be subject to the disintegrating attacks of oxy- 
gen, self-motion of such matter may have begun, and the long 
reign of functional activity originated. This is all we find in 
functional life now, the self-motion of unstable colloids through 
the action of the energy set free by oxidation, and it is quite 
probable that such activity began as soon asa Konea colloid, 
of suitable constitution, was produced. 
But chemical evolution could not have ceased with this first 
appearance of functional action. It must have long continued, yield- 
ing products of higher and higher complexity, and more suscepti- 
ble to the function-produci ng influences, until finally the excessively 
mobile compound now called protoplasm originated. Yet there 
can be no doubt that with the earliest appearance of functional 
peti a check was placed upon chemical development. This 
. grew more vigorous as functional action became more 
unfolded. Finally a practical limit to the increase of chemical 
