540 The Relations of Mind and Matter. [June, 
sciousness, even though they seem to display the utmost accuracy 
of reasoning. Natural selection yields results so closely analo- 
gous to those of reason that it is almost impossible to discrimi- 
nate between them, and in fact quite impossible except where a 
change of habits is displayed too great and sudden to be possibly 
due to the action of unconscious agencies on the slight congeni- 
tal variations in animal forms. 
In attempting to decide, then, at what level of life conscious- 
ness comes into definite existence, we are met with this difficulty. 
Actions of the most intricate character, such as many of those 
performed by the ants, for instance, are not beyond the conceiva- 
ble powers of natural selection if they have been for very many 
generations practiced, with extremely slow variations, by one 
species. Yet ants adapt nature to their needs, and thus counter- 
act the action of physical conditions upon their bodies. There- 
fore that phase of activity which we have above considered spe- 
cially significant of psychical agency—the remodeling of exter- 
nal conditions—seems to be not beyond the scope of natural 
selection, and only where the adaptation is individual instead of 
tribal, and rapid instead of gradual, can we be sure of its psychi- 
cal origin. 
If, for example, we consider the great kingdom of vegetable 
life, there are abundant reasons to believe that, in all of its higher 
manifestations, at least, it is devoid of consciousness. And yet its 
adaptations to the conditions of nature are often so complex and 
extraordinary that it seems almost incredible that they could have 
arisen without the aid of reason. Only the unpitying energy 
with which nature weeds out all illogical adaptations can explain 
the logical consistency of those that persist. If the habits of an 
animal change in response to logical reasoning, this change must 
be in the direction of exact adaptation to nature. But the same 
end is achieved by the blind but vigorous agency of selection, 
which is utterly merciless to the ill-adapted. If we could imagine 
plants to be suddenly given the power of motion, and thus 
brought into new and more varied relations to nature, it is evi- 
dent that their adaptations might become yet more intricate, and 
_ still more like the results of intelligence and judgment, though 
~ gained through the action of unconscious influences, In such a 
n case s might readily rival many of the lower animals, and un- 
_ consciously perform actions closely analogous to those which it 
