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greater ratio, and as he assumes that Mind developes at the 
same ratio, the result is that his original sin is growing to 
ever greater proportions. At first he had stolen only the 
mind needed for a mollusc, at last he lias grown bold, and 
filches away all the Promethean fire needed for the creations 
of a Shakspeare. 
Now, if this reasoning be just and honest, as it seems to me 
it is^ — and I gladly welcome any one who can point to a flaw ; 
we want truth, not victory, — then surely we have done nothing 
less than, in effect, throw down Mr. Spencer’s high line of 
defence from one end of his fortresses to the other. For we 
have shown that it can be fatally pierced at any point we 
choose to name. Every tiny evolution of nerve matter he 
claims to be an evolution of Mind, — and his philosophy falls 
in utter ruin if it be not such an evolution of Mind. Now, we 
have shown it is not such an evolution ; hence at every point 
of his mighty generalisation he can be successfully assailed, 
and all his defences ground into powder. We have nothing 
to do but to choose our points of attack. Let us select one. 
The mode in which Mr. Spencer attempts to show that a 
rudimentary eye might be produced by the known action of 
light on the organism will suffice for our purpose. He has 
been showing that Life, as we can trace it, may be described 
as correspondence between an organism and its environ- 
ments ; he has also shown that Life becomes larger and 
more complex as a greater and more complex environment 
plays upon the organism ; and he is in the midst of a chapter 
where he traces that correspondence as extending in Space. 
He has shown how all the senses might, by this means, be 
developed, and he comes to the sense of Sight. These are 
his words : — Though that ability to distinguish light from 
darkness which characterises the entire body in sundry of the 
humblest types, foreshadows the visual faculty, nothing like 
what we call sight results until this ability is concentrated in 
a particular spot. The rudimentary eye consisting as in a 
PLanaria of some pigment grains may be considered as simply 
a part of the surface more irritable by light than the rest. 
Some idea of the impression it is fitted to receive may be 
formed by turning our closed eyes towards the light, and 
passing the hand backwards and forwards before them. But 
as soon as even this slight specialisation of function is reached 
it becomes possible for the organism to respond to the motions 
of opaque bodies that pass near ; while only a general sensi- 
tiveness to light exists, the intercepting of the sun’s rays by 
something which throws the whole or a greater part of 
the creature into shade is required to produce an internal 
