282 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
are the two-faced manifestation of the Eternal Power, immanent 
in all things, and yet transcending all things. The psychical 
element in all lives — Consciousness — owes, then, its origin to the 
Supreme Source of all that is, only, be it observed, the manifestation 
of the Eternal Power in the form of Consciousness — i.e. the 
emergence of Consciousness — was late in time in comparison with 
the manifestation in form of material atoms and their interactions. 
Only when the material evolution had reached a certain stage, 
the Organic, did the Eternal express itself in this more spiritual 
form. 
Now, such a view, considered in relation to actual facts, has this 
in its favour, that all the scientific evidence at our disposal does 
point to the Emergence of Consciousness as a strictly new event 
in the course of the changes undergone by the Universe. Though 
he shuns the term, it was, in fact, the Creation of a new factor to 
enter upon a course of evolution correlated with the material 
evolution already in progress. It is significant that the outworking 
of his comprehensive philosophy should have led Mr. Spencer to 
a position with respect to the emergence of Consciousness in time, 
when the prior evolution of things had prepared conditions for its 
operation, which, as to the principal point at issue, brings him into 
line with others who may differ from him in respect to some 
aspects of his system. I may add that, although Lotze arrives at 
his own conclusion, 5 and the terms in which it is expressed are 
very different from those adopted by Mr. Spencer, the substance 
is the same ; namely, that the Supreme Source of all did, without 
dislocating or impairing the existing material system in process of 
evolution, somehow introduce into correlation with the Organic 
order, the higher factor of being which, whether as feeling, sen- 
sation, or thought, or Consciousness, we all recognize as practically 
Soul or Mind. The position of the first elementary Consciousness 
in a Scientific Psychology is one thing, on which much difference 
of judgment may arise ; its emergence in the first instance, in the 
course of a material evolution, as an act — it may be an ordered 
act — by the Author of all things is the point of present agreement. 
I have thus endeavoured to lay before you the various leading 
solutions that have been proposed of a very important and diffi- 
cult problem. I know not what general impression may have 
5 Metaphysics, book iii. 1. 
