Chapter I1]—Consciousness as a Function of Chemical Complexity 
ment by which, in the course of a few months, the 
fertilised human ovum becomes a recognisable human 
being; but the ovum has behind it that long evolutionary 
chain, on which no doubt it is dependent for its poten- 
tiality to develop. Students of genetics, with their obser- 
vations of inheritance and chromosome structure and of 
experimental embryology, are already beginning to ap- 
proach some of the problems connected with evolution 
and development. 
CHAPTER III.—CONSCIOUSNESS AS A FUNCTION 
OF CHEMICAL COMPLEXITY. 
92. The various sciences consist to a large extent of 
an analysis of things into their component parts. In 
Biology one analyses the organism into its constituent 
cells; and within the cells one deals with the molecular 
complex of protoplasm and with organic and inorganic 
molecules of various characters. Inorganic chemistry 
takes the analysis further to the level of the atom; and 
still below this one has now been taught to regard the 
atom as a small universe of electrons of negative elec- 
iricity revolving round a positively electric nucleus. 
But there is one thing in particular, viz., consciousness, 
which eludes this analytical treatment and which appears 
to be a relation of the whole as contrasted to its parts— 
the one as opposed to the many. 
93. In the chemical aggregation of matter from 
the simple to the complex there is an expansion of 
something. over and above the aggregated particles, so 
that, in a sense, the whole is greater than the sum of its 
parts. It is this something which appears at the highest 
level known to us as our own personality or 
consciousness. 
94. Seeing that all recent progress in science has 
tended to prove with greater and greater certainty the 
evolution of all organisms from an extremely low and 
primitive type, and also to prove the origin of all matter 
from one or a few kinds of elementary particles; so I 
think we have every expectation of success if we attempt 
to derive our own consciousness by a process of 
evolution from some primitive property associated with 
the mode of arrangement of the elementary particles 
of matler, 
95. The suggestion I offer is that consciousness is a 
property connected with chemical organisation, a 
property of the whole of which the electrons are the 
parts, One might, perhaps, picture it as residing in or 
being the hypothetical aether of the physicist, and might 
picture units of consciousness of varying sizes and 
qualities, each of which units would correspond to a 
molecular grouping. In the physical conditions of high 
temperature obtaining in the hottest stars, where even 
electronic groups are to a large extent dissociated, the 
units of consciousness would be of infinitesimal size and 
of lowest quality. As atomic and molecular groupings 
become possible, so the corresponding units of con- 
sciousness become larger and more complex. In the 
gigantic molecular aggregation which forms the central 
essential living part of one of the higher animals, the 
unit of consciousness attains its maximum of size and 
"the product of 
53 
complexity, the process culminating in man. To continue 
our picture in terms of ether and electron; the chemical, 
physical and mechanical processes of our body may be 
regarded as manifestations of a gigantic molecular 
aggregation, consisting essentially of chemically com- 
bined electrons, and "living" by reason of its incessant 
chemical and physical reactions and interchanges with 
its environment; and our consciousness may be regarded 
as the manifestation of the aetherial unit related to and 
entangled with the living electronic mechanism of the 
body. 
96. From Biology we know that the embryonic 
development of an organism recapitulates more or less 
accurately the evolutionary history of its race, We see 
the unicellular ovum developing into a highly specialised 
vertebrate, and this helps us to realise the development 
of vertebrates from a unicellular ancestor. We must 
postulate in the ovum the germ of that consciousness 
which we find fully developed in the adult, and must 
further postulate such a germ of consciousness in the 
primitive ancestral forms of life, l 
97. All parts of the human body are not equal in 
importance as the seat of consciousness. Whole mem- 
bers—such as arms and legs—can be removed without 
much effect on the individuality. One could further 
imagine that the organs of circulation and nutrition 
could largely be replaced by artificial mechanical and 
chemical system. It is obviously in the nervous system 
that consciousness is most manifest. 
98. The picture I have in mind is that whereas in 
primitive forms of life the chemical molecular grouping 
is relatively uniform and stable and the life process 
relatively generalised and the accompanying conscious- 
ness stable and of low order; in higher forms of life the 
chemical molecular grouping fluctuates more widely and 
the organism is a colony of gigantic chemical groups, 
some more or less closely linked with the central mass, 
others more or less unlinked chemically, the life pro- 
cesses are specialised, and the accompanying central 
mass of consciousness is ever fluctuating in proportion 
to subsidiary and more or less individual masses of 
consciousness within the organism. 
99. In ourselves, in sleep or under an anaesthetic, 
the central consciousness can disappear, though the 
functions of life continue; the condition may best be 
visualised as a temporary interruption of the chemical 
linkings, having the effect of diminishing, the central 
mass of consciousness and lowering its quality by reason 
of absence of the normal relationship with outlying 
masses and the temporary cessation of chemical and 
physical interchanges between the corresponding central 
and peripheral electronic mechanisms. 
100. Like the organism consciousness appears to be 
evolutionary growth from time 
immemorial. The organism is derived by heredity 
through an endless ancestral chain, and though it has 
an endless past the individual has a strictly finite future 
absolutely limited to a few days or years; so, too, the 
individual human consciousness presupposes an infinite 
