The theory of organic evolution, now generally accepted, needs to
be supplemented by a theory of mental evolution. On a superficial
examination of the matter the necessity for such a supplementary theory
does not perhaps strike one as obvious, the mental seeming naturally to
arise out of the organic and to be part of one continuous development.
But closer investigation and a more rigid and exact treatment bring to
light certain important and peculiar features, and disclose the necessity
of some such hypothesis as it is my purpose to set forth briefly in the
following pages.
By organic evolution I mean the natural development, whether by
“selection” alone or by this in co-operation with other natural
processes, of the organisms which live upon the surface of this earth;
and by mental evolution I mean the natural development of the mental
faculties in at least the higher animals among these organisms. Now with
regard to organic evolution there is no common and general agreement
in respect of the first origin of primitive life on the earth. Some
evolutionists believe that the living was somewhen, somehow, and
somewhere evolved from the not-living. Others do not feel justified in
holding this view, and deem it wiser to restrict their speculations as
to natural genesis within the limits of the organic. So too at the other
end of the developmental curve; there is no common and general agreement
as to the evolution of the mental faculties or spiritual being of man.
Some evolutionists believe that both in body and in mind, man is the
product of natural development; others do not feel justified in holding
this view, and retain unshaken the conviction that man in his spiritual
essence is no part nor product of the common elements of nature. Seeing
then that on either side there is want of agreement, on the one hand as
to the origin of life, on the other as to the origin of man, I shall deal
for the most part with that large area concerning which there is a more
unanimous consensus of opinion, and in the main confine my speculations
within the field of mental evolution in animals, ranging, say, from the
amœba to the dog.
Few will be found to deny or even to question the fact that our dumb
companions and four-footed friends have mental faculties which enable
them accurately to adjust their actions to the varied circumstances
in the midst of which their lives are passed. Even if we see cause
to hesitate, as I myself hesitate, before we ascribe to them
self-consciousness and reason, in the narrower sense in which this word
is used; still we must acknowledge that their instincts are powerful,
their intelligence wonderfully keen and active; and that they are capable
of strong emotional feeling both of affection and of antipathy. Should
we so welcome them as our companions and friends if we regarded them as
unconscious, insentient automata? But when we turn to the other end of
the scale of life, to the amœba and all the myriad minutiae that swarm
in ponds and stagnant pools, we are wont to speak with less confidence.
Their consciousness, if so we can call it, is of so simple an order,
their sentience of so low a grade, that we can hardly with any accuracy
use the phrase “mental faculties” with reference to organisms so lowly.
We feel uncertain whether in their case unconscious automatism does not
after all pretty accurately express the facts. At any rate it would
trouble us little or not at all if some one proved their automatism
to-morrow. And yet, on the theory of evolution, out of such lowly
beginnings have sprung the sagacity and affectionate devotion of the
dog. But if the amœba and his tribe are insentient automata, at what
stage of the development did consciousness creep in? And whence came
it? Or put what is fundamentally the same question in another way. In
the common course of generation the dog is developed from a minute
egg-cell, one hundredth of an inch or less in diameter, with which a yet
more minute sperm has entered into fertile union. Supplied with shelter,
warmth, and nutriment by that maternal self-sacrifice which is a deeply
significant fact of organic progress, this little speck of living stuff
passes, by a process strictly continuous, though profoundly modified by
the catastrophe of birth, into the dog with its wealth of intelligence
and affection. It is surely impossible without extravagance to speak of
the fertilised ovum as conscious. Where then in the continuous process
of development does consciousness come in? How, and whence? We are not
nowadays to be put off with the ambiguous assertion that consciousness
and intelligence are “potentially” present in the germ. We ask: What is
_actually_ present therein as the basis of this potentiality? Or are we
told that consciousness dawns at or shortly after the catastrophe of
birth? Then again we ask: Whence comes this dawning consciousness, and
by what means does it become associated with the puppy’s brain? In yet
another form does a question of like general implication suggest itself.
Granted that in the ovum there is present something which we may call the
germ of consciousness somehow associated with the protoplasmic material
of which that ovum is constituted. How comes it that, in the adult dog,
consciousness is associated with the brain? Why is the association of
consciousness concentrated, so to speak, in this one tissue of the
many which arise during the differentiation of development? That the
association is so concentrated or specialised is now generally admitted
to be the fact. We speak indeed of the skin, the palate, the nose, the
eye, the ear, as each in its kind sensitive. But none the less we believe
that the seat of consciousness is the brain or some part of it. Only
when the nerves running inwards from skin, palate, nose, eye, or ear,
have conveyed their appropriate stimuli to the brain, does that organ
tingle with the accompaniment of consciousness. There and there only
does consciousness “emerge”; not in peripheral sense-organ or ingoing
nerve. But why? How comes it that there is this peculiar association of
consciousness with the functioning of a particular organ?
Perhaps we are told that consciousness is the special product of
brain-tissue. But let us note that the word “product” is here used in
an unwonted sense. We are not likely, it is to be hoped, to fall into
the crude and demonstrably false materialism expressed in the formula,
“as the liver secretes bile, so does the brain secrete consciousness.”
Consciousness being immaterial, the second and fourth terms are
incommensurable, and the formula is sheer nonsense. Nor are we likely
(though here there is greater danger) to fall into the more subtle error
of regarding consciousness as a mode of energy. “Granted,” says Professor
Tyndall, “that a definite thought and a definite molecular action of the
brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor
apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by
a process of reasoning from the one to the other: the chasm between the
two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.”
Consciousness is something _sui generis_. It is neither matter nor
energy. It may accompany the transformations of energy in the dog’s
brain; but to the category of these transformations of energy it does
not, and, for any clear thinker, can not belong. And if we are told that
the word “product” is used in the sense implied by Professor Huxley when
he speaks of phenomena of consciousness being “called into existence” by
physical processes; then we must again ask whence they are called into
existence. We do not now speak of matter or energy being called into
existence from a shadowy nowhere. When a cloud is called into existence
on a mountain peak we know that the material particles have only assumed
a new form. When the electrical current is called into existence or
generated as we phrase it, we know that we are dealing with one of the
many transformations of energy. And when phenomena of consciousness
are said to be called into existence, we have a right to ask: Do you
mean, by this phrase, creation _ex nihilo_? Or do you mean, origin by
transformation? And if the latter, transformation of what?
Having thus opened up these several questions, all of like implication,
let us now endeavor to set forth the answer which seems most
philosophical and most closely in accordance with scientific analogies.
And to this end let us consider the living dog. His frame is pulsating
with life and restless activity, and somehow associated with the
transformations of energy in that brain of his there is consciousness—or
what in the dog is the analogue of that consciousness with which
alone I can claim any acquaintance at first hand, my own. Were his
skin and the walls of his skull as transparent as glass; did the
molecular vibrations of his brain lie open to the keenest scrutiny of
the physical investigator; could we trace in detail all the varied and
orderly transformations of energy of which that brain is the theatre;
the accompanying consciousness would still be beyond our reach. _We_
might follow the changes of energy; he alone would feel the states of
consciousness. But suppose that the dog dies. His body lies before us
stiff with the _rigor mortis_. If we had weighed it previous to death,
and if we were to weigh it again after death, the scales would give
us no information of the departure of anything material. All signs of
consciousness, however, are gone. And could we see through skin and skull
into the brain, which during life was the theatre of so complex and
orderly a sequence of transformations of energy, we should find that it
was still and motionless. It is true that we cannot actually do this. But
we know that, whereas, during life, the functional action of the brain
gives rise to certain material products, at death the production of these
substances ceases. We are therefore justified in saying that, omitting
minor qualifications, the orderly transformations of energy in the brain
and the concomitant consciousness cease together at death. Closely
associated during life, varying together in health and sickness, ceasing
together at death, what is the nature of their connection?
On the hypothesis of scientific monism it is believed that they are
different aspects of the same phenomena: that what objectively to the
physical investigator are transformations of energy in the brain, are
subjectively to the dog states of consciousness? Let us look into this
hypothesis. Let us see whither it will lead us; and if it will in any way
help us over some of our difficulties. But first let us pay a moment’s
attention to the impatient exclamation which some may feel inclined to
interpose, that this assumption of the ultimate identity of brain-energy
and consciousness, the two being respectively the objective and
subjective aspects of the same occurrences, does not in the least do away
with the mystery of the matter. That the same two occurrences should have
different aspects, objective and subjective, is, it will be said, just
as mysterious as that two separate existences energy and consciousness
should be associated together. Of course it is. I should be shallow and
pretentious indeed if my object were by any _hocus pocus_ to attempt to
hide the so-called mystery. _All_ ultimate facts are mysterious. The
fall of a stone to the ground is to-day as mysterious as it was in the
days before Newton; the phenomena of life, as mysterious as in the days
before Darwin. Our advances in science and in thought may do away with
minor mysteries, but they leave the great ultimate facts of nature as
mysterious as before. The end of our explanations is always to bring us
face to face with the inexplicable. Not, therefore, in any hope of doing
away with an ultimate mystery do I suggest that we look into and follow
out some implications of this so called identity hypothesis.
Let us regard the matter from the objective aspect first, from the side
to which the occurrences present themselves as transformations of energy.
The state of consciousness being _ex hypothesi_ accompanied or “called
into existence” by certain complex and orderly molecular vibrations in
the brain or some part thereof, we have to note that from the physical
point of view these molecular vibrations constitute an exceeding complex
and orderly mode of energy. It is upon this energy that we must fix our
attention; the material structure of the brain being what we may call
the vehicle of its manifestation. I am anxious that the reader should
carefully follow me here. We are too apt to regard the _structure_ as
the essential thing on which to concentrate our mental gaze, partly no
doubt because, through the invaluable labors of microscopists, we know
so much that is definite about this structure. But a more penetrating
insight enables us to see that the structure is merely the necessary
basis of what is the really important thing—the manifestation of
energy. The material structure of a steam-engine is of importance. But
why? Because it is the vehicle for the performance of work. That is the
really essential part of the business. In like manner nerve-structure
is of importance. But why? Because it is the vehicle for what Professor
Huxley happily termed the neurosis, the complex and orderly manifestation
of energy. The essential importance of looking at the _going_ machine,
at the performance of work, at the energy of the matter in motion, not
merely the material structure that is moved—the essential importance, I
say, of fixing our attention on this, being fairly grasped, we may now
proceed to enquire from what the complex and orderly vibrations of the
dog’s brain have been evolved. In the fertilised ovum from which the dog
was developed, (and the same is true of the amœboid ancestor from which,
hypothetically, the race of dogs has been evolved,) there is certainly
nothing approaching the orderly complexity of these molecular vibrations.
But there are simpler organic modes of motion from which these complex
molecular vibrations have arisen by a continuous process of development.
It is from these simpler modes of energy in the simpler organic substance
of the ovum that the more complex modes of energy which characterise
the workings of the dog’s brain have been evolved. In the development
of the ovum into the embryo, and thence into the puppy and the dog, we
may trace step by step all the stages of the evolution of those material
structures which are the vehicles of these special manifestations of
organic energy. We may watch the further and further differentiation of
the nervous tissue, and the fashioning of the brain and its parts. It is
true that we cannot indicate the exact moment when, in the increasing
complexity of the tissues, the simpler forms of organic energy pass
into the higher form of brain energy accompanied by consciousness. But
that is just because it is a continuous development, an evolution. That
the passage from the one into the other does actually take place we are
bound, by all the canons of logical reasoning, to admit. It is only
during life, however, that neurosis occurs or is possible. A great number
of modes of organic energy proceed side by side in the pulsating tissues
of the living dog, their orderly continuance being what we term _life_.
And only in and through their orderly continuance is the maintenance of
the structure of the tissues rendered possible. The organic structure is
like a spinning top. Only so long as it spins and manifests its proper
energy is its stability maintained. All around it are forces which tend
to make it totter to its fall. But so long as it spins freely it can
resist all minor attempts to upset its stability. And when the dog dies;
what happens then? The molecular vibrations of the brain in common with
all other forms of organic energy cease. The top no longer spins; and the
structure totters to its fall. Decomposition sets in. The orderly organic
changes which characterise life, give place to the destructive changes
which characterise decay. But according to the law of the conservation
of energy, although there is decomposition of the tissues of which the
body was composed there is no destruction or annihilation of energy. The
particular modes of energy through which the body was instinct with life
pass away; but only to give rise to their equivalents in other modes
of energy. Just as the puddle in the road disappears, but only to give
origin to an equivalent mass of invisible water-vapor; just as the candle
disappears, but only to give rise to its equivalent mass in the products
of combustion; so throughout life and in death the energy which throbs
in the tissues neither appears nor disappears except at the expense of,
or to the gain of, other modes of energy. Life is like a vortex in a
rapid stream; on surrounding energy it is dependent for its continued
existence; into surrounding energy it melts away. And this is true not
only of individual life but of life in its entirety. Some believe that
the vortex had a natural origin, the organic being evolved from the
inorganic. Others hold that it was through the direct interposition
of the finger of God that the tiny vortex of primitive life was set
a twirling. Be this as it may, once initiated the vortex of life is
dependent on surrounding stores of energy.
Turning now from the objective aspect to the subjective aspect we pass
from neural processes to states of consciousness. In the language of
the identity hypothesis, here provisionally adopted, the states of
consciousness in the dog’s mind, are the subjective aspect of what, from
the objective aspect, are the molecular vibrations of his brain-tissues.
And as in considering the matter objectively, so now in regarding the
mental aspect, we must ask from what the complex and orderly states of
consciousness of the dog’s mind have been evolved. In the fertilised
ovum from which the dog is developed, (and the same is true of the
amœboid ancestor from which, hypothetically, the race of dogs has been
evolved,) nothing so complex as a state of consciousness is to be found.
From what then have the states of consciousness been evolved? Do we not
seem forced by parity of reasoning to answer: From something more simple
than consciousness but of the same order of existence, which answers
subjectively to the simpler organic energy of the fertilised ovum? Such,
at any rate, is the hypothesis which appears to me the most philosophical
and the most logically consistent. It requires, however, no little effort
of thought to conceive the existence of those elementary states from
which consciousness may have had its origin. We may be aided in doing so,
perhaps, if we fix our attention on the close association of brain-energy
and states of consciousness, regarding them as _distinguishable_ but
not _separable_. Now the nervous energy of the brain is extraordinarily
complex; and yet we believe that it arises by a process of continuous
development from the much less complex energy of the fertilised ovum. In
the ovum there is no brain-energy; there is only the far simpler germinal
energy from which it is evolved. So too, the consciousness in the dog’s
mind is wonderfully complex; but if it has arisen by a process of
development, it must have been evolved from something of like nature only
indefinitely simpler. May we not fairly suppose, therefore, that in the
fertilised ovum, though there is no consciousness, there are the germinal
states from which consciousness may be evolved? Or to put the matter
tersely, may we not say: As the complex molecular vibrations of the brain
are to the simpler molecular vibrations of the ovum; so are the complex
states of consciousness associated with the former to the simpler states
of infra-consciousness, if we may so call them, associated with the
latter? It is the association of consciousness and infra-consciousness
with energy—its objective manifestation—that is the distinguishing
feature of the view which I am endeavoring to set forth. Concomitant
with the evolution of higher modes of organic energy from those lowly
modes which alone obtain in the ovum or the amœba, is the evolution of
consciousness from lowly modes of infra-consciousness.
It is true that it is only through the exercise of the conceptual
faculty of reason, never through the senses or by direct perception,
that we can reach this suggested infra-consciousness. But this will
hardly be regarded as a valid objection by those who believe in the
existence of the ether, or by those who adopt the atomic theory, neither
of which could be reached by the senses or by perception alone. Still
less will it be regarded as an objection by those who have grasped
the distinction between energy as manifested in the objective world,
and consciousness as inevitably subjective. Of no consciousness other
than our own have we direct and first-hand experience. And yet certain
manifestations of energy as exhibited by other living beings force upon
us the conviction that we are not alone in possessing the subjective
attribute of consciousness. That not only the dog and the elephant, but
the bee also and the spider are endowed with this attribute and are
conscious, though not self-conscious, few of us doubt for a moment. But
their consciousness is presumably far simpler than ours. Carrying this
simplification yet farther down the scale of animal life, we reach in
the jelly-fish, the sea-anemone, and the sponge, forms of life which can
hardly be said to be conscious at all with a consciousness comparable to
our own. Yet they would seem to be endowed with the dim foreshadowings
of such consciousness. Finally in the amœba and the monad we have these
dim foreshadowings reduced to the lowest terms that are suggested by
the study of organic life. If, then, in the series of organic forms,
down even to the lowest, we admit consciousness or its foreshadowing,
though it lies and must ever lie beyond the reach of our senses, why
should we hesitate to generalise our belief in logical and scientific
form, and hold that all organic modes of energy are associated with
conscious or infra-conscious states?[30] It may perhaps, be objected
that such a view, carried to its logical conclusion involves the
supposition that all the tissues of the body are conscious or at
least infra-conscious, whereas it is a well-established scientific
conclusion that consciousness is specially associated with the nervous
tissue of the brain. I see no reason, however, why this conclusion
should not be accepted. If the organic transformations of energy in
the ovum are associated with what for lack of a better term I have
here called infra-consciousness, then there are two possibilities.
Either the accompanying consciousness is _entirely_ concentrated in
association with the molecular vibrations of the brain; or it merely
becomes _dominant_ in the functioning of that tissue and continues in
the dim infra-conscious condition in the other tissues of the body.
Now to judge from our own experience it is only the dominant molecular
vibrations in the brain that are accompanied by the clear light of
consciousness. The sub-dominant neural changes are indeed accompanied by
a dim sub-consciousness. But there are many molecular changes (even in
the cerebral hemispheres themselves where consciousness is “called into
existence”) which do not rise to the level of consciousness at all or
are quite lost in the glare of that consciousness. Why this should be
so I am not prepared to say. It seems to be a law of our mental being.
Certainly it is convenient that it is so; and it may have been fostered
or established by natural selection. We all know the sense of confusion
that arises when, in certain states of intense nervous excitement, a
host of ideas are crowding up into dominance and jostling each other
for supremacy. An organism so constituted that such a state of things
was normal, would, we may suppose, stand but a poor chance of survival.
Hence perhaps there has arisen that due subordination of conscious,
sub-conscious, and infra-conscious states which characterises the
normal life of conscious beings. Having regard, then, to the cerebral
hemispheres where consciousness emerges, not all the molecular changes
there transpiring rise to the level of full consciousness. There is not
a little of what Dr. Carpenter used to call unconscious cerebration. We
seem forced to admit the existence of submerged states of consciousness;
states which are infra-conscious, but which may become conscious at any
moment by rising into dominance. And if in the cerebral hemispheres
there are infra-conscious states, why should there not be associated
with every molecular thrill of the living body yet lower states of
infra-consciousness too deeply submerged ever in man to become dominant?
It is, however, one thing to show that there is no insuperable objection
to accepting the existence of such infra-conscious states, if such
existence be otherwise probable, and another thing to establish this
probability. And this leads us back again to the grounds on which their
existence may fairly be regarded as probable. We are told that the mental
faculties of the dog in common with his physical or organic frame, have
arisen in the course of ages by a process of development. It is clear
that such a statement is intended to apply to the living dog with active
faculties; to a _going_ mechanism, or rather organism which is also
conscious. Well and good. The material structure has been evolved from
lower forms of matter: the organic modes of energy (in virtue of which he
lives), from lower forms of energy, the mental states (in virtue of which
he is conscious), from—what? I suggest in continuation and conclusion of
this sentence—from lower forms of infra-consciousness; that is to say,
of what is of the same order of existence as consciousness, but has not
yet risen to the level of consciousness. Many people will no doubt see
no necessity for such a conclusion. It is making an unnecessary bother,
they will say, about a very simple matter. At some undefined stage of
organic evolution—perhaps when nervous tissue had its genesis, perhaps
earlier—consciousness began to dawn and has since developed in clearness
and brightness during the evolution of higher and higher organisms.
According to this view, the ascending curve of evolution is divisible at
some undefined point into two portions: of which one represents organic
evolution previous to the dawn of consciousness; the other organic
evolution subsequent to the dawn of consciousness. But the question at
once suggests itself: From what did consciousness dawn at this undefined
point? In answer to which there are some who do not hesitate to reply
that the consciousness arose out of the physical conditions; that when
the rhythmic dance of organic molecules reached a certain intensity and
intricacy consciousness was developed. There is, indeed, a certain class
of nerve-physiologists, or of medical men who write on nerve-physiology,
who, if they do not hold that states of consciousness are generated
from the energy which accompanies the working of the brain-tissues, at
any rate write as if this was their belief. But such a view is quite
untenable. If there is one thing clearly established, both by those who
have approached the matter from the scientific side, and by those who
have approached the matter from the metaphysical side, it is that the
distinction between energy and consciousness is radical and absolute.
No conceivable increase in the orderly complexity of the molecular
vibrations of brain-tissue could give rise to that consciousness which
differs _toto cœlo_ from any manifestation of energy.
And yet though stated in a form that is philosophically false, and
therefore misleading, the conclusions of these earnest students of
nerve-physiology are practically sound. Grant, for the moment, that the
states of consciousness in the dog’s mind are the subjective aspect of
the molecular energy of his brain. Then the following diagram (Fig.
1.) will represent the ascending curve of development which, from the
objective aspect, is a development of modes of energy, and from the
subjective aspect is a development of modes of consciousness.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Now what the nerve-physiologists are sometimes apt to do is, at some
moment of development say _a_, to change their point of view, from
the subjective aspect which deals with consciousness to the objective
aspect which deals with energy. Their conclusions are practically sound
because they are still dealing with the same developmental curve. They
state these conclusions in language which is philosophically misleading
because they suddenly jump from the subjective aspect to the objective
aspect and ignore the great distinction between the two. When they say
that consciousness emerges from the physical conditions at _a_, they
presumably mean that at this point we are first justified in speaking of
consciousness or the subjective aspect in anything like a human sense.
But is it not more logical to hold that, just as from the objective
standpoint the complex energy of the dog’s brain has been developed
from the simpler energy of the ovum, so from the subjective standpoint,
the complex consciousness of the dog’s mind has been developed from
the simpler infra-consciousness of the ovum? And if we do not accept
this view, do we not seem committed to the unevolutionary doctrine
that the conscious aspect suddenly makes its appearance, without those
lowly germinal beginnings which it is of the essence of any theory of
development to postulate?
It will perhaps be said that all this assumes an identity hypothesis,
with its supposed double aspect, which is not accepted by the majority
of men of science. Let us look at the matter, therefore, from what would
seem the only other point of view open to one who accepts the theory of
development as applicable alike to the dog’s mind and to the dog’s body.
If states of consciousness and the molecular transactions in the brain
are not different aspects of the same occurrences, they are parallel,
concomitant, or associated phenomena. Our diagram will thus become that
given below.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Here the parallel or associated phenomena occur together at the higher
end of the developmental curve, and, at _a_, the consciousness is
supposed to emerge. On this view there is less justification for the
nerve-physiologists’ assertion that it arises out of physical processes;
for it is not simply another aspect of these processes, but something
wholly different arbitrarily associated with them. Even on this view
it would seem more logical to suppose that since the association of
mental states with the dominant neural energy is of normal occurrence
from _a_ onwards, the consciousness there emerging has been evolved from
infra-consciousness parallel and concomitant with the physical processes
in the ovum. If this be not so, we may once more ask: From what has
the parallel line to the right of the diagram been evolved? We cannot
say from the neural conditions without changing our point of view and
ignoring the great distinction between matter and energy on the one hand
and consciousness on the other. From what then has the consciousness been
evolved, if not from something of like nature only indefinitely simpler
which has here been spoken of as infra consciousness?
We must now take a further step, one however in which all evolutionists
will not be prepared to follow us. Attention has already been drawn to
the fact that those who accept the theory of evolution are not agreed
in their faith—for it is on either side a matter rather of belief than
of demonstration—with respect to the origin of life. Some believe that
the primitive organic germs were not produced by natural development
nor through any process of evolution. For such, the hypothesis I am
advocating must be submitted in the following form—when first the
life-energy was started by the direct interposition of the finger of God
it was endowed with some dim form of infra-consciousness which in the
course of evolution developed into consciousness. And presumably those
who see in the amœba and the fertilised ovum some dim foreshadowings of
consciousness may follow me thus far. But for those who believe that
the organic has arisen on this earth by process of natural development
from the inorganic, the hypothesis must be more sweeping in its range.
We must say that all modes of energy of whatever kind whether organic or
inorganic have their conscious or infra-conscious aspect.[31] Startling
as this may sound there is, I believe, no other logical conclusion
possible for the evolutionist _pur sang_. For where are we to draw
the line? The states of consciousness of the higher animals have been
evolved from lower forms of infra-consciousness in the amœba-like or
yet more simple protoplasmic germs in the dawn of life. But if those
low forms of organic infra-consciousness were themselves evolved, from
what could they arise if they were not developed from yet more lowly
forms of infra-consciousness similar in kind but inferior in degree
associated with inorganic transformations of energy? In any case it is
here submitted that this doctrine that infra-consciousness is associated
with _all_ forms of energy is necessarily implied in the phrase mental
evolution for all thinkers who have grasped the distinction between
consciousness and energy. And if this be admitted there is disclosed,
by implication, an answer behind and beyond that ordinarily given to a
question which has again and again been asked—the question:—Is there a
conservation of consciousness analogous to the conservation of energy?
The negative answer generally given to this question results from the
fact that the question itself has always been put in a form which does
not admit of a satisfactory solution. There is not a conservation of
consciousness any more than there is a conservation of neural energy
or a conservation of electricity. There is no conservation of neural
energy because this is only one mode of energy which may be transformed
into other modes. Not until we have generalised energy so as to include
_all_ its modes can we speak of conservation in reference to it. So
too not until we have generalised that universal form of existence, of
which consciousness is only the highest and most developed mode, so as
to include all modes, can we speak of conservation in reference to it.
But so generalised I submit that there is a conservation of that form
of existence which includes both consciousness and infra-consciousness,
co-ordinate and coextensive with the conservation of energy.[32] Just as
the dominant neural transformations in the dog’s brain are like a special
vortex in the onward-flowing stream of the world’s energy, so are the
states of consciousness in his mind like a special vortex in the onward
flowing stream of that mode of existence which, whether it have risen to
the level of consciousness or not, is still of the conscious order. For
the believer in scientific monism there is but one vortex, objectively
presented as energy, subjectively felt in consciousness. For the dualist
there are two vortices, (1) an objective vortex and (2) a subjective
vortex associated with the other and “called into existence” by it.
In either case the vortex is dependent for its continual existence on
surrounding stores of that out of which it has arisen; and in either case
the modern tendencies of scientific thought suggest conservation which is
but the antithesis of creation _ex nihilo_.[33]
In conclusion it should be noted that this hypothesis is but a new
presentation of an old speculation. It differs as it here stands from
any theory of “mind-stuff” in that it regards the question rather from
the dynamical than from the statical point of view. Not “mind-stuff”
answering to matter but a universal conscious order or aspect of
existence answering to universal energy is the leading idea I have sought
to develop. In its newer form, again, this hypothesis differs from the
view that “all force is will-power,” or the view that “all matter is
conscious,” or the theory of “intelligent monads,” in endeavoring, not to
carry anything like _our_ consciousness down into association with the
simpler manifestations of energy, but rather to seek in association with
these lower manifestations the germinal states indefinitely simpler than
consciousness, from which nevertheless consciousness has been developed.
Finally the keynote of this newer presentation is that which is the
keynote of all modern theories of life and of thought—the doctrine of
evolution.