e first vegetable cell was a new thing in the world, possessing
altogether new powers--that of extracting and fixing carbon from the
carbon-dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction, and,
still more marvellous, the power of variation and of reproducing those
variations till endless complications of structure and varieties of form
have been the result. Here, then, we have indications of a new power at
work, which we may term _vitality_, since it gives to certain forms of
matter all those characters and properties which constitute Life.

The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely beyond
all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces. It is the
introduction of sensation or consciousness, constituting the fundamental
distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of
mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the
question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a
certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary
result of that complexity alone, an _ego_ should start into existence, a
thing that _feels_, that is _conscious_ of its own existence. Here we
have the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose nascent
consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it
has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt
at explanation--such as the statement that life is the result of the
molecular forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic
universe from the amaeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from
which the solar system was developed--can afford any mental
satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery.

The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man of a number of
his most characteristic and noblest faculties, those which raise him
furthest above the brutes and open up possibilities of almost indefinite
advancement. These faculties could not possibly have been developed by
means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development
of the organic world in general, and also of man's physical
organism.[237]

These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of
matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen universe--to a
world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate.
To this spiritual world we may refer the marvellously complex forces