soul of the earth with the consciousness
of the vegetable kingdom, which in turn contributes its share of
experience to that of the whole solar system, and so on from synthesis
to synthesis and height to height, till an absolutely universal
consciousness is reached.

A vast analogical series, in which the basis of the analogy consists
of facts directly observable in ourselves.

The supposition of an earth-consciousness meets a strong instinctive
prejudice which Fechner ingeniously tries to overcome. Man's mind is
the highest consciousness upon the earth, we think--the earth itself
being in all ways man's inferior. How should its consciousness, if it
have one, be superior to his?

What are the marks of superiority which we are tempted to use here? If
we look more carefully into them, Fechner points out that the earth
possesses each and all of them more perfectly than we. He considers in
detail the points of difference between us, and shows them all to
make for the earth's higher rank. I will touch on only a few of these
points.

One of them of course is independence of other external beings.
External to the earth are only the other heavenly bodies. All the
things on which we externally depend for life--air, water, plant and
animal food, fellow men, etc.--are included in her as her constituent
parts. She is self-sufficing in a million respects in which we are not
so. We depend on her for almost everything, she on us for but a small
portion of her history. She swings us in her orbit from winter to
summer and revolves us from day into night and from night into day.

Complexity in unity is another sign of superiority. The total earth's
complexity far exceeds that of any organism, for she includes all our
organisms in herself, along with an infinite number of things that our
organisms fail to include. Yet how simple and massive are the phases
of her own proper life! As the total bearing of any animal is sedate
and tranquil compared with the agitation of its blood corpuscles, so
is the earth a sedate and tranquil being compared with the animals
whom she supports.

To develop from within, instead of being fashioned from without, is
also counted as something superior in men's eyes. An egg is a higher
style of being than a piece of clay which an external modeler makes
into the image of a bird. Well, the earth's history develops from
within. It is like that of a wonderful egg which the sun's heat, like
that of a mother-hen