nce--intellectual, ever-advancing,
spiritual man. It therefore implies, that the great laws which govern
the material universe were insufficient for his production, unless we
consider (as we may fairly do) that the controlling action of such
higher intelligences is a necessary part of those laws, just as the
action of all surrounding organisms is one of the agencies in organic
development. But even if my particular view should not be the true one,
the difficulties I have put forward remain, and I think prove, that some
more general and more fundamental law underlies that of "natural
selection." The law of "unconscious intelligence" pervading all organic
nature, put forth by Dr. Laycock and adopted by Mr. Murphy, is such a
law; but to my mind it has the double disadvantage of being both
unintelligible and incapable of any kind of proof. It is more probable,
that the true law lies too deep for us to discover it; but there seems
to me, to be ample indications that such a law does exist, and is
probably connected with the absolute origin of life and organization.
(_Note A._)

_The Origin of Consciousness._

The question of the origin of sensation and of thought can be but
briefly discussed in this place, since it is a subject wide enough to
require a separate volume for its proper treatment. No physiologist or
philosopher has yet ventured to propound an intelligible theory, of how
sensation may possibly be a product of organization; while many have
declared the passage from matter to mind to be inconceivable. In his
presidential address to the Physical Section of the British Association
at Norwich, in 1868, Professor Tyndall expressed himself as follows:--

"The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of
consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought, and a
definite molecular action in 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 phenomenon to the other. They appear together, but we do not know
why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and
illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the
brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their
groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be, and were we
intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and
feeling, we should