o count, dispersed throughout a space that baffles
imagination?

If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going
on, "Mind must be conceived as there" "under the guise of simple
Dynamics," then the reply is that, to be so conceived, Mind must be
divested of all attributes by which it is distinguished; and that, when
thus divested of its distinguishing attributes, the conception
disappears--the word Mind stands for a blank. If Mr. Martineau takes
refuge in the entirely different and, as it seems to me, incongruous
hypothesis of something like a plurality of minds--if he accepts, as he
seems to do, the doctrine that you cannot explain Evolution "unless
among your primordial elements you scatter already the _germs_ of Mind
as well as the inferior elements"--if the insuperable difficulties I
have just pointed out are to be met by assuming a local series of states
of consciousness for each phenomenon, then we are obviously carried
back to something like the alleged fetichistic notion, with the
difference only, that the assumed spiritual agencies are indefinitely
multiplied.

Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an "originating Mind" is the
cause of Evolution, is a proposition that can be entertained so long
only as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the
alleged relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of _faith_, may
be a defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be
so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of
_understanding_--as a statement making the order of the universe
comprehensible--is a quite indefensible position.

* * * * *

Here let me guard myself against a misinterpretation very likely to be
put upon the foregoing arguments; especially by those who have read the
Essay to which they reply. The statements of that Essay carry the
implication that all who adhere to the hypothesis it combats, imagine
they have solved the mystery of things when they have shown the
processes of Evolution to be naturally caused. Mr. Martineau tacitly
represents them as believing that, when every thing has been interpreted
in terms of Matter and Motion, nothing remains to be explained. This,
however, is by no means the fact. The Doctrine of Evolution, under its
purely scientific form, does not involve Materialism, though its
opponents persistently represent it as doing so. Indeed, among adherents
of it who are