g like minds, we must
believe; what their minds are like, a prudent man scarcely even
attempts to say. In our distribution of minds may we stop short of
even the very lowest animal organisms? It seems arbitrary to do so.

More than that; some thoughtful men have been led by the analogy
between plant life and animal life to believe that something more or
less remotely like the consciousness which we attribute to animals must
be attributed also to plants. Upon this belief I shall not dwell, for
here we are evidently at the limit of our knowledge, and are making the
vaguest of guesses. No one pretends that we have even the beginnings
of a plant psychology. At the same time, we must admit that organisms
of all sorts do bear some analogy to each other, even if it be a remote
one; and we must admit also that we cannot _prove_ plants to be wholly
devoid of a rudimentary consciousness of some sort.

As we begin with man and descend the scale of beings, we seem, in the
upper part of the series, to be in no doubt that minds exist. Our only
question is as to the precise contents of those minds. Further down we
begin to ask ourselves whether anything like mind is revealed at all.
That this should be so is to be expected. Our argument for other minds
is the argument from analogy, and as we move down the scale our analogy
grows more and more remote until it seems to fade out altogether. He
who harbors doubts as to whether the plants enjoy some sort of psychic
life, may well find those doubts intensified when he turns to study the
crystal; and when he contemplates inorganic matter he should admit that
the thread of his argument has become so attenuated that he cannot find
it at all.

43. THE DOCTRINE OF MIND-STUFF.--Nevertheless, there have been those
who have attributed something like consciousness even to inorganic
matter. If the doctrine of evolution be true, argues Professor
Clifford,[4] "we shall have along the line of the human pedigree a
series of imperceptible steps connecting inorganic matter with
ourselves. To the later members of that series we must undoubtedly
ascribe consciousness, although it must, of course, have been simpler
than our own. But where are we to stop? In the case of organisms of a
certain complexity, consciousness is inferred. As we go back along the
line, the complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly
diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason to thin