I
cannot think of it even as antecedent to all the various winds and the
dissolving clouds they bear, to the currents of all the rivers, and the
grinding actions of all the glaciers; still less can I think of it as
antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneously going on in all the
plants that cover the globe, from scattered polar lichens to crowded
tropical palms, and in all the millions of quadrupeds that roam among them,
and the millions of millions of insects that buzz about them. Even a single
small set of these multitudinous terrestrial changes I cannot conceive as
antecedent a single series of states of consciousness--cannot, for
instance, think of it as causing the hundred thousand breakers that are at
this instant curling over on the shores of England. How, then, is it
possible for me to conceive an 'originating Mind,' which I must represent
to myself as a _single_ series of states of consciousness, working the
infinitely multiplied sets of changes _simultaneously_ going on in worlds
too numerous to 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.
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