Lastly, in
a recently published very remarkable essay "On the Nature of Things in
Themselves," Professor Clifford arrives at a similar doctrine by a
different route. The following is the conclusion to which he
arrives:--"That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest
feeling is a complex, I shall call _Mind-stuff_. A moving molecule of
inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a
small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to
form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff
which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of
Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and
nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff
are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say,
changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked
together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other.
When matters take the complex form of a living human brain, the
corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having
intelligence and volition." (Mind, January, 1878.)
[44] Theism, by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the
University of Edinburgh, &c.
[45] Such being the objects in view, I have not thought it necessary to
extend this criticism into anything resembling a review of Professor
Flint's work as a whole; but, on the contrary, I have aimed rather at
confining my observations to those parts of his treatise which embody the
current arguments from teleology alone.
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