them. But very often, when the subject of a proposition has been thought of as something known, and when the predicate has been thought of as something known, and when the relation alleged between them has been thought of as a known relation, it is supposed that the proposition itself has been thought. The thinking separately of the elements of a proposition is mistaken for the thinking of them in the combination which the proposition affirms. And hence it continually happens that propositions which cannot in truth be rendered into thought at all are supposed to be not only thought but believed. The proposition that Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. The two terms are separately intelligible; but they can be regarded in the relation of effect and cause only so long as no attempt is made to put them together in the relation.
The only thing which any one knows as mind is the series of his own states of consciousness. The mind so known to each person, and inferred by each to be present in others, has the essential characters, that its components are limited by one another, and that it is itself localized both in time and space. If I am asked to frame a notion of mind, divested of all those structural traits under which alone I am conscious of mind in myself, I cannot do it. I know nothing of thought save as carried on in terms originally derived from the effects wrought by objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible phrase if I am not to regard it as an act in which states of consciousness are severally assimilated to other states in the series that has gone by, and in which the relations between them are severally assimilated to past relations in this series. I cannot give any meaning to the word Will, unless I am to think of it in terms of contemplated ends, of which some one is preferred.
If, then, I have to conceive Evolution as caused by an "originating Mind," I must conceive this mind as having attributes akin to those of the only mind I know, and without which I cannot conceive mind at all. I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence resulting, by asking how the "originating Mind" is to be thought of as having states produced by things objective to it; as discriminating among these states, and classing them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to another. I will simply ask, What happens if we ascribe to the "originating Mind" the character absolutely essential to the conception of mind, that it consists of a series of states of consciousness? Put a series of states of consciousness as cause, and the evolving universe as effect, and then endeavor to see the last as flowing from the first. It is possible to imagine in some dim kind of way a series of states of consciousness serving as antecedent to any one of the movements I see going on; for my own states of consciousness are often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But how if I attempt to think of such a series as antecedent to all actions throughout the universe—to the motions of the multitudinous stars through space
