Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/522

 HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF NATURE. 521 that the existence of a new species is the logical exclusion of all others that might have existed. This logical fact may have had its counterpart in many cases in the history of evolution, but not necessarily ; just as to do a good act implies logically the rejection of a bad act, though the idea of actually doing the evil may never have entered the agent's mind. And moreover we shall ask for a reason why this particular modification should survive, for to- say that it survived because it drove its competitors from the field is only to say that it survived because it survived. In the derivation of the pouter from the common pigeon a reason is to hand in the design of the breeder, in a conception of his mind. May the new species have survived because it was the bearer of a conception also, that conception which I have described as its function in the progressive order of nature ? (2) Theories of the Animation of Matter. There is a way of thinking very prevalent at the present day among eminent men of science who speculate upon the real character of the distinction of mind and matter : in one form or another they endeavour to animate nature with souls. We seem to be returning to the days of Thales, who believed that the world was full of gods. At one time it is the atoms which have souls, at another it is the cells (Haeckel). A very remark- able theory of the late Prof. Clifford regarded the molecules as possessed of mind-stuff, which when present in sufficient complexity, as in man, became consciousness. Hegel's asser- tion that nature is in reality Spirit, or that it is the Idea in the form of otherness, might seem to have a superficial likeness to such theories, but is in reality whole worlds apart. It is difficult to know exactly how Hegel would have treated these theories, for they were unknown to him. He was familiar, of course, with the doctrine of Leibniz, that matter was composed of substances called monads, possessing consciousness, each isolated from the rest, but by a marvel- lous pre-existing harmony reflecting the whole. But such a theory was a purely metaphysical one, and he treats it on logical grounds, finding in it the opposite and complementary defect to Spinoza's, 1 that it laid out the Absolute into iso- lated centres of individuality which could only be connected arbitrarily. In his theory of atoms endowed with souls Lotze corrected the mechanical character of Leibniz's theory, for the life of the atoms concentrated into what he called their souls was essentially a life of behaviour to one another, they existed only in their interconnexions. But this 1 Logik, ii. (Werke, iv.), pp. 197-9. 35