proving its inadequacy, he seems to intimate that it may represent
imperfectly some truth yet inapprehensible by the human mind:--

"The only supposition having consistency is that that in which
consciousness inheres is the all-pervading ether. This we
know can be affected by molecules of matter in motion, and
conversely can affect the motions of molecules;--as witness
the action of light on the retina. In pursuance of this
supposition we may assume that the ether, which pervades not
only all space but all matter, is, under special conditions in
certain parts of the nervous system, capable of being affected
by the nervous changes in such way as to result in feeling,
and is reciprocally capable under these conditions of
affecting the nervous changes. But if we accept this
explanation, we must assume that the potentiality of feeling
is universal, and that the evolution of feeling in the ether
takes place only under the extremely complex conditions
occurring in certain nervous centres. This, however, is but
a semblance of an explanation, since we know not what the
ether is, and since, by confession of those most capable of
judging, no hypothesis that has been framed accounts for
all its powers. Such an explanation may be said to do no
more than symbolize the phenomena by symbols of unknown
natures."--["First Principles," § 71 _c_, definitive edition
of 1900.]

--"Inscrutable is this complex consciousness which has
slowly evolved out of infantine vacuity--consciousness
which, in other shapes, is manifested by animate beings at
large--consciousness which, during the development of every