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parent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known forms of consciousness as the consciousness of animals is from that of vegetables? It would be absurd to attempt to define such a mental state (or whatever it may be called), inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be a rash thing to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things; another when rocks and water were so."

The writer, after enlarging on the above for several pages, proceeds to inquire whether traces of the approach of such a new phase of life could be perceived at present; whether we could see any tenements preparing which might in a remote futurity be adapted for it; whether in fact the primordial cell of such a kind of life could be now detected upon earth. In the course of his work he answers this question in the affirmative and points to the higher machines.

"There is no security"—to quote his own words—"against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which the machines have made during the last few hundred years, and observe how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing in comparison. The more highly organised machines are creatures not