ume 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," [Section] 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
creature, makes its appearance out of what seems unconscious
matter; _suggesting the thought that consciousness, in some
rudimentary form, is omnipresent._"[65]

[Footnote 65: _Autobiography_, vol. ii, p. 470.]

--Of all modern thinkers, Spencer was perhaps the most careful to
avoid giving encouragement to any hypothesis unsupported by powerful
evidence. Even the simple sum of his own creed is uttered only,
with due reservation, as a statement of three probabilities: that
consciousness represents a specialized and individualized form of the
infinite Energy; that it is dissolved by death; and that its elements
then return to the source of all being. As for our mental attitude
toward the infinite Mystery, his advice is plain. We must resign
ourselves to the eternal law, and endeavor to vanquish our ancient
inheritance of superstitious terrors, remembering that, "merciless as
is the Cosmic process worked out by an Unknown Power, yet vengeance is
nowhere to be found in it."[66]

[Footnote 66: _Facts and Comments_, p. 201.]

* * * * *

In the same brief essay there is another confession of singular
interest,--an acknowledgment of the terror of Space. To even the
ordinary mind, the notion of infinite Space, as forced upon us by
those monstrous facts of astronomy which require no serious study
to apprehend, is terrifying;--I mean the mere vague idea of that
everlasting Night into which the blazing of millions of suns can bring
neither light nor warmth. But to the intellect of Herbert Spencer the
idea of Space must have presen