43. THE DOCTRINE OF MIND-STUFF.--Nevertheless, there have been those who have attributed something like consciousness even to inorganic matter. If the doctrine of evolution be true, argues Professor Clifford,[4] "we shall have along the line of the human pedigree a series of imperceptible steps connecting inorganic matter with ourselves. To the later members of that series we must undoubtedly ascribe consciousness, although it must, of course, have been simpler than our own. But where are we to stop? In the case of organisms of a certain complexity, consciousness is inferred. As we go back along the line, the complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason to think that the complexity of consciousness insensibly diminishes also. But if we make a jump, say to the tunicate mollusks, we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness at all. Yet not only is it impossible to point out a place where any sudden break takes place, but it is contrary to all the natural training of our minds to suppose a breach of continuity so great." We must not, says Clifford, admit any breach of continuity. We must assume that consciousness is a complex of elementary feelings, "or rather of those remoter elements which cannot even be felt, but of which the simplest feeling is built up." We must assume that such elementary facts go along with the action of every organism, however simple; but we must assume also that it is only when the organism has reached a certain complexity of nervous structure that the complex of psychic facts reaches the degree of complication that we call Consciousness. So much for the assumption of something like mind in the mollusk, where Clifford cannot find direct evidence of mind. But the argument does not stop here: "As the line of ascent is unbroken, and must end at last in inorganic matter, we have no choice but to admit that every motion of matter is simultaneous with some . . . fact or event which might be part of a consciousness."