The problem is complicated and we must approach it step by step. First, we are inevitably driven to the conclusion, that the subjective world of feelings forms an inseparable whole together with a special combination of certain facts of the objective world, namely our body. It originates with this combination, and disappears as soon as that combination breaks to pieces. And, secondly, we must assume that the conditions for building up such material dispositions as have the power of developing the subjectivity of consciousness are an intrinsic quality of the objective world. Subjectivity cannot originate out of nothing; it must be conceived as the product of a co-operation of certain elements which are present in the objective world. In other words, the elements of the subjective world are features that we must suppose to be inseparably united with the elements of the objective world, which are represented in our mind as motions. This leads to the conclusion that feeling has to be considered not as a simple but as a complex phenomenon. Feelings originate through a combination of elements of feeling; and the presence of the elements of feeling must be supposed to be an intrinsic property of the objective world.[23] The objective elements, the action of which is accompanied with the elements of feeling, arrange themselves, we suppose, into such combinations as display actual feelings, in exact agreement with the laws of molar and molecular mechanics. This, we must assume, takes place with the same spontaneity as, for instance, an acid and a base combine into a salt. To use another example, it takes place with the same necessity as, under special conditions, a certain amount of molar motion is transformed into the molecular motion of ether-waves, called electricity. Motions are not transformed into feelings, but certain motions (all being separately accompanied with elements of feeling), when co-operating in a special form, are accompanied in that form with actual feelings. [23] For further details see the author's article _Feeling and Motion_; published first in _The Open Court_, Nos. 153 and 154. #Neither feeling nor mind can be considered as incidental phenomena.# There is a certain class of philosophers who look upon feeling as an incidental effect, as a fortuitous by-play of the interacting elements of matter. This conception has little if anything in its favor. On the contrary, if the elements of feeling are throughout inseparably connected with the elements of objective existence, it must appear natural that wherever the conditions fitted for organised life appear, irritable substance will originate. We may fairly assume that feeling will arise on the cooled surface of a planet with the same necessity as, for instance, a collision between non-luminous celestial bodies will cause them to blaze forth in the brilliant light of a nebula containing all the elements for the production in the course of ages of a planetary system.