EXPLANATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--MOTION A KIND OF ACTION.--WHAT EFFECT IT HAS ON CONSCIOUSNESS--BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS. WHICH THE PRODUCT OF THE OTHER?--CONSCIOUSNESS IN VEGETABLE AND MINERAL KINGDOMS LIMITED WHILE IN MAN ALMOST COMPLETE That consciousness exists does not need proof; we know, and we know that we know. We are conscious of consciousness; and now we have to consider the source of consciousness. Turning back to the realities we have considered, we find that time cannot be the source of consciousness; we cannot think of time as being conscious, and the same is true of space. We cannot conceive of consciousness as existing in empty space, for there would be nothing there to be conscious; and so we see that only substance can be conscious. Where there is no substance there is nothing, and there can be no consciousness. This is a proposition which you should consider well, until you have mastered it in all its bearings; that there can be no consciousness apart from substance; that empty space cannot be conscious. If consciousness exists--and it does--there is a Conscious Substance. This point we need to develop very fully, for it is vital. If it is not substance which is conscious, then consciousness must exist in the interstices between the particles of substance, or in empty space; and it is empty space which is conscious, which is unthinkable. But if consciousness exists in substance, then it is the substance itself which is conscious; for there can be nothing in substance but substance. It becomes clear, too, that consciousness cannot be the result of functional action within an organism. Functional action is merely motion, and motion is a shifting of substance from one place to another. If consciousness were produced by motion, would it not still be the substance which was conscious? Try to reason out how a substance could be made conscious by shifting it from one place to another. If consciousness was produced by the motion, then the substance could not have been conscious before it moved, nor could it remain conscious after it ceased to move. Try to think of a substance as becoming conscious, and endowed with reason, memory and love while making a certain motion, and as losing all these when ceasing to move; try to reason out how motion could come first as a cause, and consciousness follow as a result. Try to conceive of the Original Fluid Substance as beginning, unconsciously, to move; and as producing, unconsciously, all the orderly sequences of forms which appear in nature; and at last, and only at last, becoming fully conscious of it all through the unconscious beginning of a certain motion in the brain of man. Try to think of full consciousness as having been lacking in the universe until certain vibrations were started in the brain of man; you will find all this unthinkable. Consciousness is not the result of motion, but the first cause of motion. It is not motion which is conscious, but substance.