 could be now detected upon earth. In the course of his work
he answered this question in the affirmative, and pointed 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 machines have made during the last few hundred
years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing. The
more highly organized machines are creatures not so much of yesterday as of the
last five minutes, so to speak, in comparison with past time. Assume for the
sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million
years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand! May not the
world last twenty million years longer? If so, what will they not in the end
become? Is it not safer to nip the mischief in the bud and to forbid them
further progress?
    But who can say that the vapour engine has not a kind of consciousness?
Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can
draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything? Is not machinery
linked with animal life in an infinite variety of ways? The shell of a hen's egg
is made of a delicate white ware and is a machine as much as an egg-cup is; the
shell is a device for holding the egg as much as the egg-cup for holding the
shell: both are phases of the same function; the hen makes the shell in her
inside, but it is pure pottery. She makes her nest outside of herself for
convenience' sake, but the nest is not more of a machine than the egg-shell is.
A machine is only a device.«
    Then returning to consciousness, and endeavouring to detect its earliest
manifestations, the writer continued: -
    »There is a kind of plant that eats organic food with its flowers; when a
fly settles upon the blossom the petals close upon it and hold it fast till the
plant has absorbed the insect into its system; but they will close on nothing
but what is good to eat; of a drop of rain or a piece of stick they will take no
notice. Curious that so unconscious a thing should have such a keen eye to its
own interest! If this is unconsciousness, where is the use of consciousness?
    Shall we say that the plant does not know what it is doing merely because it
has no eyes, or ears, or brains
