Are We Automata?

The consciousness of Mr. Darwin lays it down as axiomatic that self-preservation or survival is the essential or universal good for all living things. The mechanical processes of "spontaneous variation" and "natural selection" bring about this good by their combined action; but being physical processes they can in no sense be said to intend it. It merely floats off here and there accidentally as one of a thousand other physical results. The followers of Darwin rightly scorn those teleologists who claim that the physical process, as such; of evolution follows an ideal of perfection. But now suppose that not only our Darwinian consciousness, but with even greater energy the [p. 8] consciousness of the creature itself, postulates survival as its summum bonum, and by its cognitive faculty recognises as well as Mr. Darwin which of its actions and functions subserves this good; would not the addition of causal efficacy to this consciousness enable it to furnish forth the means as well as fix the end -- make it teleologically a fighter as well as a standard-bearer? Might not, in other words, such a consciousness promote or increase by its function of efficacity the amount of that "usefulness" on the part of the brain which it defines and estimates by its other functions? To answer such a question, we must analyse somewhat closely the peculiarities of the individual consciousness as it phenomenally presents itself to our notice.