ioo THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



parts of ourselves! No one now entertains seriously the view 

 once put forward by Haeckel in the heyday of the evolution- 

 ary movement that since human beings have souls every atom 

 of their bodies must have part of such a soul. The circum- 

 scribed nature of ordinary chemical action and the freedom of 

 human volition, notwithstanding its elemental background, are 

 two different things. 



If the peculiarities of volitional action are not to be dis- 

 covered in the chemical elements that make up the substance 

 in which it occurs, they must be ascribed to the organization 

 of this substance, that is, to the way in which the elements of 

 this substance are put together and interact amongst them- 

 selves. From this standpoint certain chemical elements or- 

 ganized as nervous protoplasm have a greater degree of free- 

 dom in their action than when the same elements are organized 

 in the form of lifeless molecules. This condition may be 

 illustrated by a simple mathematical relation. The ordinary 

 and invariable type of chemical reaction might be likened to 

 what would take place in a mathematical world made of blocks 

 of fives to which we put the question, What constitutes ten? 

 To this there is only one answer, namely, two blocks of five. 

 The type of reaction that is possible in nervous protoplasm is 

 like that in a world made of the digits to which the answers as 

 to what make ten may be nine and one, or three and seven, or 

 any other of numerous combinations all equally true. This 

 world has in it a degree of freedom comparable to that in 

 nervous protoplasm as compared with the limitations of the 

 ordinary chemical reaction. From this standpoint, then, nerv- 

 ous protoplasm, and probably most other protoplasm, when 

 considered from the point of view of its chemical activities has 

 a greater degree of freedom than that seen in the ordinary 

 chemical reaction and in this characteristic is to be found the 

 possibility of all volitional performance. That the properties 

 and activities of materials change with changes in organization 



