4H POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



other attribute, matter, it must be immaterial, something of the same 

 nature as consciousness, only not conscious on the lower stages of 

 existence. It seems to account for all movement and thought in the 

 world. 



Now that we have become acquainted with Haeckel's fundamental 

 principles, let us observe what application is made of them. We shall 

 take up in order the inorganic world, organic nature and psychic life. 



The substance fills infinite space as a continuum. It is endowed 

 with a mechanical form of activity, with a striving (Streben) to 

 become dense or to contract. In this way little centers are formed of 

 the parts of the universal substance which Haeckel calls pyknatoms, 

 and which possess sensation (Empfindung) and impulse or striving 

 (Streben), will-movements of the simplest kind, and hence are in a 

 certain sense animated.* The atoms are not dead mass particles, but 

 living elemental particles, endowed with the power of attraction and 

 repulsion; love and hate are merely different expressions for this power 

 of attraction and repulsion, j These original atoms are probably of 

 the same size and essence, but they are not divisible. Their form is most 

 likely spherical; they are inert (in the sense of physics), unchangeable, 

 inelastic, not penetrable by ether. They have another quality, chemical 

 affinity, an inclination to combine and to form little groups in a uniform 

 way. These fixed groups of original atoms are the so-called elemental 

 atoms, the known indecomposable atoms of chemistry. Hence the 

 qualitative differences of our chemical elements are conditioned solely 

 by the different number and configuration of the homogeneous original 

 atoms. We do not know what is the nature of these original atoms 

 themselves; perhaps it is prothyl.J 



These atoms do not float in empty space, but in a continuous 

 extremely thin intervening substance which represents the non-con- 

 tracted part of the original substance. In this way the substance, 

 which in its original state of rest has the same density throughout, 

 differentiates into two parts: the pyknatoms, ponderable matter, and 

 the intervening ether, the imponderable matter. The result of this 

 separation or differentiation is a constant struggle between these 

 antagonistic parts of substance, and to this struggle all physical 

 processes are due. As was said before, these atoms are not dead and 

 movable by external forces only; they possess sensation and will (in the 

 lowest degrees, of course), they experience pleasure in the process of 

 contraction (V erdiclitung) , pain in the process of tension (Spannung) ; 

 they strive after the first and struggle against the last. Hence atoms 

 are endowed with a universal 'soul' of the most primitive kind. The 



* ' Weltraethsel,' pp. 250ff. 

 t ' Monismus,' p. 14. 

 t ' Monismus,' p. 17. 



