IIAECKEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 4*9 



have already become acquainted with Haeckel's philosophy of mind; 

 let us here simply accentuate the phases of it which do not agree with 

 the fundamental principles. Soul life is the sum-total of vital phe- 

 nomena which are all bound to a material substrate, conditioned by 

 physiological functions. Soul is a collective term for the sum-total of 

 the psychic functions of the plasm. 'Soul' is a collective term for a 

 sum of brain functions, which are, like all life-activities, conditioned 

 by physical and chemical processes. Soul life is unconscious until we 

 reach the higher animals where it becomes conscious. Consciousness, 

 however, is merely a development from the lower forms of psychic life 

 and, like these, a function of physiological processes. It is dependent 

 on the chemical changes of the brain ; it is a physiological problem and 

 as such solved by physics and chemistry. The sentient energy with 

 which we began, which was at least equal in dignity with matter at the 

 outset, and which assumed importance enough in the scheme to cause 

 the matter to move, to attract and to repel, is now made the function of 

 matter. Matter is the substrate, the substance ; soul or mind the func- 

 tion of matter, housed in the latter and dependent upon it. Matter has 

 become king ; energy or mind its slave. Our so-called pure monism has 

 changed into materialism, if not in the sense that it reduces everything, 

 energy included, to matter and motion, at least in the sense that 

 it makes this energy an attribute, a function of matter. 



Besides the inconsistencies which we have noticed all along the line, 

 there are difficulties in the system upon some of which we have already 

 lightly touched. The continuous substance filling infinite space and 

 endowed with infinite energy must do something if a cosmos is to be 

 formed. It begins to differentiate and to form atoms. We are told why 

 it does so : it has the unconscious impulse to do so, it is endowed with 

 the properties of love and hate, which are only different names for at- 

 traction and repulsion. Why the infinite substance should want to 

 do all this, we are left to figure out for ourselves. It is worth noting 

 here, however, that Haeckel introduces the conception of purposive im- 

 pulse into his explanation of the cosmos, an unconscious impulse or 

 striving, it is true, but still a force attempting to account for the move- 

 ments of the atoms. He does not therefore repudiate the teleological ex- 

 planation in toto, as he claims to do, but only conscious teleology. 



But in spite of all this the theory does not explain how these ani- 

 mated atoms floating in the ether can produce a world. We have here 

 the same old difficulty which was presented to us by the first Greek 

 atomists. In fact it is somewhat increased. Each pyknatom acts spon- 

 taneously ; it is not a dead thing buffeted into place by other dead things, 

 but a living thing that seeks its place, that strives to be united with 

 other atoms which also strive, and their harmonious strivings give us a 

 world. This is certainly a mystery of mysteries. Why the little atoms 



