M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 455 



1. The genesis of the power of voluntary motion, or its differentia- 

 tion from some mental power which preceded it ; and how it was differ- 

 entiated. 



2. The evolution of the power of voluntary motion considered as an 

 organic procedure in the entire animal kingdom, by which it was devel- 

 oped from its earliest genesis up to its highest capabilities in man, as 

 the result of such changes in the faculty, from any cause whatever, as 

 were transmissible and transmitted by inheritance. 



3. The maturation of the power of voluntary motion considered as 

 an organic procedure in the individual (man, for instance), by which it 

 develops or ripens through the gradations of evolution independently of 

 the operation of any external cause, such as education and experience. 



4. The acquisitions of the power of voluntary motion, or whatever 

 is added to the maturing or matured faculty, by which it is enabled to 

 do with greater ease, freedom, force, or dexterity, what, without evolu- 

 tion and maturation, it could not do at all, and could never be educated 

 to do. 



In view of these obvious facts, were we to venture a criticism of 

 Bain's celebrated treatise on the will, we should say that his method is 

 defective, inasmuch as he has disregarded those natural and important 

 divisions of the subject which we have pointed out, each of which re- 

 quires a separate treatment. The careful reader will be able to discover 

 not a little confusion in that treatise, and will be able to trace it to the 

 fact that the distinguished author has treated as a unit things which 

 are so dissimilar ; and especially is this true of his method of dealing 

 with maturation and acquisitions, by which the reader is led to believe 

 that acquisition is maturation, and maturation is acquisition. 



-- 



MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 



By EDMUND MONTGOMERY, M. D. 

 I. INTRODUCTORY THE PROBLEM IN GENERAL. 



OF late years the hypothesis of the gradual and continuous evolution 

 of the universe and its parts has become the growing conviction 

 of almost all scientific minds. The main drift of the new philosophy, 

 the central aim of scientific exertion, is to establish by means of exact 

 investigation the reality and true order of this natural development of 

 things. After much anxious guess-work in which the emotions have 

 been profoundly implicated, we begin at last calmly and positively to 

 desire to know how deeply our existence is interwoven with the sen- 

 sible world everywhere surrounding us. We wish to know whether we 

 are, body and mind, the veritable heirs and trustees of these stupen- 



