46 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



termines this method, and the conditions of intellectual com- 

 munication determine the representation of this method in the 

 material expression of the ideas communicated. Considering 

 the operation of this law under these conditions, we find that 

 the thought communicating only, as nearly as may be, the gen- 

 eric idea, will be distinguished from it by the addition of but a 

 single attribute as the generic by itself is incapable of being 

 represented in concrete form, the expression of this thought 

 in form will present us matter distinguished from matter in 

 general by but a single attribute. The least possible individu- 

 alizing attribute added to the highest possible generalization 

 gives us the simplest expression of an idea, and the form or 

 the organism symbolizing this thought will be the simplest 

 form and the simplest organism possible. For instance : in 

 organic life the highest generalization barely individualized 

 will give us the simple cell ; and no matter what degree of 

 complexity we subsequently reach by the addition of an al- 

 most infinite number of attributes, we nevertheless begin in 

 every case with the same starting point 



Each higher type is reached by adding to a lower. The 

 higher thus embraces all that can be found in the lower, and 

 something besides. This method is invariable, and can never 

 be departed from. The genus must always be predicable of 

 every individual component of every species contained under 

 it. Translating this law into the forms of material expression, 

 and it requires each higher species to physically include all 

 lower species, and to differ from them only by addition. Man, 

 the highest type, must thus include all the attributes of the 

 cell as physically expressed, and without them he would not 

 be man. The diflferences between no two terms in a series 

 can be total. If the successive steps in a train of thought 

 must be related, so that no two notions will be wholly distinct 

 from each other, these notions will constitute a series, each 

 term of which will, in a measure, determine the next, so soon 

 as the law of the series is discovered ; and if this train of 



