THE LIFE OK MATTER. 3*.>7 



incuts 111 res))()iis(> to exterior stiiniiljitioiis, by variiitioTis in state ami 

 of e([uilil>riuiii; linally, l)y the systeuuitic methods l>y wliich these 

 elements oroup themselves, conformintj" to detinite types of strueturc 

 and prodiu-ini4' ditl'erent species of chemical compounds. 



Continu/fij }>ij siiiKiiKtftnn. —The idea of summation leads by another 

 way to the same result. It is another form of the ])rinciph' of con- 

 timiity. A totality of etl'ects, obscure and indistinct in themselves, 

 produces a })henomenon apprecial)le, perce})tible. and distinct, seem- 

 inji'lv heterot»eneous in its compoiuMits without. ho\ve\er, Ixdno- ,so. 

 The manifestations of atomic or molecular activity thus )>ecomc 

 manifestations of vital activity. 



This is another conse(|uence of the Leibnitzian doctrine. For, 

 according' to that philosophical doctrine, individual consciousness, like 

 indi\idual life, is the collective ex}iressioii of a multitude of elementary 

 lives or consciousnesses, inappreciable ])ecause of their low degree, 

 and the real i)henomenon is found to be the sum, oi* rather the integral, 

 of all these insensible ett'ects. The elementary conseiousnesses are 

 harmonized, uuitied, integrated in an eti'ect that l)ecomes manifest, in 

 the same way as **the noises of waves, not one of which would ))o 

 heard if ])y itself, yet, when united together and perceived at the same 

 instant, become the resounding voice of ocean." 



Ideas of thr p]i!I()si>2>Ju'i'.s c/.s- to sensihllity mid r(oisci'ou.'</h'.w In hnite 

 hodien. — The philosophers have gone still further in the way of analo- 

 gies, and have recognized in the play of th<^ forces of brute matter, 

 particularly in the play of the chemical forces, a humble rudiment of 

 the appetences and tendencies that regulate, in their opinion, the func- 

 tional activity of living beings — a trace, as it were, of their sensil)ility. 

 The reactions of matter indicate, in their e3a's, the existeuce of a sort 

 of hedonic consciousness, that is to say, a consciousness reduced simply 

 to apprehension of distinction ))etween \vell-l)eing and its opposite, a 

 desire for good and repulsion from harm, which they supi)Ose to be 

 the universal principle in the activity of things. This was the opinion 

 of Empedocles in anti([uity, it was that of Diderot, of Cabanis, and, in 

 general, that of the modern materialistic school, eager to lind, even in 

 the most degraded representatives of the inorganic world, the first 

 traces of the vitality and intellectual life which blossoms out at the 

 top of the li\ing world. 



8imilai' ideas are clearly apparent in the early history of all natural 

 sciences. It was this same })rinciple of appetition, or of love and 

 repulsion, or hate, that, luider the names of attinity, s(dection, and 

 incompatibilit}-, was thought to direct the mutations of bodies at the 

 time of the origin of chemistry; when Hoerhaave, for (example, com- 

 pared chemical combinations to voluntary and conscious alliances, in 

 which the rc^spective elements, drawn together by sympathy, contracted 

 appropriate marriagi>s. 



