398 THE LIFE OF MATTER. 



Genci'dl pfhtdple of the hoiiuxjciieltij of tlic coiiipJci' diid Its ron.stit- 

 ue/its. — The ussimiliition of l)ruto bodies to living bodies, iind of the 

 inorganic kiiiodoni to the organic, was, in the mind of these phih)so- 

 phers, the natural consequence of positing a priori the principles of 

 continuity and evolution. There is, however, a principle underlying 

 these principles. 



This principle is not expressed in an explicit manner by the philos- 

 ophers; it is not formulated in precise terms, l)ut is more or less 

 unconsciously im})lied; it is everywhere applied. It, however, appears 

 cleai'ly l)ehind their apparatus of philosophical reasoning. It is the 

 affirmation that no arrangement or combination of elements can put 

 forth any new activit}^ essentially different from the activities of the 

 elements of which it is composed. Man is a living clay, say Diderot 

 and Ca})anis, and, on the other hand, he is a thiidving being. As it is 

 impossi))le to produce that Avhich thinks from that which does not 

 think, the ela}' nmst possess a rudiment of thought. But is there 

 not another alternative? Ma}' not the new phenomenon, thought, ])e 

 the effect of the arrangement of this clay ? If we exclude this alterna- 

 tive we must then consider that arrangement and organization are 

 incapable of producing in arranged and organized matter a new prop- 

 erty different from that which it presented ])efore such arrangement. 



Living protoplasm, says another, is merely an assemblage of brute 

 elements; "these brute elements must, therefore, possess a rudiment 

 of life.'' This is the same implied supposition which we have just con- 

 sidered; if life is not the basis of each element it can not result from 

 their simple assemldage. 



Man and animals ;ire coml)inations of atoms, says M. Le Dantec. It 

 is more natural to admit that human consciousness is the result of the 

 elementary consciousnesses of the constituent atoms than to consider 

 it as resulting from mere construction derived from elements destitute 

 of an}^ trace of consciousness. "Life," says Haeckel, " is univei'sal; 

 we could not conceive its existence in definite aggregates of matter if 

 it did not })elong to their constituent elements."" This time the postu- 

 late is almost expressed. 



The reasoning is always the same; there an* e\-en the same words; 

 the fundamental hypothesis is the same; only it remains more or less 

 unexpressed, more oi' less unperceived. ]t may be stated as follows: 



ArrangenuMit, asseml)lage, construction, and aggregation are pow- 

 erless to develop, in a couiphix, anything new, essentially heterogeneous 

 to what alrcadj^ exists in the elements. Reciprocally, grouping brings 

 out in a complex a property which is the gradual development of an 

 analogous property in the elements. It is in this sense that thei-e 

 exists a collective soul in crowds, of w hich the manifestations have 

 been set forth by M, G. Le Bon. In the same way many sociologists, 

 adopting the idea advanced by P. de Lilienfeld in 1805, attribute to 



