Eimer on G7^0'wth and Inhei'itance 449 



Thus Haeckel explains 1 the chemical attractions and 

 repulsions of bodies by attributing to them definite inclina- 

 tions which they possess the will and the power to obey 

 by moving towards or away from one another. 



' If the " will " of man . . . seems free in contrast with the 

 " fixed " will of the atoms, this is a deception caused by the contrast 

 between the extremely complex voluntary motions of the former and 

 the extremely simple voluntary motions of the latter. ... As the 

 mass of the atom is indestructible and unchangeable, so the atomic 

 soul inseparably connected therewith is eternal and imperishable. . . . 

 This monistic conception of atoms is alone in harmony with the 

 great laws of the "conservation of energy" and the "indestructibility 

 of matter," which the natural philosophy of the present day rightly 

 regards as its irremovable foundations.' 



Now though Professor Eimer is as unreasonable as 

 Haeckel in seeking to maintain ^ a mere 'mechanical con- 

 ception of the idea of will/ he nevertheless draws a very 

 sound distinction between a faculty of mere irritability (as 

 when upon a touch the squirting cucumber ejects its seeds) 

 and a true power of sensation. It is true, as he says, that 

 we have no unequivocal evidence that sensibility exists in 

 any organism which does not possess nervous substance. 



* The very fact,' he contends,^ * that in animals a special nervous 

 system, nerve fibres and nerve cells, have arisen, which are absent in 

 plants, proves of itself that the reception and conduction of stimuli 

 in animals must be quite different to those in plants. . . . For the 

 single reason, then, that the substance which reacts to stimuli in 

 animals, which in any case in the higher animals is the instrument 

 of sensation and voluntary action, is quite peculiar to animals, it is 

 allowable to infer that the two latter faculties belong to animals 

 only. We might thus, in a sense, recur to the old aphorism of 

 Linnaeus : " Lapides crescunt, plantse crescunt et vivunt, animalia 

 crescunt, vivunt et sentiunt." ' 



He also gives a very interesting account^ of various move- 



^ Die Perigenefiis der Plastidule oder die Welltnzeugung der Lebens- 

 theilchen. Berlin. 



2 P. 309. 3 p, 310. 4 pp, 312-314. 



VOL. II. 2 F 



