CHAPTER 11. 



ANIMISM. 



The Common Characteristic of Animism and Vitalism : the 

 Human Statue — Primitive Animism — Stahl's Animism — 

 First Objection with Reference to the Relation between 

 Soul and Body — Second Objection : the Unconscious 

 Character of Vital Operations — Twofold Modality of the 

 Soul — Continuity of the Soul and Life. 



Children are taught that there are three kingdoms 

 in Nature — the mineral kingdom and the two Hving 

 kingdoms, animal and vegetable. This is the whole 

 of the sensible world. Then above all that is placed 

 the world of the soul. School-boys therefore have 

 no doubts on the doctrines that we discuss here. 

 They have the solution. To them there are three 

 distinct spheres, three separate worlds — matter, life, 

 and thought. 



It is this preconceived idea that we are about to 

 examine. Current opinion solves a priori the question 

 of the fundamental homogeneity or lack of resem- 

 blance of these three orders of phenomena — the 

 phenomena of inanimate nature, of living nature, and 

 of the thinking soul. Aniviism, vitalis^n, and monism 

 are, in reality, different ways of looking at them. 

 They are the different answers to this question : — 

 Are vital, psychic, and physico-chemical manifesta- 

 tions essentially distinct? Vitalists distinguish be- 



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