Preface 



use follows on an unquestioned dogma of contemporary 

 science. Before deciding which method to employ, let 

 us now look somewhat closely at some of the established 

 results to which this method has actually led. 



In a philosophic study of the phenomena of life, 

 if we proceed from the apex to the base, from man to 

 the superior animals, and from them to inferior types, 

 we are constrained to admit that Consciousness is that 

 which is most important in all life, because it is that 

 which is most important in man. We are then led to 

 discover that consciousness, with all that it implies, 

 extends, with a narrowing field, down to the least 

 evolved animals, in which it exists merely in outline. 



If, on the contrary, we proceed from the base to 

 the summit, the conclusion that we draw from the 

 phenomena of life is an opposite one. It is the con- 

 clusion that Le Dantec, among others, has endeavoured 

 to bring out. 1 



The chemical reactions of their environment suffice 

 to determine the vital phenomena of animals very low 

 down in the scale. The ' ascending ' method therefore 

 permits of the affirmation that in all the phenomena 

 of life, even those of the superior animals, it is use- 

 less to seek for anything but the result of chemical 

 reactions. Even the specific form of an animal is for 

 Le Dantec, as we shall see, merely a function of these 

 reactions. 



The plastidia show rigid chemical determinism, 

 and there is no reason to attribute to them either will 

 or liberty of action. It would follow that bio-chemical 

 determinism is the same in the entire animal series; 

 and will or liberty, even in man, is but illusion. 



The notion of an animal consciousness is superfluous 

 for the plastidia; if therefore it exists for superior 

 animals it can be only an epiphenomenon * resulting 



1 Le Dantec : DSterminisme Biologique. 

 ?A sequential or a secondary phenomenon. 



xui 



