From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



normally, otherwise than under the usual conditions 

 which govern generation in highly evolved creatures. 

 In parthenogenesis, in reproduction by budding, the 

 grouping of organic and dynamic monads takes place 

 otherwise than by the conjunction of an ovum and 

 spermatozoon. These facts, which seem disconcerting, 

 can easily be explained by the new ideas; they simply 

 prove that the conditions which govern cellular and 

 dynamic groups are not restricted to fertilisation. 1 



Once constituted, the vital dynamism represents a 

 storage of power, confined within narrow limits both 

 as to its duration and its potentialities. 



In its duration, because the powers of organic repair 

 diminish with maturity and do not prevent the body 

 from slow disintegration under the wastage of old age. 



In its potentialities, for an organic injury may be 

 beyond the power of repair and may bring about the 

 premature end of the corporeal grouping. 



It is to be remarked that the limitations of the vital 

 dynamism are more pronounced in the higher than in 

 the lower forms of life. It may be, however, that in 

 these latter the case is rather one of less restricted 

 specialisation than of greater power. 



In any case, a special study of the vital dynamism 

 in the lower grades of life, such as plants and protozoa, 

 will be necessitated by reason of the great differences 

 in its qualities and modes of action as shown in them. 

 It seems certain, however, that in the more highly 

 evolved forms the reparative action of the vital dynamism 



1 We may remark, passim, that there is a curious analogy between 

 reproduction by cuttings, and especially by buds, and the metapsychic 

 materialisations. Materialisation often proceeds (as we have seen) by a 

 kind of budding or prolonging of the primary substance exteriorised by 

 the medium, this bud developing into a being or the fragment of a being. 

 The difference is in the duration, and that is only a matter of time and 

 modality. There is nothing to prove that in the end the materialisation 

 may not prove to be separable from the medium, and given a separate 

 existence, just as the cutting or the bud is separated from the parent 

 stock. Impossible ! it will be said. By no means. The rashness would 

 lie with those, who, knowing what we now know, affirm the impossibility. 



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