86 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. IL 



civilized man are almost purely psychical, involving only such 

 physico-chemical elements as are necessitated by the fact 

 that conscious activity does not go on unattended by molecular 

 changes in nerve-tissue. It appears, therefore, that while in 

 the vegetal world, and in the lower regions of the animal 

 world, the life is purely or almost purely physico-chemical, 

 it becomes more and more predominantly psychical as we 

 ascend in the animal world, until at the summit it is mainly 

 psychical. The continuous adjustment of inner to outer 

 relations, which both constitutes life and maintains it from 

 moment to moment, is a process which, at first purely 

 physiological, becomes ever more distinctly psychological. 



From the facts of comparative anatomy we may elicit a 

 parallel truth. In standard works on human anatomy it is 

 customary to distinguish between the vegetative organs, (com 

 prising the nutritive and reproductive systems,) which are 

 developed from the endoderm of the embryo, and the animal 

 organs, (comprising the nervo-muscular system,) which are 

 developed from the ectoderm. Not unfrequently these are 

 otherwise and more appropriately distinguished as the 

 nutritive and relational systems ; the special office of the 

 former being the integration of nutritive material, in behoof 

 either of the organism or of its derivative offspring, while the 

 special office of the latter is the maintenance of relations 

 between the organism and the environment. The demarca 

 tion is thoroughly distinct, but it is not absolute ; since the 

 relations each moment set up even in the nutritive system 

 must correspond with certain general relations of air, 

 temperature, and assimilable material in the environment. 

 Now we have to note that in the vegetal world such general 

 correspondences are all that are established ; there is no 

 system of organs differentiated for the purpose of maintaining 

 an equilibrium of relations with the environment. In such 

 simply organized animals as the polyp there is no differentia 

 tion of relational tissues or organs ; but the entire surface of 



