DEGREE OF LIFE VARIES AS DEGREE OF CORRESPONDENCE. 100 



union of all the parts into a whole. Hence, animate bodies 

 having greater co-ordination of parts than inanimate ones 

 must exhibit greater co-ordination of changes; and this 

 greater co-ordination of their changes must not only dis- 

 tinguish organic from inorganic aggregates, but must, for 

 the same reason, distinguish higher organisms from lower 

 ones, as we found that it did. Once more, it 



was pointed out that the changes constituting Life differ 

 from other changes in the definiteness of their combination, 

 and that a distinction like in kind though less in degree, 

 holds between the vital changes of superior creatures and 

 those of inferior creatures. These, also, are contrasts in har- 

 mony with the contrasts disclosed by the analysis of Evolu- 

 tion. We saw (First Principles, 129-137) that during 

 Evolution there is an increase of definiteness as well as an 

 increase of heterogeneity. We saw that the integration 

 accompanying differentiation has necessarily the effect of 

 increasing the distinctness with which the parts are marked 

 off from each other, and that so, out of the incoherent and 

 indefinite there arises the coherent and definite. But a co- 

 herent whole made up of definite parts definitely combined, 

 must exhibit more definitely combined changes than a whole 

 made up of parts that are neither definite in themselves nor 

 in their combination. Hence, if living bodies display more 

 than other bodies this structural definiteness, then definite- 

 ness of combination must be a characteristic of the changes 

 constituting Life, and must also distinguish the vital 

 changes of higher organisms from those of lower organ- 

 isms. Finally, we discovered that all these peculi- 

 arities are subordinate to the fundamental peculiarity, that 

 vital changes take place in correspondence with external 

 co-existences and sequences, and that the highest Life is 

 reached, when there is some inner relation of actions 

 fitted to meet every outer relation of actions by which 

 the organism can be affected. But this conception of 

 the highest Life, is in harmony with the conception, before 



