CHAP. XIII.] 



THE CAT'S PLACE IN NATURE. 



445 



But because the plain evidence of our senses compels us to deny 

 that life actually exists or ever did exist in non-living matter, it 

 by no means follows that life was not potentially present in it. But 

 " potential existence" is not "an actual existence of a latent kind." 

 The expression merely means that conditions exist in matter such that 

 by the action upon it of influences external to it life will arise within 

 it life not previously present in a latent state, either in the matter 

 or in the influences the action of which on matter produces it. Con- 

 sequently a belief in such spontaneous generation in no way destroys 

 the greatness and sharpness of the distinction which exists and must 

 always have existed between the living and non-living worlds. 



5. The contrasts which exist, then, between the cat, CONSIDERED 

 MERELY * AS A LIVING BEING, and the mass of non-living inorganic 

 things may be summed up as follows : 



(1) It is bounded by curved lines and surfaces. 



(2) Its section is heterogeneous. 



(3) It consists almost entirely of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and 



nitrogen, and largely of protoplasm. 



(4) It grows by intussusception. 



(5) It needs a certain moderate heat. 



(6) It needs definite supply of moisture. 



(7) It needs food. 



(8) It effects a process of continued gaseous interchange. 



(9) It tends to carry on a cycle of changes when exposed to 



certain fixed conditions. 



6. We have next to consider what we imply when we say that 

 " the cat is an ANIMAL." 



Very obvious are the characters which distinguish it from plants 

 generally. It is actively locomotive, possesses feelings and in- 

 telligence, is of a very different shape, never reproduces by budding, 

 and, in feeding, it takes its food into an internal f cavity, its 



conceptions, and necessitate a completely 

 new nomenclature to correspond with the 

 established conceptions, it would lead 

 either to a vague mysticism enveloping 

 all things in formless haze, or to a change 

 of terms with no alteration in the con- 

 ceptions. By speaking of the souls of 

 the molecules we may come to talk of 

 the molecules as men ' writ small ; ' we 

 may assign our controversial passions to 

 the torrent, and our dogmatic serenities 

 to the summer sky ; we shall see volition 

 in the magnet, and contemplative effort 

 in morphological changes. If we escape 

 this, and regard the life and sentience of 

 inorganic bodies as only the lowest and 

 simplest stage of consciousness, indis- 

 tinguishable from what we now call 

 motion except that it has an infinitesimal 

 quantity of consciousness ; and if from 

 inorganic bodies we pass to simple organ- 

 isms, from these to organisms more and 

 more complex, the soul enlarging with 

 each stage of evolution ; well, then we 



are returned once more to the old point 

 of view ; the broad lines of demarcation, 

 which our classifications fix, remain un- 

 disturbed, and all the modes of existence 

 known to science are recognised as such. 

 Into this scientific system the meta- 

 physical conception of uniform existence 

 has obtruded itself and borrowed scientific 

 terms ; but the obtrusion is a confusion, 

 not an illumination." 



* " Merely as a living being," because 

 of course a practically infinite number of 

 distinctions exist between such an animal 

 as the cat considered by itself, and non- 

 living creatures, e.g., no mineral has hair, 

 or a brain, &c. 



f A cavity, that is, practically in- 

 ternal, for in fact, as we have seen, 

 the cat's stomach being but a prolonga- 

 tion inwards of its exterior, is " morpho- 

 logically " outside the animal. The space 

 within each pleura or within the peri- 

 toneum is really internal. 



