244 LIFE AND DEATH. 



according to which these elements group themselves, 

 conforming to those definite types of structure by 

 means of which they produce different species of 

 chemical compounds. 



Continuity by Summation. The idea of summation 

 leads by another path to the same result. It is 

 another form of the principle of continuity. A sum 

 total of effects, obscure and indistinct in themselves, 

 produces a phenomenon appreciable, perceptible, and 

 distinct, apparently, but not really, heterogeneous in 

 its components. The manifestations of atomic or 

 molecular activity thus become manifestations of vital 

 activity. 



This is another consequence of the teaching of 

 Leibniz. For, according to his philosophical theory, 

 individual consciousness, like individual life, is the 

 collective expression of a multitude of elementary 

 lives or consciousnesses. These elements are in- 

 appreciable because of their low degree, and the real 

 phenomenon is found in the sum, or rather the 

 integral, of all these insensible effects. The ele- 

 mentary consciousnesses are harmonized, unified, 

 integrated into a result that becomes manifest, just 

 as " the sounds of the waves, not one of which would 

 be heard if by itself, yet, when united together and 

 perceived at the same instant, become the resounding 

 voice of the ocean." 



Ideas of the Philosophers as to Sensibility and Con- 

 sciousness in Brute Bodies. The philosophers have 

 gone still further in the way of analogies, and have 

 recognized in the play of the forces of brute matter, 

 particularly in the play of chemical forces, a mere 

 rudiment of the appetitions and tendencies that regu- 

 late, as they believe, the functional activity of living 



