MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 237 



ticle of inorganic matter, the smallest constituent 

 part of a molecule. It is far more. It is a living 

 thing, endowed not only with life but also possessed 

 of a soul. And this is no mere hypothesis with 

 him. It is, he will have it, a demonstrated doctrine, 

 an established fact. "An atom soul," "a molecule 

 soul," " a carbon soul," are among the first corollar- 

 ies of Monism, which, one of its advocates tells us, 

 is now " irrefragable, invincible, inexpugnable." 



Organic and Inorganic Matter. 



There is, in Haeckel's estimation, no essential dif- 

 ference between inorganic and organic matter; no 

 impassable chasm between brute and animated sub- 

 stance. All vital phenomena, especially the funda- 

 mental phenomena of nutrition and propagation, are 

 but physico-chemical processes, identical in kind 

 with, although differing in degree from, those which 

 obtain in the formation of crystals and ordinary 

 chemical compounds. Like D'Holbach, he identifies 

 mental operations with physical movements; and, 

 like Robinet, he attributes the moral sense to the 

 action of special nerve-fibres. His Weltseele is not 

 like that of Schelling, a spiritual principle or intelli- 

 gence, but a blind unconscious force which always 

 accompanies, and is inseparably connected with, 

 matter. 



According to his views, sensation is a product of 

 matter in movement, and consciousness is but a 

 summation of the rudimentary feeling of ultimate 

 sentient atoms. The genesis of mind is thus en- 

 tirely a mechanical process, and the conceptions of 



