ITS MEANING AND DIVISIONS. 135 



moving regressively as well as progressively; 

 it is itself claimed to be an association of 

 lesser cells, and thus is but working out its 

 own character in producing the larger Life- 

 forms of Nature. 



Here again turns up the question which is 

 so often emphasized in this book : What is it 

 that produces all this division and combina- 

 tion? Who is the subtle Panurge that can- 

 not be exorcised from the minutest form of 

 the cell as well as its largest association? The 

 reader will probably anticipate our answer: 

 Psyche is again present and incarnating her- 

 self in all these living shapes from least to 

 largest, and urging them forward to their 

 goal. Just now, however, it is sufficient to 

 say upon this point that the Particularized 

 Biocosmos, our present theme, is the second 

 division or stage, and is such by virtue of 

 its psychical character in the process of the 

 total Biocosmos, which in its turn is the third 

 stage of Nature as a whole. Nor will the 

 true-hearted student stop in his thought till 

 he has carried this Biocosmical process up to 

 its ultimate source in the Universe itself and 

 has identified it as pampsychical. 



More pressing than ever is the need of some 

 formulation or definition of Life, though hith- 

 erto this has not been absent At present let 

 us pick it up as a piece of matter having the 



