ANIMAL LIFE ASSIMILATION. 299 



Edible meat has both these characters in it, 

 and when it is eaten, one may suppose that 

 it has the tendency to impart the special pow- 

 ers of Animal-life with increased efficiency, 

 for instance sensation and self-movement, and 

 doubtless volition. Purely Plant-consuming 

 peoples would seem to be more like the Plant, 

 with its single assimilation. The carnivorous 

 animals are fiercer, have more will-power than 

 the herbivorous. Animal evolution moves 

 through flesh-consumers, that is, the consum- 

 ers of food already doubly assimilated. If 

 the first living thing was a Plant, there must 

 have come the stage when the Plant began 

 already to devour the Plant and thus to turn 

 Animal. Possibly this has something to do 

 with that primal differentiation of Life into 

 Plant and Animal, or the transition from one 

 to the other in the primeval protoplasm. 



Accordingly man (unless he be a vegeta- 

 rian) in his appropriation of the external 

 world for sustenance, takes up the unassimi- 

 lated element, the once assimilated vegetable, 

 and the twice assimilated animal. All three 

 he transforms into his body in order to live; 

 he cannot now be nourished by the Inorganic 

 alone, as the Plant is, yet with some special 

 exceptions; nor on the Plant alone as some 

 animals are; nor on flesh alone; he has prop- 

 erly to go through the whole process of the 



