ANIMAL LIFE ASSIMILATION. 393 



wardly directed (2), as self -directed (3). The 

 work of each of these stages embraces a num- 

 ber of organs which likewise must have their 

 processes larger and smaller. Here only a 

 few of these can be given, since they are spe- 

 cialized almost to infinity. But at present 

 we are to grasp in advance the sweep of As- 

 similation: from seizing and swallowing the 

 object to sensing it with vision, from a real to 

 an ideal appropriation of it, from assimilat- 

 ing it destructively with mouth and stomach 

 to assimilating it constructively with the eye, 

 which is also an assimilative organ of the 

 higher animal. Such is the middle or medi- 

 ating process of Animal-life, which we shall 

 now set forth in its more obvious factors. 



1. The Organism Inwardly Directed. 

 Taking the human body in the work of As- 

 similation, we observe that its primary direc- 

 tion is inward from the outside ; it turns from 

 the external world to its own fabric with some 

 article of food, which is pre-supposed, is got- 

 ten, and is internalized into the living struc- 

 ture. Such is its immediate dominating fact, 

 that of sustenance, which it cannot obtain 

 from itself permanently, but must seize and 

 appropriate as its other, as its opposite. The 

 unicellular organism is practically all stom- 

 ach, which has a certain ability to make itself 

 into other organs according to its need, being 



