50 THE CELL-SOUL 



peculiar substance, which most people somewhat 

 grossly conceive of as a gaseous body, while others 

 picture it with more subtlety, as an immaterial essence. 

 This " soul-substance " subsists independently of the 

 animal-body, and stands in only a temporary connection 

 with certain organs of that body the soul-, or mental- 

 organs. It has been imagined that this soul-matter, 

 which resembles that imponderable ether which is the 

 medium of light, is diffused between the ponderable 

 molecules of the soul-organs and especially of the 

 nerve-cells, and that this connection of the imponder- 

 able " soul " with the ponderable body subsists only so 

 long as the individual life lasts. At the instant of 

 the first beginning of the individual organism, at 

 the moment of generation, this imponderable " soul " 

 passes into the body, and at the instant of death, at 

 the annihilation of the living individual, it again quits 

 the body. This mystical or dualistic soul-hypothesis, 

 which, as is well known, is to this day universally 

 accepted, is fundamentally vitalistic, inasmuch as 

 it regards the force which is bound up with the 

 soul-substance, like the " vital force " of a past 

 time, as a peculiar force quite independent of 

 mechanical forces. This force does not depend 

 on the material phenomena of motion, and is quite 

 independent of the mechanics of atoms. The 

 highest law of modern natural science, the law of 



