IGNORABJMUS ET RESTRINGAMUR. 105 



shows more strikingly than the following astounding 

 proposition in the " Ignorabimus-speech : " " Where 

 the material conditions for psychical activity, in the 

 form of a nervous system, are wanting, as in plants, 

 the naturalist cannot recognise a soul-life, and, on this 

 point, he but seldom meets with contradiction." Beg- 

 ging your pardon ! Every naturalist who is familiar 

 with the comparative morphology and physiology of 

 the lower animals will here put in a decided contradic- 

 tion, for he can no more refuse to admit the undoubted 

 sensation and voluntary motion of the one-celled 

 Infusoria than of the many-celled hydroid polyps. 

 The body of the true Infusoria (Ciliata, Acineta, &c.), 

 and many other Protista, remain throughout life one 

 single cell, and, nevertheless, this cell is as fully fur- 

 nished with all the most important attributes of the 

 soul, with sensation and volition, as any one of the 

 higher animals with a nervous system. The same 

 obtains of the Hydra and the related hydroid polyps, 

 in which the neuro-muscular cells, or other distributed 

 cells of the outer germ-layer, fulfil the soul-func- 

 tions. But as these cells, besides this, exercise motor 

 and other functions as well, we cannot as yet designate 

 them as nerve-cells, at any rate there can be no idea 

 of a special nervous-system. The characteristic soul- 

 organs of the higher animals, which we include under 

 the conception of a nervous-system, in fact originated 



