THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE. 229 



Ottilia, or Paris to Helen, and leaps over all bounds 

 of reason and morality, is the same powerful 

 " unconscious " attractive force which impels the 

 living spermatozoon to force an entrance into the 

 ovum in the fertilisation of the egg of the animal or 

 plant — the same impetuous movement which unites 

 two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen for the 

 formation of a molecule of water. This fundamental 

 unity of affinity in the whole of nature, from the 

 simplest chemical process to the most complicated 

 love story, was recognised by the great Greek 

 scientist, Empedocles, in the fifth century B.C., in 

 his theory of " the love and hatred of the elements." 

 It receives empirical confirmation from the interesting 

 progress of cellular psychology, the great significance 

 of which we have only learned to appreciate in the 

 last thirty years. On those phenomena we base our 

 conviction that even the atom is not without a 

 rudimentary form of sensation and will, or, as 

 it is better expressed, of feeling {asthesis) and 

 inclination (tropesis) — that is, a universal " soul " 

 of the simplest character. The same must be said 

 of the molecules which are composed of two 

 or more atoms. Further combinations of different 

 kinds of these molecules give rise to simple and, sub- 

 sequently, complex chemical compounds, in the 

 activity of which the same phenomena are repeated 

 in a more complicated form. 



The study of ether, or imponderable matter, 

 pertains principally to physics. The existence of 

 an extremely attenuated medium, filling the whole 

 of space outside of ponderable matter, was known 

 and applied to the elucidation of various phenomena 

 (especially light) a long time ago ; but it was not 



