THE STRUGGLE OF TEMPTATION 157 



instincts that are inherent in us all ; and, if he will 

 surrender himself completely, will make no reser- 

 vations, but will bind himself by vows to utter 

 obedience, he may develop force that will enable 

 him to outmaster his familiar demon. Here 

 again, punishment may be helpful in undermining 

 the control of the dominant impulse. In the 

 nature of the case it can hardly be self-imposed, 

 and is in many cases inflicted by the State. But 

 although it may weaken the unlawful propensities 

 of a criminal it cannot be trusted to reform him. 

 To establish such a change it is necessary to 

 awaken some dormant impulse which will give 

 him a new object in life. 



fi| li 



It will, perhaps, not be altogether fanciful if we 

 see some connection between the development 

 of spontaneity, or free will, and the individuality, 

 or separateness, of living creatures. Life does 

 not appear to pervade space ubiquitously, like 

 the energies of gravity or electricity : it is dis- 

 tributed amongst a number of isolated closed 

 vessels, for as such may be considered plants and 

 animals. Each of these is a separate centre of 

 energy. In dividing itself amongst millions of 

 different carriers Life has reserved possibilities 

 of activity which would have been lost were it 

 diffused through a continuous mass of living 

 plasma or tissue. A structureless living jelly 

 (Bathybius) appears to cover large areas of the 

 ocean floor : but, if the original type of living 

 matter was of this kind, it was abandoned for the 

 cell, the distinctive feature of which is separateness. 

 It is only in the lowest ranks of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms that cells have fully preserved 

 this characteristic : higher up the scale they have 

 cohered into masses, exchanging their inde- 



