364 report— -1879. 



the circumstances of any present case differ from those of any past experience, 

 but imperfectly resemble those of many past experiences, parts of these, and 

 consequent actions, are irregularly suggested by the laws of resemblance, until 



some action is hit' on which relieves pain or gives pleasure. For instance 



let a dog be lost by his mistress in a field in which he has never been before. The 

 presence of the group of sensations which we know to indicate his mistress is 

 associated with pleasure, and its absence with pain. By past experience an asso- 

 ciation has been formed between this feeling of pain and such movements of the 

 head as tend to recover some part of that group, its recovery being again associated 

 with movements which, de facto, diminish the distance between the dog and his 

 mistress. The dog, therefore, pricks up his ears, raises his head and looks round. 

 His mistress is nowhere to be seen ; but at the corner of the field there is visible a 

 gate at the end of a lane which resembles a lane in which she has been used to 

 walk. A phantasm (or image) of that other lane, and of his mistress walking 

 there, presents itself to the imagination of the dog ; he runs to the present lane, 

 but on getting into it she is not there. From the lane, however, he can see a tree at 

 the other side of which she was wont to sit ; the same process is repeated, but she is 

 not to be found. Having arrived at the tree he thence finds his way home.' By the 

 action of such feelings, imaginations, and associations — which we know to be veree 

 causes — I believe all the apparently intelligent actions of animals may be explained 

 without the need of calling in the help of a power, the existence of which is in- 

 consistent with the mass, as a whole, of the phenomena they exhibit. 



But if there is a radically distinct intellectual power or force in man, is such a 

 distinction of kind so isolated a fact as many suppose? May there not exist 

 between the forces which living beings exhibit other differences of kind ? 



Each living being consists of an aggregation of parts and functional activities 

 which are evidently knit together into a unity. Each is somehow the seat or 

 theatre of some unifying power or condition which synthesises their varied activities, 

 and is a pkinciple of individuation. This seems certainly to have been the 

 opinion of Buffon, and it is to this opinion that I referred in speaking of the fourth 

 cause to which he attributed the changes in organic forms. And to me it seems 

 that we must admit the existence of such a living principle. We may analyse the 

 activities of any animal or plant, and by consideration of them separately find 

 resemblances between them and mere physical forces. But the synthesis of such 

 forces as we find in a living creature is certainly nowhere to be met with in the 

 inorganic world. 



To deny this would be to deny the plainest evidence of our senses. To assert 

 that each living body is made up of minute independent organisms, each with its 

 own 'principle of individuation,' and without subordination or co-ordination, is 

 but to multiply difficulties, while such a doctrine conflicts with the evidence of our 

 own perceptions, which lead each of us to regard himself as one whole — a true 

 unity in multiplicity. . 



The existence in each creature of a peculiar, co-ordinating, polar force, seems to 

 be specially pointed to by the phenomena of serial and bilateral symmetry, by the 

 symmetrical character of certain diseases, by the phenomena of monstrous growths, 

 and by the symmetrical beauty of such organisms as the Radiolarian Rhizopods. 



It also seems to me to be made evident, by the various activities of each animal, 

 which are, as a fact, grouped in one in mutual interaction— an organism having 

 been described by Kant as a creature, the various parts of which are reciprocally 

 ends and means. 



I think now I hear the exclamation — This is ' Vitalism ! ' while some of my 

 hearers may deem these matters too speculative for our Section. 



But consciously or unconsciously, general conceptions of the kind exist in the 

 minds of all biologists, and influence them in various ways, and their consider- 

 ation, therefore, can hardly be out of place here ; while as to ' Vitalism,' I am con- 

 vinced I shall not be wasting your time in endeavouring to remove a wide-spread 

 misconception. 



The ' Vitalism ' which is so reasonably objected to, is that which supposes the 

 existence in each living creature of some separate entity inhabiting the body 



