TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. OF ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 365 



— an extra-organic force within the living creature, and acting by and through 

 it, but numerically distinct from it. But the view which I venture to put before 

 you as that which is to my judgment a reasonable one, is that of a peculiar 

 form of force which is intra-organie, so that it and the visible living body are one 

 thing, as the impress on stamped wax and the wax itself are one, though we can 

 ideally distinguish between the two. It is, in fact, a mode of regarding living 

 creatures with prime reference to their activities rather than to their material 

 composition, and every creature can of course be regarded either statically or 

 dynamically. It is to regard any given animal or plant, not as a piece of complex 

 matter played upon by physical forces, which are transformed by what they 

 traverse, but rather as a peculiar immanent principle ' or form of force (whensoever 

 and howsoever arising), which for a time manifests itself by the activities of a certain 

 mass of complex material, with which it is so entirely one that it may be said to con- 

 stitute and be such animal or plant much rather than the lump of matter which we 

 can see and handle can be said to constitute such animal or plant. On this view a 

 so-called ' dead bird ' is no bird at all, save by abuse of language, nor is a ' corpse ' 

 really a ' dead man ' — such terms being as self-contradictory as would be the 

 expression ' a dead living creature.' 



Thus the real essence, the substantial constituent, of every living thing is 

 something which escapes our senses, though its existence and nature reveal them- 

 selves to the intellect. 



For of course our senses can detect nothing in an animal or plant beyond the 

 qualities of its material component parts. But neither is the function of an organ 

 to be detected save in and by the actions of such organ, and yet we do not deny it 

 its function or consider that function to be a mere blending and mixture of the pro- 

 perties of the tissues which compose it. Similarly it would seem to be unreasonable to 

 deny the existence of a living principle of individuation because we can neither see nor 

 feel it, but only infer it. This power or polar force, which is immanent in each 

 living body, or rather which is that body living, is of course unimaginable by us, 

 since we cannot by imagination transcend experience, and since we have no experi- 

 ence of this force, save as a body living and acting in definite ways. 



It may be objected that its existence cannot be verified. But what is verifica- 

 tion ? We often hear of ' verification by sensation,' and yet even in such verifica- 

 tion the ultimate appeal is not really to the senses, but to the intellect, which may 

 doubt and which criticises and judges the actions and suggestions of the senses and 

 imagination. Though no knowledge is possible for us which is not genetically 

 traceable to sensation, yet the ground of all our developed knowledge is not sensa- 

 tional, but intellectual, and its final justification depends, and must depend, not on 

 ' feelings,' but on ' thoughts.' I must apologise to such an audience as that I have 

 the honour of addressing for expressing truths which, to some of my hearers, may 

 appear obvious. I would gladly suppress them as superfluous did not my own 

 experience convince me that they are not superfluous. To proceed : ' Certainty ' 

 does not exist at all in feelings any more than doubt. Both belong to thought 

 only. ' Feelings ' are but the materials of certainty, and though we can be perfectly 

 certain about our feelings, that certainty belongs to thought and to thought only. 

 ' Thought,' therefore, is our absolute criterion. It is by self-conscious thought only 



1 The word ' principle ' has been used to denote that activity which, together 

 with material substance, constitutes a riving creature, because that word calls up a 

 less sensuous, and therefore less misleading, phantasm than any other. The old term 

 ^vxh, or soul, has in modern times come to be associated with the idea of a substance 

 numerically distinct from the living body, and capable of surviving the destruction 

 of the latter. But as structure and function ever vary together (as do the con- 

 vexities and concavities of a curved line), so ' the principle of individuation ' or 

 soul of an animal or plant and its material organisation must necessarily arise, 

 vary, and be destroyed simultaneously, unless some special character, as in the case 

 of man, may lead us to consider it exceptional in nature. Even in man, however, 

 there seems no adequate reason for believing in the existence of any principle of 

 individuation, save that which exerts its energy in all his functions, the humblest as 

 well as the most exalted. 



