MORALITY 



conscious memory." While the latter, and conscious- 

 ness in general, reach the highest stage in the mental 

 life of civilized man, the adaptation of the monera re- 

 mains at the lowest stage. Among the latter the bac- 

 teria especially, which have assumed the most varied 

 and important relations to other organisms in spite of 

 the simplicity of their structure, show that this mani- 

 fold adaptation depends on the formation of habits in 

 the plasm, and is solely based on their chemical energy, 

 or their invisible molecular structure. Once more the 

 monera form a connecting link between the organic and 

 inorganic; they fill up the deep gulf, from the point of 

 view of energy, that seems to yawn between " animated " 

 organisms and "lifeless" bodies. 



According to the prevailing view, habit is a purely 

 biological process, but there are processes even in in- 

 organic nature which come under this head in the 

 broader sense. Ostwald gives the following illustration : 



If we take two equal tubes of thin nitric acid and dissolve a 

 little metallic copper in one of them, the liquid will acquire the 

 power to dissolve a second piece of the same metal more quick- 

 ly than the one that remains unchanged. The cause of this 

 phenomenon — which may be observed in the same way with 

 mercury or silver and nitric acid — is that the lower oxydes of 

 nitrogen that are formed in dissolving the metal accelerate the 

 action of the nitric acid catalytically on the fresh metal. The 

 same effect is produced if you put part of these oxydes in the acid ; 

 it then acts much more rapidly than pure acid. The formation 

 of a habit consists, therefore, in the production of a catalytic 

 acceleration during the reaction. 



We may not only compare inorganic habit with organic 

 adaptation, which we call habit or practice, but also 

 with "imitation," which implies a catalytic transfer of 

 habits to socially united living beings. 



By instincts were formerly understood, as a rule, the 

 unconscious impulses of animals which led to purposive 



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