Its Composite and Dissoluble Nature. 177 



first principles on which nature acts for the production of 

 the human personality ! 



The human soul is not a nebula of confluent ions, not 

 an undeveloped gas of sentient atoms, not the raw dif- 

 fused base of sentience, but a fabric long developed from 

 this sentient base. Ion has combined with ion, " atom " 

 with " atom," and molecule with molecule in long-per- 

 fected, orderly union to give utterance to the lowly intel- 

 ligence of the cell — the protozoon. That lowly intelli- 

 gence is the cell's soul. It exists in such degree and at 

 such a height of intelligence only by virtue of an intricate 

 arrangement of its component molecules and reciprocal 

 action between them. To give utterance to the cell soul 

 the sentient particles of which cell and nucleus are com- 

 posed have to bear certain relations to each other, occupy 

 certain positions one to another, and exert on each other a 

 series of impulses, to and fro, direct and reflex. More- 

 over, they have to preserve these relations and keep these 

 positions one to another, in order that the personal identity 

 of the cell may be preserved from hour to hour and day to 

 day. The cell soul depends on the stability of this form 

 — to use the word in a German sense. There is a pro- 

 gressive development of the sentient substance to some- 

 thing which is reciprocally very mazy and complex, before 

 we get the cell soul ; and while that cell soul continues to 

 exist, the form must be preserved intact. 



Crush the cell, scatter, those sentient ions, atoms, and 



