1884.] 
Hylozoism and Hylo -Idealism. 
275 
Descending from the organic to the inorganic world, it 
may seem at first sight that nothing analogous is to be 
expected. Yet if the body of man be modelled by an in- 
dwelling spirit, the presence of a similar architect is surely 
required to account for the structure of a crystal. The 
crystal, indeed, does not exchange, particles with the sur- 
rounding medium ; it does not assimilate or excrete. Yet it 
is able to preserve a virtual identity amid material changes. 
FraCture it, and suspend it in a saturated solution of the 
same or an isomorphous salt, it attracts the kindred mole- 
cules, repairs the injury, and grows to an enlarged likeness 
of its former self. 
But the generalisation which I have tried to indicate 
admits of a far wider statement. Phenomena such as 
growth, reproduction, crystallisation, in which the primitive 
form is (with some variations) preserved or renewed, are 
only special instances of the operation of an evolutional 
energy, universally inherent in Matter. From its analogy 
with human aCtion, the part which this energy plays may 
be described as purposive, and its manifestations are to be 
sought wherever function determines structure, — that is to 
say, wherever similar properties, belonging to bodies which 
may in other respeCts be like or unlike, produce similar re- 
sults. The force which induces sodium to combine with 
oxygen, or hydrogen with chlorine, and permits the com- 
bination only in certain definite proportions, is as truly 
architectonic as the force which evolves the embryo from 
the germinal vesicle. Kepler believed that the planets were 
guided in their elliptic orbits by angelic pilots, and the idea 
was worthy of an age which installed a separate spiritual 
Archaeus as president of every organic function. But we 
now know that the Angel which moulds, moves, and directs 
each planet can be none other than the inseparable energy 
which inheres in every atom of its mass.* Shall we demand 
any other Angel as Archaeus of the human brain ? The 
monarchs of heart, liver, and stomach have long since been 
consigned to oblivion. 
We have now traced along two distinct lines of argument 
the essential unity of man with his environment. We have 
seen that he is the procreator of the phenomenal world ; 
that, by a wondrous alchemy, the delicate cells of the cere- 
bral hemispheres convert stimuli into sensations, and com- 
bine sensations into perceptions ; that in his mind the 
* “ Our great English geometrician, by his discovery of universal gravita- 
tion, was the real founder, in Christian times, of scientific common-sense 
Materialism .” — Life and Mind, p. 13. 
