274 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
by a special cause." 6 This " something else beyond," or in excess 
of the bare mechanism of atoms, he represents as being, not a 
separate entity, not a collateral independent power, but "the 
combining movement of the Absolute." 7 This it was which 
originally caused, and still in every vital change does cause, the 
attainment of the ends so conspicuous in a living thing. 7 Life, 
then, springs from the rational immanent action of the Absolute, 
in such a way as to utilize universal mechanical laws to specific 
ends. The solution is metaphysical ; but, says Lotze, it is 
necessitated by the inadequacy of the purely mechanical view 
to satisfy the reason. 
Besides that of Lotze three distinct solutions have been pro- 
posed of the "something beyond" mechanical action. First, 
that matter in its ultimate condition was, besides those peculiarities 
which come within the scope of physical and chemical science, 
endowed by the Creator with a subtle latent quality for which no 
name can be found, but which, in fact, was the germ of that 
peculiar manifestation which appeared later on in the course of 
the evolution of matter, and to which we, observing the unique 
characteristics of its phenomena, give the name of Life. In this 
sense original matter would contain within itself the potentiality 
of all that, in the course of the evolution of Life, seems to be un- 
accounted for by those qualities of matter which come within 
the province of physical and chemical science. 7 As a speculation 
it may be allowed, in so far as it puts within the original matter 
all that one wants to have there in order to escape from the 
difficulties of the bare mechanical hypothesis. It keeps in line 
with the principle of Continuity, and harmonizes with Descartes' 
doctrine of Continuous Creation. The far-seeing wisdom and 
wondrous power implied in such an original constitution of 
matter, thus creating a complicated organic and inorganic world 
in germ, might possibly satisfy those who otherwise would prefer 
the hypothesis of separate origination later on in the world's 
history, because of its being accordant with their ideas of wisdom 
and power. In Germany and in England this hypothesis finds 
6 Metaphysics, book ii., chapter viii., section 229. Cf. section 230-233. 
7 Something of this kind was the theory known as the Animist advocated 
by Stahl ; and, also, I may include the more recent supposition of Haeckel 
that all matter is beseelt, though he can give no rational account of its origin 
in that wondrously-endowed condition. 
