If that which has sensation and that which has it not, are to be brought genetically near one another, and hence the difference between the two at the point where the lowest sentient being has found its first existence, is to be made void or at least bridged over, then it is much more reasonable, and also in the line of Strauss's solution, to deny the difference between that which has sensation and that which has it not, and to do this in the sense in which we also declare that to be sentient which we have hitherto been accustomed to regard as without sensation; and we should likewise attribute sensation to the original elements of the world, be they called atoms or whatever one may wish. This is done by Zöllner and by the before mentioned "Anonymus." This conclusion is logical; it is even the only possible conclusion, if we once start from the axiom that the new, which comes

into existence, must necessarily be explainable from agencies previously active, and known to or imagined by us through abstractions and hypotheses. Zöllner is certainly right when, in his work which appeared before the lecture of DuBois-Reymond, he puts the alternative, "either to renounce forever the conceivableness of the phenomena of sensation, or hypothetically to add to the common qualities of matter one more, which places the simplest and most elementary transactions of nature under a process of sensation, legitimately connected with it;" as also when he says (page 327): "We may regard the intensity of these sensations (of matter) as little and unimportant as we wish; but the hypothesis of their existence is, according to my conviction, a necessary condition, in order to comprehend the really existing phenomena of sensation in nature." Only we shall do well to choose the first alternative for the present, and, with DuBois-Reymond, answer the question as to the explanation of the origin of sensation with an "ignoramus"; indeed, we shall take a surer road with his "ignorabimus" than by a plunge into that bottomless ocean of hypotheses—in spite of the protest of Häckel, who (Anthrop., page XXI) sees that scientist who has the courage to admit the limits of our knowledge, on account of this "ignorabimus", walking in the army of the "black International", and "marshalled under the black flag of the hierarchy," together with "spiritual servitude and falsehood, want of reason and barbarism, superstition and retrogression", and fighting, "spiritual freedom and truth, reason and culture, evolution and progress." For a solution of the question which simply denies all sharply-marked differences in the world, and explains

the new, which comes into existence with sensation, by the assertion that this new element is not new, but was already present, and that it exists everywhere, only we do not see it everywhere,—such a solution seems to us not to be the true way to interpret the problem of the sphinx. Even Ed. von Hartmann seems to infringe the impartiality of the true observer, when, in his "Philosophy of the Unconscious," he attributes sensation to plants. But when Zöllner says (p. 326): "All the labors of natural beings [and, as the connection indicates, of all, even of inorganic natural beings] are determined by like and dislike;" and when "Anonymus" attributes sensation to all atoms and to all complexities composed of them, even to stone, then all reasonable conception of natural things and processes certainly vanishes into thin air.

It will be remembered, however, that in treating the question of the origin of self-consciousness, although we were not able to solve the problem, nevertheless we had to ascribe high value to the investigation of all psychical processes on the low stage of sensation and consciousness, since they show us not the cause, but the condition and basis, of self-consciousness. Likewise, in the question as to the origin of sensation and of consciousness, although we are not able to solve it, we will willingly admit that we observe, even in that which has no sensation, qualities and processes which furnish the absolutely necessary condition and basis for sensation. For the same reason, we will also admit the manifold analogies of sensation which we observe in that which is without sensation. The whole system of symbols in nature which fills our treasury of words and penetrates, in a

thousandfold way, our scientific and popular, our poetical and prosaic speech, our thoughts and feelings, bears witness to the fact that that which is without sensation is also a preparatory step to sensation, and feeling both active and passive springs from it. However, a preparatory step, as such, is not necessarily the cause; and the fact and the acknowledgment of a correlation is not on that account an explanation.

§ 3. The Origin of Life.

The third problem to be solved is the origin of life. As is well known, Darwin himself makes no attempt at explaining this problem, but is satisfied with the idea that life was infused into one or a few forms by the Creator ("Origin of Species," 6 ed., p. 429). His investigations and theories only begin where organic life, in its first and lowest forms, is already in existence.

But lately there have been made, in the realm of the organic, discoveries of beings which take the lowest conceivable round on the ladder of organisms, and which in their form and structure are so simple that from them to the inorganic there seems to be but a short step. We can no longer mention as belonging to the bridges which are said to lead from the organic world to the inorganic, the often-named bathybius, discovered by Huxley, and so strongly relied upon for the mechanical explanation of life—a slimy net-like growth, which covers the rocks in the great depths of the ocean. For after scientists like K. E. von Baer and others had already declared it probable that this bathybius is only a precipitate of organic relics, no less a person than the discoverer of the bathybius, in the "Annals of Natural History," 1875,

and in the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science," 1875, has suggested that the whole discovery is but gypsum, which was precipitated in a gelatinous condition. Likewise the utterances concerning the simplicity and lack of structure of the lowest organisms, are to be accepted only with great reservation; for most of these organisms show very differently and very distinctly stamped structures; of this fact, anyone may easily convince himself, who has had the opportunity of observing with the microscope low and lowest organisms, and to admire their striking and manifold forms. Nevertheless, there are monera whose structure seems to be nothing but a living clod without kernel and cover, and which in that respect represent the lowest conceivable form of organic being and life.

Now, relying on these discoveries, as well as upon the successful demonstration, by inorganic means, of organic acids in chemistry, and starting from the supposition that the first appearance of life must necessarily be explained by those agencies which are already active in the inorganic nature, many scientists have attempted the so-called mechanical explanation of life. This attempt has been made most logically and systematically by Häckel. He says that organic matter, organic form, and organic motion, in the lowest stages of the organic, which are almost the only ones to be taken into consideration when the problem of the origin of life is discussed, contain nothing at all which does not also pertain to the inorganic. In his opinion, organic matter is an albuminous carbon combination, of which we have to presuppose that, like all chemical combinations, under certain physical and chemical conditions it can also arise in the realm