thought being only a maximum of the vital movement, or life a minimum of thought. In truth, the aims of the two schools are diametrically opposed; the one claims to raise corporeal activity to the dignity of thinking activity, and to spiritualize the vital fact; the other lowers the former to the level of the latter and materializes the psychic fact. But, though the intentions are different, the result is identical. Spiritualistic monism inclines towards materialistic monism. One step more, and the soul, confused with life, will be confused with physical forces.
On the other hand, twofold modality has this advantage, that it escapes the objection drawn from the existence of so many living beings to which a thinking soul cannot be attributed; an anencephalous fœtus, the young of the higher animals, the lower animals and plants, living without thought, or with a minimum of real, conscious thought. The advocate of animism replies that this physiological activity is still a soul, but one which is barely aware of its existence—a gleam of consciousness. In this theory, the knowledge of self, the consciousness, is of all degrees. On the other hand, in the eyes of the vitalist, it is an absolute fact which allows of no attenuation, of no middle course between the being and the non-being.
It is this conception of the continuity of the soul and life, it is the affirmation of a possible lowering of the complete consciousness down to a mere gleam of knowledge, and finally down to unconscious vital activity, which saved animism from complete shipwreck. That is why this ancient doctrine finds, even in the present day, a few rare supporters. An able German scientist,
