3

Organic beings. — Vital principle. — Instinct and intelligence. — Difference between plants, animals, and man. (Questions

to 37.)

Is the corporeal world limited to the Earth we inhabit?

“No, for all the worlds of the Universe are peopled with living beings.” The corporeal world is composed of all the organic beings considered as formed of matter, which exist on the Earth and on other globes of the Universe.

Is the law that unites the elements of matter the same in organic and inorganic beings? [Question 60.]

“Yes.”

a. Does inert matter undergo no modification in organic beings? “Matter is always the same, but animalized.” [Question 61.]

b. What is the cause of the animalization of matter? [Question 62.]

“Its union with the vital principle.”

Like all other bodies, organic beings are formed by the aggregation of matter; there is, however, something more in them, a special cause of intimate activity due to the presence of the vital principle. They are born, grow, live, reproduce by themselves, and die; they perform acts that vary according to the nature of the organs with which they are provided and which are appropriate to their needs. (Note 3).

Is the vital principle the same for all organic beings? [Question 66.]

“Yes, modified according to the species. It is what gives them movement and activity and distinguishes them from inert matter; for the movement of matter is not life; it receives that movement, it does not give it.” The vital principle is the same for all organic beings; according to the nature of the beings, it undergoes certain modifications, but ones that do not alter its intimate essence. It gives to all the activity that makes them exercise the acts necessary to their own conservation.

Is vitality a permanent attribute of the vital principle, or does it only develop through the functioning of the organs? [Question 67.]

“It only develops with the body.”

a. Can one say that vitality remains in a latent state when the vital principle is not united to the body? [Question

a.]

“Yes, that is exactly so.”

At the same time that the vital principle gives impulse to the organs, the action of these maintains and develops the activity of the vital principle, more or less as friction produces heat. One can say that vitality remains in a latent state if it is not united to the body and developed.

What is the cause of death in organic beings? [Question 68.]

“The exhaustion of the organs.”

a. Could death be compared to the cessation of movement in a machine that has broken down? [Question 68 a.]

“Yes; if the machine is not well assembled, the spring breaks; if the body is ill, life is extinguished.”

Death results from the exhaustion or the disaggregation of the organs that can no longer maintain the activity of the vital principle. The functioning of the organs having ceased from any cause whatsoever, that principle loses its active properties and life ends.

Organic life is, therefore, the active state of the vital principle; death is the cessation of that activity, or the latent state of the vital principle (Note 4).

Into what is the matter of organic beings transformed when they die? [Question 70.]

“Matter decomposes and goes on to form new organisms.”

a. Into what is the vital principle of each living being transformed after they die? [Question 70.]

“The vital principle returns to the mass.”

b. Would the vital principle be what certain philosophers call the universal soul? “That is a system.”

The organic being having died, the matter of which it is formed decomposes; the elements, by means of new combinations, are transformed and constitute new beings that draw from the universal source the principle of life and of activity, absorb it and assimilate it, in order to restore it to the same source when they cease to exist.

The vital principle is what some call the universal soul.

Is intelligence an attribute of the vital principle? [Question 71.]

“No, for plants live and do not think: they have only organic life. Intelligence and matter are independent, since a body can live without intelligence; but intelligence can only manifest itself by means of material organs. Union with the spirit is necessary to give intelligence to animalized matter.” Vitality is independent of the intellectual principle. Intelligence is a special faculty, peculiar to certain classes of organic beings, and which gives them, along with thought, the will to act, the consciousness of their existence and of their individuality, as well as the means of establishing relations with the exterior world and of providing for their needs.

Is instinct independent of intelligence? [Question 73.]

“Not exactly, because instinct is a kind of intelligence.”

a. What are the distinctive characteristics of instinct and intelligence? “Instinct is an irrational intelligence, independent of the will.” Instinct is a rudimentary intelligence, which differs from intelligence properly speaking in that its manifestations are almost always spontaneous and independent of the will, whereas those of intelligence result from a combination and a deliberate act. [Question

a.]

Is instinct common to all living beings?

“Yes, everything that lives has instinct. It is by it that all beings provide for their needs.” [Question 73.]

a. Can one establish a boundary between instinct and intelligence, that is, specify where the one ends and the other begins? [Question 74.]

“No, because they often blend together. But one can distinguish very well the acts that proceed from instinct from those that belong to intelligence.” Instinct is common to all organic beings, but it varies in its manifestations, according to the species and their needs. It is blind and purely mechanical in the inferior beings deprived of the life of relation, like plants.

In the beings that have the consciousness and the perception of exterior things, it allies itself with intelligence, that is, with will and freedom. [Question

a.]

Can we say that animals act only by instinct? [Question 593.]

“That is still a system of your would-be philosophers. It is quite true that instinct dominates the majority of animals. But do you not see that many act with a determined will? It is that they have intelligence, though limited.” Beyond instinct, one could not deny to certain animals the practice of combined acts, which denote a will to act in a determined sense, according to the circumstances. There is, then, in them, a kind of intelligence, but whose exercise is circumscribed almost exclusively to the means of satisfying their physical needs and of providing for their conservation.

Do animals have any language? [Question 594.]

“If you mean a language formed of syllables and words, no; if you are thinking of a means of communicating among themselves, they have language. They say to one another far more things than you imagine. Their language, however, like the ideas they may have, is limited to their needs.”

a. There are animals that have no voice. Do these not seem destitute of language? [Question 594 a.]

“They understand one another by other means. Oh! men, to communicate with one another, do you have only speech? What do you say of the mute?” Being endowed with the life of relation, animals have a language by which they communicate with one another, warn one another, and express the sensations they experience; not even those that do not produce articulated sounds are deprived of means of communication.

Man, then, does not enjoy the exclusive privilege of speech. While the language of animals is appropriate to their needs and limited to the circle of their ideas, that of man lends itself to all the perceptions of his intelligence.

In the physical aspect is man superior to the animals?

“Physically he is like the animals, and far less endowed than many of them; Nature gave them everything that man is obliged to invent with his intelligence, for the satisfaction of his needs and for his conservation.” [Question 592.]

Physically man is an organic being analogous to the animals, subject to the same needs and endowed with the same instincts to provide for them. His body is submitted to the same laws of decomposition, and his own constitution would render him inferior to many of them if it were not supplied by the superiority of his intelligence.

Would not the difference between man and the animals be more perceptible in the moral aspect than in the physical?

“Yes; he has faculties that are proper to him. On this point, your philosophers are in agreement on almost nothing. Some want man to be an animal and others want the animal to be a man. They are all mistaken. Man is a being apart, who sometimes descends very low or who can raise himself very high.” [Question 592.]

Man is endowed with special faculties which, from the moral point of view, place him incontestably above all the beings of Creation, which he knows how to subjugate and subject to his needs. He alone perfects himself by himself and takes advantage of the lessons of experience and of tradition; he alone is capable of sounding the mysteries of Nature and of drawing from it not only new resources and new pleasures, but also the hope of the hereafter.

Is it correct to say that the instinctive faculties diminish as the intellectual ones grow? [Question 75.]

“No; instinct always exists, but man scorns it. Instinct can also lead to good. It almost always guides us, and sometimes with more certainty than reason.”

a. Why is reason not always an infallible guide? [Question

a.]

“It would be infallible if it were not falsified by bad education, by pride, and by selfishness.”

In man, the instinctive faculties are not neutralized by the development of intelligence; only he does not give them due attention, in order to listen to what he calls his reason. Instinct is an interior guide that leads as much to good as to evil; reason permits the choice and gives man free will.

Instinct never errs; reason does, almost always through pride, through selfishness, and through the false path imprinted by education.

Would not the difference between man and the animals consist only in the development of the faculties?

“No; as we have already said, man is a being apart. His body rots like that of the animals, it is true, but his Spirit has another destiny which he alone can comprehend.”

The faculties that are proper to man, and that the other living beings do not possess, attest in his person the existence of a principle superior to vitality, to instinct, and to animal intelligence. It is this principle that gives him moral intelligence and the sentiment of his future destiny.