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 tion there is a peculiar force added to the already existing, and a peculiar group of phenomena is the result. As matter only rises step by step from plane to plane, and never two steps at a time, so also force, in its transformation into higher forms of force, rises only step by step. Physical force does not become vital except through chemical force, and chemical force does not become will except through vital force.

Again, we have compared the various grades of matter, not to a gradually rising inclined plane, but to successive planes raised one above the other. There are, no doubt, some intermediate conditions; but, as a broad, general fact, the changes from plane to plane are sudden. Now, the same is true also of the forces operating on these planes—of the different grades of force, and their corresponding groups of phenomena. The change from one grade to another, as from physical to chemical, or from chemical to vital, is not, as far as we can see, by sliding scale, but suddenly. The groups of phenomena which we call physical, chemical, vital, animal, rational, and moral, do not merge into each other by insensible gradations. In the ascensive scale of forces, in the evolution of the higher forces from the lower, there are places of rapid, paroxysmal change.

b. Vital force is transformed into physical and chemical forces; but it is not on that account identical with physical and chemical force, and therefore we ought not,