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, G. von Bunge, well known for his researches in physiological chemistry, professes animistic views in a work which appeared in 1889. He attributes to organized beings a guiding principle, a kind of vital soul. A distinguished naturalist, Rindfleisch, of Lübeck, has likewise taken his place among the advocates of what we may call neo-animism. CHAPTER III. VITALISM. Its Extreme Forms—Early Vitalism, and Modern Neo-vitalism—Advantage of distinguishing between Soul and Life—§ 1. _The Vitalism of Barthez_—Its Extension—The Seat of the Vital Principle—The Vital Knot—The Vital Tripod—Decentralisation of the Vital Principle—§ 2. _The Doctrine of Vital Properties_—Galen, Van Helmont, Xavier Bichat, and Cuvier—Vital and Physical Properties antagonistic—§ 3. _Scientific Neo-vitalism_—Heidenhain—§ 4. _Philosophical Neo-vitalism_—Reinke. _Extreme Forms: Early Vitalism and Modern Neo-vitalism._—Contemporary neo-vitalism has weakened primitive vitalism in some important points. The latter made of the vital fact something quite specific, irreducible either to the phenomena of general physics or to those of thought. It absolutely isolated life, separating it above from the soul, and below from inanimate matter. This sequestration is nowadays much less rigorous. On the psychical side the barrier remains, but it is lowered on the material side. The neo-vitalists of to-day recognize that the laws of physics and chemistry are observed within, as well as without, the living body; the same natural forces intervene in both, only they are “otherwise directed.”