is in every essential respect in all animals the same thing which we know so intimately. Accordingly animals have all the feelings which belong to man: joy, grief, fear, anger, love, hate, desire, envy, &c. &c. The great difference between man and the brute creation consists exclusively in the degrees of perfection of the intellect. This however is leading us too far from our subject, so I refer my readers to my chief work, vol. ii. chap. 19, _sub._ 2. After the cogent reasons just given in favour of the primary _agens_ in the inward machinery of the organism being the very same will which rules the outward actions of the body and only reveals itself as the will in this passage through consciousness because here it needs the mediation of outwardly directed knowledge, we shall not be astonished to find that other physiologists besides Brandis had, by means of strictly empirical research, also recognised this truth more or less clearly. Meckel,[205] in his "Archiv für die Physiologie," arrives quite empirically and impartially at the conclusion, that vegetative existence [in animals], the first growth of the embryo, the assimilation of nourishment and plant-life, ought properly to be considered as manifestations of the will, nay, that even the inclination of the magnetic needle seems to be something of the same kind. "The assumption," he says, "of a certain free will in every vital movement may perhaps be justified." "Plants appear to seek light voluntarily," &c. &c. This book is dated 1819 just after the appearance of my work; and as, to say the least, it is doubtful whether it had any influence upon him or whether he was even aware of its existence, I class these utterances among the independent empirical confirmations of my doctrine. Burdach also,[206] in his great work on Physiology, arrives by a completely empirical road at the conclusion, that "self-love is a force belonging to all things indiscriminately." He points it out, first in animals, then in plants, and lastly in inanimate bodies. But what is self-love after all, if not the will to preserve our existence, the will to live? Under the heading "Comparative Anatomy," I shall quote a passage from the same book, which confirms my view still more decidedly. That the doctrine, which teaches that the will is the vital principle, has begun to spread even to the wider circles of medical science and to meet with a favourable reception from its younger representatives, I notice with particular pleasure in the theses sustained by Dr. Von Sigriz on taking his degree at Munich (August, 1835), which commence as follows: 1. _Sanguis est determinans formam organismi se evolventis._ 2. _Evolutio organica determinatur vitæ internæ actione et_ voluntate. [205] Meckel, "A. f. d. P." vol. 5, pp. 195-198. [206] Burdach, "Physiologie," vol. i. § 259, p. 388.