ho evidently did not read his book carefully,
that while he claimed that the plants were evolved by the direct action
of the physical factors, that in the case of all the animals the process
was indirect. But this is not correct. He evidently, as we shall see,
places the lowest animals, those without (or what he supposed to be
without) a nervous system, in the same category as the plants. He
distinctly states at the outset that only certain animals and man are
endowed with this singular faculty, "which consists in being able to
experience _internal emotions_ which provoke the wants and different
external or internal causes, and which give birth to the power which
enables them to perform different actions."

"The nervous fluid," he says, "can, then, undergo movements in certain
parts of its mass, as well as in every part at once; moreover, it is
these latter movements which constitute the _general movements_
(_ebranlements_) of this fluid, and which we now proceed to consider.

"The general movements of the nervous fluid are of two kinds;
namely,

"1. Partial movements (_ebranlements_), which finally become general
and end in a reaction. It is the movements of this sort which
produce feeling. We have treated of them in the third chapter.

"2. The movements which are general from the time they begin, and
which form no reaction. It is these which constitute internal
emotions, and it is of them alone of which we shall treat.

"But previously, it is necessary to say a word regarding the
_feeling of existence_, because this feeling is the source from
which the inner emotions originate.

"_On the Feeling of Existence._

"The feeling of existence (_sentiment d'existence_), which I shall
call _inner feeling_,[183] so as to separate from it the idea of a
general condition (_generalite_) which it does not possess, since it
is not common to all living beings and not even to all animals, is
a very obscure feeling, with which are endowed those animals
provided with a nervous system sufficiently developed to give them
the faculty of feeling.

"This sentiment, very obscure as it is, is nevertheless very
powerful, for it is the source of inner emotions which test
(_eprouvent_) the individuals possessing it, and, as the result,
this singular force urges these individuals to themselves produce
the movements and the actions which their wants require. Moreover
this feeling, consi