{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24346/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24346","id":"gutenberg_24346","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24346","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science - Biology","Life (Biology)"],"text":"*Hints Towards the Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory Of Life*\n\n                           *by S. T. Coleridge*\n\n                     *Edited by Seth B. Watson, M.D.*\n\n                          Of St. John\u2019s College,\n\n       And Formerly One of the Physicians to the Hospital at Oxford\n\n       Magna sunt opera Domini exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus.\n\n               London: John Churchill, Princes Street, Soho\n\n                               MDCCCXLVIII.\n\n             *C. and J. Adlard, Printers, Bartholomew Close*\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface.\nPhysiology Of Life.\nThe Nature Of Life.\nAdvertisements.\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT.\n\n\nThe Editor takes this opportunity of returning his best acknowledgments to\nSir JOHN STODDART, LL.D., to the Rev. JAMES GILLMAN, Incumbent of Trinity,\nLambeth, and to HENRY LEE, Esq., Assistant Surgeon to King\u2019s College\nHospital, for their great kindness, in regard to this publication.\n\n_16, Norfolk Street, Park Lane._\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe accompanying pages contain the unfinished Sketch of a Theory of Life\nby S. T. Coleridge. Everything that fell from the pen of that\nextraordinary man bore latent, as well as more obvious indications of\ngenius, and of its inseparable concomitant\u2014originality. To this general\nremark the present Essay is far from forming an exception. No one can\nperuse it, without admiring the author\u2019s comprehensive research and\nprofound meditation; but at the same time, partly from the exuberance of\nhis imagination, and partly from an apparent want of method (though, in\ntruth, he had a method of his own, by which he marshalled his thoughts in\nan order perfectly intelligible to himself), a first perusal will, to many\nreaders, prove unsatisfactory, unless they are prepared for it by an\nintroduction of a more popular character. This purpose, therefore, I shall\nendeavour to accomplish; it being to be understood that I by no means make\nmyself responsible either for Mr. Coleridge\u2019s speculations, or for the\nmanner in which they are enunciated; and that, on the contrary, I shall\noccasionally indicate views from which I dissent, and expressions which\nperhaps the author himself, on revision, would have seen reason to\ncorrect.\n\nIt is clear that Mr. Coleridge considers the unity of human nature to\nresult from two combined elements, Body and Soul; that he regards the\nlatter as the principle of Reason and of Conscience (both which he has\nlargely treated in his published works), and that the \u201cLife,\u201d which he\nhere investigates, concerns, in relation to mankind, only the Body. He is\nfar, however, from confining the term \u201cLife\u201d to its action on the human\nbody; on the contrary, he disclaims the division of all that surrounds us\ninto things with life, and things without life; and contends, that the\nterm Life is no less applicable to the irreducible _bases_ of chemistry,\nsuch as sodium, potassium, &c., or to the various forms of crystals, or\nthe geological strata which compose the crust of our globe, than it is to\nthe human body itself, the acme and perfection of animal organization. I\nadmit that there are certain great powers, such as magnetism, electricity,\nand chemistry, whose action may be traced, even by the limited means which\nscience at present possesses, in admirable gradation, from purely\nunorganized to the most highly organized matter: and, I think, that Mr.\nColeridge has done this with great ingenuity and striking effect; but what\nI object to is, that he applies to the combined operation of these powers,\nin all cases, the term _Life_. If we look back to the early history of\nlanguage, we shall probably find that this word, and its synonymes in\nother tongues, were first employed to denote _human_ life, that is, the\nduration of a human being\u2019s existence from birth to the grave. As this\nexistence was marked by actions, many of which were common to man with\nother animals, those animals also were said to \u201clive;\u201d but the extension\nof the notion of Life to the vegetable creation is comparatively a recent\nusage,\u2014and hitherto (in this country at least) no writer before Mr.\nColeridge, so far as I know, has maintained that rocks and mountains, nay,\n\u201cthe great globe itself,\u201d share with mankind the gift of Life. On the\nother hand, there are well known and energetic uses of the word \u201cLife,\u201d to\nwhich Mr. Coleridge\u2019s speculations, as contained in the accompanying\npages, are wholly inapplicable. Almost all nations, even the most savage,\nagree in the belief that individuals of the human race, after they have\nceased to exist in this mortal life, will exist in another state, to which\nalso the word Life is universally applied; but to this latter Mr.\nColeridge\u2019s views of magnetism, electricity, &c., can hardly be thought\napplicable. Still less can they apply to \u201cLife\u201d in its spiritual sense;\nas, when Moses says to the Jews, \u201cthe words of the law are your _life_,\u201d\n(Deut. xxxii, 47,) and when our Saviour says, \u201cthe words that I speak unto\nyou, they are spirit, and they are _life_;\u201d (John, vi, 63;) and again, \u201cI\nam the resurrection and the life,\u201d (John, xi, 25.) Upon the whole,\ntherefore, I think it would have been advisable in Mr. Coleridge to have\nadopted a different phraseology, in tracing the operation of certain\nnatural agencies first on unorganized, and then on organized bodies.\n\nAnother word, of which I consider an improper use to be made in this\nEssay, is \u201cNature.\u201d I find this imaginary being introduced on all\noccasions, and invested with attributes of personality, which may be\nextremely apt to make a false impression on young or thoughtless minds. At\none time, \u201cthe life of Nature\u201d is spoken of; then we are informed that\n\u201cNature has succeeded. _She_ has created the intermediate link between the\nvegetable world and the animal.\u201d Again, it is said that \u201cNature seems to\nfall back, and to reexert _herself_ on the lower ground, which _she_ had\nbefore occupied;\u201d\u2014and elsewhere we are told that \u201cNature never loses what\n_she_ has once learnt; though in the acquirement of each new power _she_\nintermits or performs less energetically the act immediately preceding.\n_She_ often drops a faculty, but never fails to pick it up again. _She_\nmay seem forgetful and absent; but it is only to recollect _herself_ with\nadditional as well as recruited vigour in some after and higher state.\u201d\nNow the word \u201cNature,\u201d in any intelligible sense, means nothing but that\nmethod and order by which the Almighty regulates the common course of\nthings. Nature is not a person; it is not active; it neither creates nor\nperforms actions more or less energetically, nor learns, nor forgets, nor\nreexerts itself, nor recruits its vigour. Perhaps it will be said that all\nthis is merely figurative language. Figurative language is very much\nmisplaced in strict philosophical investigations; and these particular\nfigures, which might be quite consistent with the atheistical philosophy\nof Lucretius, sound ill in the mouth of a pious Christian, which Mr.\nColeridge undoubtedly was. He probably adopted them unconsciously from\nBacon; but Bacon\u2019s use of the word Nature ought rather to have served as a\nwarning than an example; for it has contributed, in no small degree, to\nthe atheistical philosophy of recent times.\n\nThe prevalent natural philosophy of the present day is that which is\ncalled _corpuscular_, because it assumes the existence of a first matter,\nconsisting of _corpuscula_ or atoms, which are supposed to be definite,\nthough extremely small, _quantities_, invested with the _qualities_ of\nextension, impenetrability, and the like; and from certain combinations of\nthese qualities, Life is considered, by some persons, to be a necessary\nresult. This philosophy Mr. Coleridge combats. The supposed atoms, he\nsays, are mere abstractions of the mind; and Life is not a thing, the\nresult of atomic arrangement or action, but is itself an act, or process.\nHe refutes various definitions of Life, such as, that it is the sum of all\nthe functions by which death is resisted; or, that it depends on the\nfaculty of nutrition, or of anti-putrescence. His own definition he\nproposes merely as an hypothesis. Life, he says, is \u201cthe principle of\nIndividuation,\u201d that is to say, it is a power which discloses itself from\nwithin, combining many qualities into one individual thing. This\nindividualising principle unites, as he conceives, with the cooperating\naction of magnetism, electricity, and chemistry. At least, such is the\ninference to be drawn from the present state of science; though it is\neasily conceivable that future discoveries may bring us acquainted with\npowers more directly connected with Life. The most general law governing\nthe action of Life, as a tendency to individuation, is here designated\n_polarity_; for instance, the power termed magnetism (not meaning that\nthere is necessarily an actual tangible magnet in the case) has two poles,\nthe negative, answering to attraction, rest, carbon, &c., and the\npositive, answering to repulsion, mobility, azote, &c.; and as the\nmagnetic needle which points to the north necessarily indicates thereby\nthe south, so the power disposing to rest has necessarily a counteracting\ninfluence disposing to mobility, between which lies the point of\nindifference. Now this quality, to which Mr. Coleridge gives the name of\npolarity, is in truth nothing more than an exemplification of the doctrine\nof opposites, the \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u1f02\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bb\u03b1 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, which the Eleatic\nPhilosopher, in Plato\u2019s \u201cSophist,\u201d applies to the idea of existence and\nnon-existence, and which accompanies every other idea as its shadow,\nwhether in physics, in intellect, or in morals; for the finite is opposed\nto the infinite, the false to the true, the evil to the good, and so\nforth; which we say, not to derogate from the value of Mr. Coleridge\u2019s\napplication of the doctrine, of which he has very ably availed himself;\nbut merely to explain the term polarity, by referring it, as a species, to\na higher genus of intellectual conceptions.\n\nReverting to the three powers before mentioned, it is not to be\nunderstood, that on Mr. Coleridge\u2019s hypothesis of Life, they ever act\nseparately; but in the different modifications of Life, at one time the\npower of magnetism predominates, at another that of electricity, and at\nanother that of chemistry. Magnetism is stated to act as a line,\nelectricity as a surface, and chemistry as a solid; for all which Mr.\nColeridge refers to certain physical experiments. The predominance of\nmagnetism is characterised by reproduction, that of electricity by\nirritability; and irritability, which first appears as muscle, gradually\nrises into sensibility as nerve. The limits of a mere introduction will\nnot permit me to examine Mr. Coleridge\u2019s first principles more in detail;\nand I can but briefly notice their application to the successive stages of\nascent, from the first rudiments of individualised Life, in the lowest\nclasses of the mineral, vegetable, and animal creation, to its crown and\nconsummation in the human body. Beginning with magnetism, by which, in its\nwidest sense, he means what he improperly calls the first and simplest\ndifferential act of _Nature_ (he should rather have said the first and\nsimplest conception that we can form of a differential act of God, in the\nwork of creation), he supposes the pre-existence of chaos, not, indeed, in\nthe Miltonic sense\u2014\n\n\u201cFor hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,\nStrive _there_ for mast\u2019ry, and to battle bring\nTheir embryon atoms,\u2014\u201d\n\nbut rather as one vast homogeneous fluid, and even _that_ he suggests not\nas a historical fact, but as the appropriate symbol of a great fundamental\ntruth. The first effort of magnetic power, the first step from\nindifference to difference, from formless homogeneity to independent\nexistence, is seen in the tranquil deposition of crystals; and an\nincreasing tendency to difference is observable in the increasing\nmultitude of strata, till we come to organic life; of which the vegetable\nand animal worlds may be regarded as opposite poles; carbon prevailing in\nthe former and azote in the latter; and vegetation being characterised by\nthe predominance of magnetism in its highest power, as reproduction;\nwhilst the animal tribes evince the power of electricity, as shown in\nirritability and sensibility. Passing over the forms of vegetation, we\ncome to the polypi, corallines, &c., in which individuality appears in its\nfirst dawn; for a multitude of animals form, as it were, a common animal,\nand different genera pass into each other, almost indistinguishably. The\ntubipora of the corals connects with the serpula of the conchylia. In the\n_mollusca_ the separation of organs becomes more observable; in the higher\nspecies there are rudiments of nerves, and an exponent, though scarcely\ndistinguishable, of sensibility. In the snail, and muscle, the separation\nof the fluid from the solid is more marked, yet the prevalence of the\ncarbonic principle connects these and the preceding classes, in a certain\ndegree, with the vegetable creation. \u201cBut the _insect_ world, taken at\nlarge (says Mr. Coleridge) appears as an intense _Life_, that has\nstruggled itself loose, and become emancipated from vegetation\u2014_Flor\u00e6\nliberti, et libertini_!\u201d In insects we first find the distinct\ncommencement of a separation between the muscular system, that is, organs\nof irritability, and the nervous system, that is, organs of sensibility;\nthe former, however, maintaining a pre-eminence throughout, and the nerves\nthemselves being probably subservient to the motory power. With the fishes\nbegins an internal system of bones, but these are the results of a\ncomparatively imperfect formation, being in general little more than mere\ngristle. In birds we find a sort of synthesis of the powers of fish and\ninsects. In all three, the powers are under the predominance of\nirritability; but sensibility, which is dormant in the insect, begins to\nawaken in the fish, and, though still subordinate, is quite awake in the\nbird, of which no better proof can be given than its power of sound, with\nthe rudiments of modulation, in the large class of singing birds, and in\nsome others a tendency to acquire and to imitate articulate speech. The\nnext step of ascent brings us to the _mammalia_; and in these, including\nbeasts and men, the complete and universal presence of a nervous system\nraises sensibility to its due place and rank among the animal powers.\nFinally, in Man the whole force of organic power attains an inward and\ncentripetal direction, and the \u201capex of the living pyramid\u201dbecomes a fit\nreceptacle for Reason and Conscience.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nIt is much to be regretted, that the estimable Author did not live to put\na finishing hand to this Essay; but the part completed involves\nspeculations of so interesting a nature, and presents such striking marks\nof deep and original thought, that the Editor, to whose hands it was\ncommitted, did not feel himself justified in withholding it from the\njudgment of the public.\n\n\n\n\n\nPHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE.\n\n\n                              Introduction.\n\n\nWhen we stand before the bust of John Hunter, or as we enter the\nmagnificent museum furnished by his labours, and pass slowly, with\nmeditative observation, through this august temple, which the genius of\none great man has raised and dedicated to the wisdom and uniform working\nof the Creator, we perceive at every step the guidance, we had almost\nsaid, the inspiration, of those profound ideas concerning Life, which dawn\nupon us, indeed, through his written works, but which he has here\npresented to us in a more perfect language than that of words\u2014the language\nof God himself, as uttered by Nature.\n\nThat the true idea of Life existed in the mind of John Hunter I do not\nentertain the least doubt; but it may, perhaps, be doubted whether his\nincessant occupation, and his stupendous industry in the service, both of\nhis contemporaries and of posterity, added to his comparatively slight\nacquaintance with the arts and aids of logical arrangement, permitted him\nfully to unfold and arrange it in distinct, clear, and communicable\nconceptions. Assuredly, however, I may, without incurring the charge of\narrogance or detraction, venture to assert that, in his writings the light\nwhich occasionally flashes upon us seems at other times, and more\nfrequently, to struggle through an unfriendly medium, and even sometimes\nto suffer a temporary occultation. At least, in order to dissipate the\nundeniable obscurities, and to reconcile the apparent contradictions found\nin his works,\u2014to distinguish, in short, the numerous passages in which\nwithout, perhaps, losing sight internally of his own peculiar belief, he\nyet falls into the phraseology and mechanical solutions of his age,\u2014we\nmust distinguish such passages from those in which the form corresponds to\nthe substance, and in which, therefore, the nature and essential laws of\nvital action are expressed, as far as his researches had unveiled them to\nhis own mind, without disguise. To effect this, we must, as it were, climb\nup on his shoulders, and look at the same objects in a distincter form,\nbecause seen from the more commanding point of view furnished by himself.\nThis has, indeed, been more than once attempted already, and, in one\ninstance, with so evident a display of power and insight as announces in\nthe assertor and vindicator of the Hunterian Theory a congenial intellect,\nand a disciple in whom Hunter himself would have exulted. Would that this\nattempt had been made on a larger scale, that the writer to whom I\nrefer(1) had in consequence developed his opinions systematically, and\ncarried them yet further back, even to their ultimate principle!\n\nBut this the scientific world has yet to expect; or it is more than\nprobable that the present humble endeavour would have been superseded, or\nconfined, at least, to the task of restating the opinion of my predecessor\nwith such modifications as the differences that will always exist between\nmen who have thought independently, and each for himself, have never\nfailed to introduce, even on problems of far easier and more obvious\nsolution.\n\nWithout further preface or apology, therefore, I shall state at once my\nobjections to all the definitions that have hitherto been given of Life,\nas meaning too much or too little, with an exception, however, in favour\nof those which mean nothing at all; and even these last must, in certain\ncases, receive an honour they do not merit, and be confuted, or rather\ndetected, on account of their too general acceptance, and the incalculable\npower of words over the minds of men in proportion to the remoteness of\nthe subject from the cognizance of the senses.\n\nIt would be equally presumptuous and unreasonable should I, with a late\nwriter on this subject, \u201cexhort the reader to be particularly on his guard\nagainst loose and indefinite expressions;\u201d but I perfectly agree that they\nare the bane of all science, and have been remarkably injurious in the\ndifferent departments of physiology.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE NATURE OF LIFE.\n\n\n    On The Definitions Of Life Hitherto Received. Hints Towards A More\n                          Comprehensive Theory.\n\n\nThe attempts to explain the nature of Life, which have fallen within my\nknowledge, presuppose the arbitrary division of all that surrounds us into\nthings with life, and things without life\u2014a division grounded on a mere\nassumption. At the best, it can be regarded only as a hasty deduction from\nthe first superficial notices of the objects that surround us, sufficient,\nperhaps, for the purpose of ordinary discrimination, but far too\nindeterminate and diffluent to be taken unexamined by the philosophic\ninquirer. The positions of science must be tried in the jeweller\u2019s scales,\nnot like the mixed commodities of the market, on the weigh-bridge of\ncommon opinion and vulgar usage. Such, however, has been the procedure in\nthe present instance, and the result has been answerable to the coarseness\nof the process. By a comprisal of the _petitio principii_ with the\n_argumentum in circulo_,\u2014in plain English, by an easy logic, which begins\nwith begging the question, and then moving in a circle, comes round to the\npoint where it began,\u2014each of the two divisions has been made to define\nthe other by a mere reassertion of their assumed contrariety. The\nphysiologist has luminously explained Y plus X by informing us that it is\na somewhat that is the antithesis of Y minus X; and if we ask, what then\nis Y-X? the answer is, the antithesis of Y+X,\u2014a reciprocation of great\nservice, that may remind us of the twin sisters in the fable of the Lami\u00e6,\nwith but one eye between them both, which each borrowed from the other as\neither happened to want it; but with this additional disadvantage, that in\nthe present case it is after all but an eye of glass. The definitions\nthemselves will best illustrate our meaning. I will begin with that given\nby Bichat. \u201cLife is the sum of all the functions by which death is\nresisted,\u201d in which I have in vain endeavoured to discover any other\nmeaning than that life consists in being able to live. This author, with a\nwhimsical gravity, prefaces his definition with the remark, that the\nnature of life has hitherto been sought for in _abstract_ considerations;\nas if it were possible that four more inveterate abstractions could be\nbrought together in one sentence than are here assembled in the words,\nlife, death, function, and resistance. Similar instances might be cited\nfrom Richerand and others. The word Life is translated into other more\nlearned words; and this _paraphrase_ of the _term_ is substituted for the\n_definition_ of the _thing_, and therefore (as is always the case in every\n_real_ definition as contra-distinguished from a _verbal_ definition,) for\nat least a partial _solution_ of the _fact_. Such as these form the\n_first_ class.\u2014The second class takes some one particular function of Life\ncommon to all living objects,\u2014nutrition, for instance; or, to adopt the\nphrase most in vogue at present, assimilation, for the purposes of\nreproduction and growth. Now this, it is evident, can be an appropriate\ndefinition only of the very lowest species, as of a Fungus or a Mollusca;\nand just as comprehensive an idea of the mystery of Life, as a Mollusca\nmight give, can this definition afford. But this is not the only\nobjection. For, _first_, it is not pretended that we begin with seeking\nfor an organ evidently appropriated to nutrition, and then infer that the\nsubstance in which such an organ is found _lives_. On the contrary, in a\nnumber of cases among the obscurer animals and vegetables we infer the\norgan from the pre-established fact of its life. _Secondly_, it identifies\nthe process itself with a certain range of its forms, those, namely, by\nwhich it is manifested in animals and vegetables. For this, too, no less\nthan the former, presupposes the arbitrary division of all things into not\nliving and lifeless, on which, as I before observed, all these definitions\nare grounded. But it is sorry logic to take the proof of an affirmative in\none thing as the proof of the negative in another. All animals that have\nlungs breathe, but it would be a childish oversight to deduce the\nconverse, viz. all animals that breathe have lungs. The theory in which\nthe French chemists organized the discoveries of Black, Cavendish,\nPriestly, Scheele, and other English and German philosophers, is still,\nindeed, the reigning theory, but rather, it should seem, from the absence\nof a rival sufficiently popular to fill the throne in its stead, than from\nthe continuance of an implicit belief in its own stability. We no longer\nat least cherish that intensity of faith which, before Davy commenced his\nbrilliant career, had not only identified it with chemistry itself, but\nhad substituted its nomenclature, even in common conversation, for the far\nmore philosophic language which the human race had abstracted from the\nlaboratory of Nature. I may venture to prophecy that no future Beddoes\nwill make it the corival of the mathematical sciences in demonstrative\nevidence. I think it a matter of doubt whether, during the period of its\nsupposed infallibility, physiology derived more benefit from the\nextension, or injury from the misdirection, of its views. Enough of the\nlatter is fresh in recollection to make it but an equivocal compliment to\na physiological position, that it must stand or fall with the corpuscular\nphilosophy, as modified by the French theory of chemistry. Yet should it\nhappen (and the event is not impossible, nor the supposition altogether\nabsurd,) that more and more decisive facts should present themselves in\nconfirmation of the metamorphosis of elements, the position that life\nconsists in assimilation would either cease to be distinctive, or fall\nback into the former class as an identical proposition, namely, that Life,\nmeaning by the word that sort of growth which takes place by means of a\npeculiar organization, consists in that sort of growth which is peculiar\nto organized life. _Thirdly_, the definition involves a still more\negregious flaw in the reasoning, namely, that of _cum hoc, ergo propter\nhoc_ (or the assumption of causation from mere coexistence); and this,\ntoo, in its very worst form. For it is not _cum hoc solo, ergo propter\nhoc_, which would in many cases supply a presumptive proof by induction,\nbut _cum hoc, et plurimis aliis, ergo propter hoc_! Shell, of some kind or\nother, is common to the whole order of testacea, but it would be absurd to\ndefine the _vis vit\u00e6_ of testaceous animals as existing in the shell,\nthough we know it to be the constant accompaniment, and have every reason\nto believe the constant effect, of the specific life that acts in those\nanimals. Were we (_argumenti __ caus\u00e1_) to imagine shell coextensive with\nthe organized creation, this would produce no abatement in the falsity of\nthe reasoning. Nor does the flaw stop here; for a physiological, that is a\nreal, definition, as distinguished from the verbal definitions of\nlexicography, must consist neither in any single property or function of\nthe thing to be defined, nor yet in all collectively, which latter,\nindeed, would be a history, not a definition. It must consist, therefore,\nin the _law_ of the thing, or in such an _idea_ of it, as, being admitted,\nall the properties and functions are admitted by implication. It must\nlikewise be so far _causal_, that a full insight having been obtained of\nthe law, we derive from it a progressive insight into the necessity and\n_generation_ of the phenomena of which it is the law. Suppose a disease in\nquestion, which appeared always accompanied with certain symptoms in\ncertain stages, and with some one or more symptoms in all stages\u2014say\nderanged digestion, capricious alternation of vivacity and languor,\nheadache, dilated pupil, diminished sensibility to light, &c.\u2014Neither the\nman who selected the one constant symptom, nor he who enumerated all the\nsymptoms, would give the scientific definition _talem scilicet, quali\nscientia fit vel datur_, but the man who at once named and defined the\ndisease hydrocephalus, producing pressure on the brain. For it is the\nessence of a scientific definition to be causative, not by introduction of\nimaginary somewhats, natural or supernatural under the name of causes, but\nby announcing the law of action in the particular case, in subordination\nto the common law of which all the phenomena are modifications or results.\n\nNow in the definition on which, as the representative of a whole class, we\nare _now_ animadverting, a single effect is given as constituting the\ncause. For nutrition by digestion is certainly necessary to life, only\nunder certain circumstances, but that life is previously necessary to\ndigestion is absolutely certain under all circumstances. Besides, what\nother phenomenon of Life would the conception of assimilation, _per se_,\nor as it exists in the lowest order of animals, involve or explain? How,\nfor instance, does it include sensation, locomotion, or habit? or if the\ntwo former should be taken as distinct from life, _toto genere_, and\nsupervenient to it, we then ask what conception is given of _vital_\nassimilation as contradistinguished from that of the nucleus of a crystal?\n\n_Lastly_, this definition confounds the Law of Life, or the primary and\nuniversal form of vital agency, with the conception, Animals. For the\nkind, it substitutes the representative of its degrees and modifications.\nBut the first and most important office of science, physical or\nphysiological, is to contemplate the power in kind, abstracted from the\ndegree. The ideas of caloric, whether as substance or property, and the\nconceptions of latent heat, the heat in ice, &c., that excite the wonder\nor the laughter of the vulgar, though susceptible of the most important\npractical applications, are the result of this abstraction; while the only\npurpose to which a definition like the preceding could become subservient,\nwould be in supplying a nomenclature with the character of the most common\nspecies of a genus\u2014its _genus generalissimum_, and even this would be\nuseless in the present instance, inasmuch as it presupposes the knowledge\nof the things characterised.\n\nThe third class, and far superior to the two former, selects some property\ncharacteristic of all living bodies, not merely found in all _animals_\nalike, but existing equally in all parts of all living things, both\nanimals and plants. Such, for instance, is the definition of Life, as\nconsisting in anti-putrescence, or the power of resisting putrefaction.\nLike all the others, however, even this confines the idea of Life to those\ndegrees or concentrations of it, which manifest themselves in organized\nbeings, or rather in those the organization of which is apparent to us.\nConsequently, it substitutes an abstract term, or generalization of\neffects, for the idea, or superior form of causative agency. At best, it\ndescribes the _vis vit\u00e1_ by one only of its many influences. It is\nhowever, as we have said before, preferable to the former, because it is\nnot, as they are, altogether unfruitful, inasmuch as it attests, less\nequivocally than any other sign, the presence or absence of that degree of\nthe _vis vit\u00e1_ which is the necessary condition of organic or\nself-renewing power. It throws no light, however, on the law or principle\nof action; it does not increase our insight into the other phenomena; it\npresents to us no _inclusive_ form, out of which the other forms may be\ndeveloped, and finally, its defect as a definition may be detected by\ngeneralizing it into a higher formula, as a power which, during its\ncontinuance, resists or subordinates heterogeneous and adverse powers. Now\nthis holds equally true of chemical relatively to the mechanical powers;\nand really affirms no more of Life than may be equally affirmed of every\nform of being, namely, that it tends to preserve itself, and resists, to a\ncertain extent, whatever is incompatible with the laws that constitute its\nparticular state for the time being. For it is not true only of the great\ndivisions or classes into which we have found it expedient to distinguish,\nwhile we generalize, the powers acting in nature, as into intellectual,\nvital, chemical, mechanical; but it holds equally true of the degrees, or\nspecies of each of these genera relatively to each other: as in the\ndecomposition of the alkalies by heat, or the galvanic spark. Like the\ncombining power of Life, the copula here resists for awhile the attempts\nto dissolve it, and then yields, to reappear in new phenomena.\n\nIt is a wonderful property of the human mind, that when once a momentum\nhas been given to it in a fresh direction, it pursues the new path with\nobstinate perseverance, in all conceivable bearings, to its utmost\nextremes. And by the startling consequences which arise out of these\nextremes, it is first awakened to its error, and either recalled to some\nformer track, or receives some fresh impulse, which it follows with the\nsame eagerness, and admits to the same monopoly. Thus in the 13th century\nthe first science which roused the intellects of men from the torpor of\nbarbarism, was, as in all countries ever has been, and ever must be the\ncase, the science of _Metaphysics_ and _Ontology_. We first seek what can\nbe found at home, and what wonder if truths, that appeared to reveal the\nsecret depths of our own souls, should take possession of the whole mind,\nand all truths appear trivial which could not either be evolved out of\nsimilar principles, by the same process, or at least brought under the\nsame forms of thought, by perceived or imagined analogies? And so it was.\nFor more than a century men continued to invoke the oracle of their own\nspirits, not only concerning its own forms and modes of being, but\nlikewise concerning the laws of external nature. All attempts at\nphilosophical explication were commenced by a mere effort of the\nunderstanding, as the power of abstraction; or by the imagination,\ntransferring its own experiences to every object presented from without.\nBy the former, a class of phenomena were in the first place abstracted,\nand fixed in some general term: of course this could designate only the\nimpressions made by the outward objects, and so far, therefore, having\nbeen thus metamorphosed, they were effects of these objects; but then made\nto supply the place of their own causes, under the name of occult\nqualities. Thus the properties peculiar to gold, were abstracted from\nthose it possessed in common with other bodies, and then generalized in\nthe term _Aureity_: and the inquirer was instructed that the Essence of\nGold, or the cause which constituted the peculiar modification of matter\ncalled gold, was the power of aureity. By the latter, _i.e._ by the\nimagination, thought and will were superadded to the occult quality, and\nevery form of nature had its appropriate Spirit, to be controlled or\nconciliated by an appropriate ceremonial. This was entitled its\nSUBSTANTIAL FORM. Thus, physic became a sort of dull poetry, and the art\nof medicine (for physiology could scarcely be said to exist) was a system\nof magic, blended with traditional empiricism. Thus the forms of thought\nproceeded to act in their own emptiness, with no attempt to fill or\nsubstantiate them by the information of the senses, and all the branches\nof science formed so many sections of logic and metaphysics. And so it\ncontinued, even to the time that the Reformation sounded the second\ntrumpet, and the authority of the schools sank with that of the hierarchy,\nunder the intellectual courage and activity which this great revolution\nhad inspired. Power, once awakened, cannot rest in one object. All the\nsciences partook of the new influences. The world of experimental\nphilosophy was soon mapped out for posterity by the comprehensive and\nenterprising genius of Bacon, and the laws explained by which experiment\ncould be dignified into experience.(2) But no sooner was the impulse\ngiven, than the same propensity was made manifest of looking at all things\nin the one point of view which chanced to be of predominant attraction.\nOur Gilbert, a man of genuine philosophical genius, had no sooner\nmultiplied the facts of magnetism, and extended our knowledge concerning\nthe property of magnetic bodies, but all things in heaven, and earth, and\nin the waters beneath the earth, were resolved into magnetic influences.\n\nShortly after a new light was struck by Harriott and Descartes, with their\ncontemporaries, or immediate predecessors, and the restoration of ancient\ngeometry, aided by the modern invention of algebra, placed the science of\nmechanism on the philosophic throne. How widely this domination spread,\nand how long it continued, if, indeed, even now it can be said to have\nabdicated its pretensions, the reader need not be reminded. The sublime\ndiscoveries of Newton, and, together with these, his not less fruitful\nthan wonderful application, of the higher mathesis to the movements of the\ncelestial bodies, and to the laws of light, gave almost a religious\nsanction to the corpuscular system and mechanical theory. It became\nsynonymous with philosophy itself. It was the sole portal at which truth\nwas permitted to enter. The human body was treated of as an hydraulic\nmachine, the operations of medicine were solved, and alas! even directed\nby reference partly to gravitation and the laws of motion, and partly by\nchemistry, which itself, however, as far as its theory was concerned, was\nbut a branch of mechanics working exclusively by imaginary wedges, angles,\nand spheres. Should the reader chance to put his hand on the \u201cPrinciples\nof Philosophy,\u201d by La Forge, an immediate disciple of Descartes, he may\nsee the phenomena of sleep solved in a copper-plate engraving, with all\nthe figures into which the globules of the blood shaped themselves, and\nthe results demonstrated by mathematical calculations. In short, from the\ntime of Kepler(3) to that of Newton, and from Newton to Hartley, not only\nall things in external nature, but the subtlest mysteries of life and\norganization, and even of the intellect and moral being, were conjured\nwithin the magic circle of mathematical formul\u00e6. And now a new light was\nstruck by the discovery of electricity, and, in every sense of the word,\nboth playful and serious, both for good and for evil, it may be affirmed\nto have electrified the whole frame of natural philosophy. Close on its\nheels followed the momentous discovery of the principal gases by Scheele\nand Priestly, the composition of water by Cavendish, and the doctrine of\nlatent heat by Black. The scientific world was prepared for a new dynasty;\naccordingly, as soon as Lavoisier had reduced the infinite variety of\nchemical phenomena to the actions, reactions, and interchanges of a few\nelementary substances, or at least excited the expectation that this would\nspeedily be effected, the hope shot up, almost instantly, into full faith,\nthat it had been effected. Henceforward the new path, thus brilliantly\nopened, became the common road to all departments of knowledge: and, to\nthis moment, it has been pursued with an eagerness and almost epidemic\nenthusiasm which, scarcely less than its political revolutions,\ncharacterise the spirit of the age. Many and inauspicious have been the\ninvasions and inroads of this new conqueror into the rightful territories\nof other sciences; and strange alterations have been made in less harmless\npoints than those of terminology, in homage to an art unsettled, in the\nvery ferment of imperfect discoveries, and either without a theory, or\nwith a theory maintained only by composition and compromise. Yet this very\ncircumstance has favoured its encroachments, by the gratifications which\nits novelty affords to our curiosity, and by the keener interest and\nhigher excitement which an unsettled and revolutionary state is sure to\ninspire. He who supposes that science possesses an immunity from such\ninfluences knows little of human nature. How, otherwise, could men of\nstrong minds and sound judgments have attempted to penetrate by the clue\nof chemical experiment the secret recesses, the sacred adyta of organic\nlife, without being aware that chemistry must needs be at its extreme\nlimits, when it has approached the threshold of a higher power? Its own\ntransgressions, however, and the failure of its enterprises will become\nthe means of defining its absolute boundary, and we shall have to guard\nagainst the opposite error of rejecting its aid altogether as analogy,\nbecause we have repelled its ambitious claims to an identity with the\nvital powers.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nPreviously to the submitting my own ideas on the subject of life, and the\npowers into which it resolves itself, or rather in which it is manifested\nto us, I have hazarded this apparent digression from the anxiety to\n_preclude certain suspicions_, which the subject itself is so fitted to\nawaken, and while I anticipate the charges, to plead in answer to each a\nfull and unequivocal\u2014not guilty!\n\nIn the first place, therefore, I distinctly disclaim all intention of\nexplaining life into an occult quality; and retort the charge on those who\ncan satisfy themselves with defining it as the peculiar power by which\ndeath is resisted.\n\nSecondly. Convinced\u2014by revelation, by the consenting authority of all\ncountries, and of all ages, by the imperative voice of my own conscience,\nand by that wide chasm between man and the noblest animals of the brute\ncreation, which no perceivable or conceivable difference of organization\nis sufficient to overbridge\u2014that I have a rational and responsible soul, I\nthink far too reverentially of the same to degrade it into an hypothesis,\nand cannot be blind to the contradiction I must incur, if I assign that\nsoul which I believe to constitute the peculiar nature of man as the cause\nof functions and properties, which man possesses in common with the oyster\nand the mushroom.(4)\n\nThirdly, while I disclaim the error of Stahl in deriving the phenomena of\nlife from the unconscious actions of the rational soul, I repel with still\ngreater earnestness the assertion and even the supposition that the\nfunctions are the offspring of the structure, and \u201cLife(5) the result of\norganization,\u201d connected with it as effect with cause. Nay, the position\nseems to me little less strange, than as if a man should say, that\nbuilding with all the included handicraft, of plastering, sawing, planing,\n&c. were the offspring of the house; and that the mason and carpenter were\nthe result of a suite of chambers, with the passages and staircases that\nlead to them. To make A the offspring of B, when the very existence of B\nas B presupposes the existence of A, is preposterous in the _literal_\nsense of the word, and a consummate instance of the _hysteron proteron_ in\nlogic. But if I reject the organ as the cause of that, of which it is the\norgan, though I might admit it among the _conditions_ of its actual\nfunctions; for the same reason, I must reject _fluids_ and _ethers_ of all\nkinds, magnetical, electrical, and universal, to whatever quintessential\nthinness they may be treble distilled, and (as it were)\nsuper-substantiated. With these, I abjure likewise all _chemical_\nagencies, compositions, and decompositions, were it only that as\nstimulants they suppose a stimulability _sui generis_, which is but\nanother paraphrase for life. Or if they are themselves at once both the\nexcitant and the excitability, I miss the connecting link between this\nimaginary ether and the visible body, which then becomes no otherwise\ndistinguished from inanimate matter, than by its juxtaposition in mere\nspace, with an heterogeneous inmate, the cycle of whose actions revolves\nwithin itself. Besides which I should think that I was confounding\nmetaphors and realities most absurdly, if I imagined that I had a greater\ninsight into the meaning and possibility of a living alcohol, than of a\nliving quicksilver. In short, visible _surface_ and _power_ of any kind,\nmuch more the _power_ of life, are ideas which the very forms of the human\nunderstanding make it impossible to identify. But whether the powers which\nmanifest themselves to us under certain conditions in the forms of\nelectricity, or chemical attraction, have any analogy to the power which\nmanifests itself in growth and organization, is altogether a different\nquestion, and demands altogether a different chain of reasoning: if it be\nindeed a tree of knowledge, it will be known by its fruits, and these will\ndepends not on the mere assertion, but on the inductions by which the\nposition is supported, and by the additions which it makes to our insight\ninto the nature of the facts it is meant to illustrate.\n\nTo _account_ for Life is one thing; to explain Life another. In the first\nwe are supposed to state something prior (if not in time, yet in the order\nof Nature) to the thing accounted for, as the ground or cause of that\nthing, or (which comprises the meaning and force of both words) as its\n_sufficient cause, quae et facit, et subest_. And to this, in the question\nof Life, I know no possible answer, but GOD. To account for a thing is to\nsee into the principle of its possibility, and from that principle to\nevolve its being. Thus the mathematician demonstrates the truths of\ngeometry by constructing them. It is an admirable remark of Joh. Bapt. a\nVico, in a Tract published at Naples, 1710,(6) \u201cGeometrica ide\u00f2\ndemonstramus, quia facimus; physica si demonstrare possimus, faceremus.\nMetaphysici veri claritas eadem ac lucis, quam non nisi per opaca\ncognoscimus; nam non lucem sed lucidas res videmus. Physica sunt opaca,\nnempe formata et finita, in quibus Metaphysici veri lumen videmus.\u201d The\nreasoner who assigns structure or organization as the antecedent of Life,\nwho names the former a cause, and the _latter_ its effect, _he_ it is who\npretends to account for life. Now Euclid would, with great right, demand\nof such a philosopher to _make_ Life; in the same sense, I mean, in which\nEuclid makes an Icosahedron, or a figure of twenty sides, namely, in the\nunderstanding or by an intellectual construction. An argument which, of\nitself, is sufficient to prove the untenable nature of Materialism.\n\nTo explain a power, on the other hand, is (the power itself being assumed,\nthough not comprehended, _ut qui datur, non intelligitur_) to unfold or\nspread it out: _ex implicito planum facere_. In the present instance, such\nan explanation would consist in the reduction of the idea of Life to its\nsimplest and most comprehensive form or mode of action; that is, to some\ncharacteristic _instinct_ or _tendency_, evident in all its\nmanifestations, and involved in the idea itself. This assumed as existing\nin _kind_, it will be required to present an ascending series of\ncorresponding phenomena as involved _in_, proceeding _from_, and so far\ntherefore explained _by_, the supposition of its progressive intensity and\nof the gradual enlargement of its sphere, the necessity of which again\nmust be contained in the idea of the tendency itself. In other words, the\ntendency having been given in _kind_, it is required to render the\nphenomena intelligible as its different degrees and modifications. Still\nmore perfect will the explanation be, should the necessity of this\nprogression and of these ascending gradations be contained in the assumed\nidea of life, as thus defined by the general form and common purport of\nall its various tendencies. This done, we have only to add the conditions\ncommon to all its phenomena, and, those appropriate to each place and\nrank, in the scale of ascent, and then proceed to determine the primary\nand constitutive forms, _i.e._ the elementary powers in which this\ntendency realizes itself under different degrees and conditions.(7)\n\nWhat is Life? Were such a question proposed, we should be tempted to\nanswer, what is _not_ Life that really _is_? Our reason convinces us that\nthe quantities of things, taken abstractedly as quantity, exist only in\nthe relations they bear to the percipient; in plainer words, they exist\nonly in our minds, _ut quorum esse est percipi_. For if the definite\nquantities have a ground, and therefore a reality, in the external world,\nand independent of the mind that perceives them, this ground is _ipso\nfacto_ a quality; the very etymon of this world showing that a quality,\nnot taken in its own nature but in relation to another thing, is to be\ndefined _causa sufficiens, entia, de quibus loquimur; esse talia, qualia\nsunt_. Either the quantities perceived exist only in the perception, or\nthey have likewise a real existence. In the former case, the quality (the\nword is here used in an active sense) that determines them belongs to\nLife, _per ipsam hypothesin_; and in the other case, since by the\nagreement of all parties Life may exist in other forms than those of\nconsciousness, or even of sensibility, the _onus probandi_ falls on those\nwho assert of any quality that it is _not_ Life. For the analogy of all\nthat we know is clearly in favour of the contrary supposition, and if a\nman would analyse the meaning of his own words, and carefully distinguish\nhis perceptions and sensations from the external cause exciting them, and\nat the same time from the quantity or superficies under which that cause\nis acting, he would instantly find himself, if we mistake not,\ninvoluntarily identifying the ideas of Quality and Life. Life, it is\nadmitted on all hands, does not necessarily imply consciousness or\nsensibility; and we, for our parts, cannot see that the irritability which\nmetals manifest to galvanism, can be more remote from that which may be\nsupposed to exist in the tribe of lichens, or in the helvell\u00e6, pezizee,\n&c., than the latter is from the phenomena of excitability in the human\nbody, whatever name it may be called by, or in whatever way it may modify\nitself.(8) That the mere act of growth does not constitute the idea of\nLife, or the absence of that act exclude it, we have a proof in every egg\nbefore it is placed under the hen, and in every grain of corn before it is\nput into the soil. All that could be deduced by fair reasoning would\namount to this only, that the life of metals, as the power which effects\nand determines their comparative cohesion, ductility, &c., was yet lower\non the scale than the Life which produces the first attempts of\norganization, in the almost shapeless tremella, or in such fungi as grow\nin the dark recesses of the mine.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nIf it were asked, to what purpose or with what view we should generalize\nthe idea of Life thus broadly, I should not hesitate to reply that, were\nthere no other use conceivable, there would be _some_ advantage in merely\ndestroying an arbitrary assumption in natural philosophy, and in reminding\nthe physiologists that they could not hear the life of metals asserted\nwith a more contemptuous surprise than they themselves incur from the\nvulgar, when they speak of the Life in mould or mucor. But this is not the\ncase. This wider view not only precludes a groundless assumption, it\nlikewise fills up the arbitrary chasm between physics and physiology, and\njustifies us in using the former as means of insight into the latter,\nwhich would be contrary to all sound rules of ratiocination if the powers\nworking in the objects of the two sciences were absolutely and essentially\ndiverse. For as to abstract the idea of _kind_ from that of _degrees_,\nwhich are alone designated in the language of common use, is the first and\nindispensable step in philosophy, so are we the better enabled to form a\nnotion of the _kind_, the lower the _degree_, and the simpler the form is\nin which it appears to us. We study the complex in the simple; and only\nfrom the intuition of the lower can we safely proceed to the intellection\nof the higher degrees. The only danger lies in the leaping from low to\nhigh, with the neglect of the intervening gradations. But the same error\nwould introduce discord into the gamut, _et ab abusu contra usum non valet\nconsequentia_. That these degrees will themselves bring forth secondary\nkinds sufficiently distinct for all the purposes of science, and even for\ncommon sense, will be seen in the course of this inquisition: for this is\none proof of the essential vitality of nature, that she does not ascend as\nlinks in a suspended chain, but as the steps in a ladder; or rather she at\none and the same time _ascends_ as by a climax, and expands as the\nconcentric circles on the lake from the point to which the stone in its\nfall had given the first impulse. At all events, a contemptuous rejection\nof this mode of reasoning would come with an ill grace from a medical\nphilosopher, who cannot combine any three phenomena of health or of\ndisease without the assumption of powers, which he is compelled to deduce\nwithout being able to demonstrate; nay, even of material substances as the\n_vehicles_ of these powers, which he can never expect to exhibit before\nthe senses.\n\nFrom the preceding it should appear, that the most comprehensive formula\nto which life is reducible, would be that of the internal copula of\nbodies, or (if we may venture to borrow a phrase from the Platonic school)\nthe _power_ which discloses itself from within as a principle of _unity_\nin the _many_. But that there is a physiognomy in words, which, without\nreference to their fitness or necessity, make unfavorable as well as\nfavorable impressions, and that every unusual term in an abstruse research\nincurs the risk of being denominated jargon, I should at the same time\nhave borrowed a scholastic _term_, and defined life _absolutely_, as the\nprinciple of unity in _multeity_, as far as the former, the unity to wit,\nis produced _ab intra_; but _eminently_ (_sensu eminenti_), I define life\nas _the principle of individuation_, or the power which unites a given\n_all_ into a _whole_ that is presupposed by all its parts. The link that\ncombines the two, and acts throughout both, will, of course, be defined by\nthe _tendency_ to _individuation_. Thus, from its utmost _latency_, in\nwhich life is one with the elementary powers of mechanism, that is, with\nthe powers of mechanism considered as qualitative and actually synthetic,\nto its highest manifestation, (in which, as the _vis vit\u00e6 vivida_, or life\n_as_ life, it subordinates and modifies these powers, becoming\ncontra-distinguished from mechanism,(9) _ab extra_, under the form of\norganization,) there is an ascending series of intermediate classes, and\nof analogous gradations in each class. To a reflecting mind, indeed, the\nvery fact that the powers peculiar to life in living animals _include_\ncohesion, elasticity, &c. (or, in the words of a late publication, \u201cthat\nliving matter exhibits these physical properties,\u201d(10)) would demonstrate\nthat, in the truth of things, they are homogeneous, and that both the\nclasses are but degrees and different dignities of one and the same\ntendency. For the latter are not subjected to the former as a lever, or\nwalking-stick to the muscles; the more intense the life is, the less does\n_elasticity_, for instance, appear _as_ elasticity. It sinks down into the\nnearest approach to its _physical_ form by a series of degrees from the\ncontraction and elongation of the irritable muscle to the physical\nhardness of the insensitive nail. The lower powers are _assimilated_, not\nmerely _employed_, and assimilation presupposes the homogeneous nature of\nthe thing assimilated; else it is a miracle, only not the same as that of\na _creation_, because it would imply that additional and equal miracle of\nannihilation. In short, all the impossibilities which the acutest of the\nreformed Divines have detected in the hypothesis of transubstantiation\nwould apply, _totidem verbis et syllabis_, to that of assimilation, if the\nobjects and the agents were really heterogeneous. Unless, therefore, a\nthing can exhibit properties which do not belong to it, the very admission\nthat living matter exhibits physical properties, includes the further\nadmission, that those _physical_ or dead properties are themselves vital\nin essence, really _distinct_ but in appearance only _different_; or in\nabsolute contrast with each other.\n\nIn all cases that which, _abstractly_ taken, is the definition of the\n_kind_, will, when applied _absolutely_, or in its fullest sense, be the\ndefinition of the highest _degree_ of that kind. If life, in general, be\ndefined _vis ab intra, cujus proprium est coadunare plura in rem unicam,\nquant\u00f9m est res unica_; the unity will be more intense in proportion as it\nconstitutes each particular thing a whole of itself; and yet more, again,\nin proportion to the number and interdependence of the parts, which it\nunites as a whole. But a whole composed, _ab intra_, of different parts,\nso far interdependent that each is reciprocally means and end, is an\nindividual, and the individuality is most intense where the greatest\ndependence of the parts on the whole is combined with the greatest\ndependence of the whole on its parts; the first (namely, the dependence of\nthe parts on the whole) being absolute; the second (namely, the dependence\nof the whole on its parts) being proportional to the importance of the\nrelation which the parts have to the whole, that is, as their action\nextends more or less beyond themselves. For this spirit of the whole is\nmost expressed in that part which derives its importance as an End from\nits importance as a Mean, relatively to all the parts under the same\ncopula.\n\nFinally, of individuals, the living power will be most intense in that\nindividual which, as a whole, has the greatest number of integral parts\npresupposed in it; when, moreover, these integral parts, together with a\nproportional increase of their interdependence, as _parts_, have\nthemselves most the character of wholes in the sphere occupied by them. A\nmathematical point, line, or surface, is an _ens rationis_, for it\nexpresses an intellectual act; but a physical atom is _ens fictitium_,\nwhich may be made subservient, as ciphers are in arithmetic, to the\npurposes of hypothetical construction, _per regulam falsi_; but\ntransferred to _Nature_, it is in the strictest sense an _absurd_\nquantity; for extension, and consequently divisibility, or _multeity_,(11)\n(for space cannot be divided,) is the indispensable condition, under which\nalone anything can _appear_ to us, or even be _thought_ of, as a _thing_.\nBut if it should be replied, that the elementary particles are atoms not\npositively, but by such a hardness communicated to them as is relatively\ninvincible, I should remind the assertor that _temeraria citatio\nsupernaturalium est pulvinar intellect\u00fas pigri_, and that he who requires\nme to believe a miracle of his own dreaming, must first work a miracle to\nconvince me that he had dreamt by inspiration. Add, too, the gross\ninconsistency of resorting to an immaterial influence in order to complete\na system of materialism, by the exclusion of all modes of existence which\nthe theorist cannot in imagination, at least, _finger_ and _peep_ at! Each\nof the preceding gradations, as above defined, might be represented as\nthey exist, and are realised in Nature. But each would require a work for\nitself, co-extensive with the science of metals, and that of fossils (both\nas geologically applied); of crystallization; and of vegetable and animal\nphysiology, in all its distinct branches. The nature of the present essay\nscarcely permits the space sufficient to illustrate our meaning. The proof\nof its probability (for to that only can we arrive by so partial an\napplication of the hypothesis), is to be found in its powers of solving\nthe particular class of phenomena, that form the subjects of the present\ninquisition, more satisfactorily and profitably than has been done, or\neven attempted before.\n\nExclusively, therefore, for the purposes of _illustration_, I would take\nas an instance of the first step, the metals, those, namely, that are\ncapable of permanent reduction. For, by the established laws of\nnomenclature, the others (as sodium, potassium, calcium, silicium, &c.)\nwould be entitled to a class of their own, under the name of _bases_. It\nis long since the chemists have despaired of decomposing this class of\nbodies. They still remain, one and all, as elements or simple bodies,\nthough, on the principles of the corpuscularian philosophy, nothing can be\nmore improbable than that they really are such; and no reason has or can\nbe assigned on the grounds of that system, why, in no one instance, the\ncontrary has not been proved. But this is at once explained, if we assume\nthem as the simplest form of unity, namely, the unity of powers and\nproperties. For these, it is evident, may be endlessly modified, but can\nnever be decomposed. If I were asked by a philosopher who had previously\nextended the attribute of Life to the _Byssus speciosa_, and even to the\ncrustaceous matter, or outward bones of a lobster, &c., whether the ingot\nof gold expressed _life_, I should answer without hesitation, as the\n_ingot_ of gold assuredly not, for its form is accidental and _ab extra_.\nIt may be added to or detracted from without in the least affecting the\nnature, state, or properties in the specific matter of which the ingot\nconsists. But as _gold_, as that special union of absolute and of relative\ngravity, ductility, and hardness, which, wherever they are found,\nconstitute _gold_, I should answer no less fearlessly, in the affirmative.\nBut I should further add, that of the two counteracting tendencies of\nnature, namely, that of _detachment_ from the universal life, which\nuniversality is represented to us by gravitation, and that of _attachment_\nor reduction into it, this and the other noble metals represented the\nunits in which the latter tendency, namely, that of identity with the life\nof nature, subsisted in the greatest overbalance over the former. It is\nthe form of unity with the least degree of tendency to individuation.\n\nRising in the ascent, I should take, as illustrative of the second step,\nthe various forms of crystals as a union, not of powers only, but of\nparts, and as the simplest forms of composition in the next narrowest\nsphere of affinity. Here the form, or apparent _quantity_, is manifestly\nthe result of the _quality_, and the chemist himself not seldom admits\nthem as infallible characters of the substances united in the whole of a\ngiven crystal.\n\nIn the first step, we had Life, as the mere _unity_ of powers; in the\nsecond we have the simplest forms of _totality_ evolved. The third step is\npresented to us in those vast formations, the tracing of which generically\nwould form the science of Geology, or its history in the strict sense of\nthe word, even as their description and diagnostics constitute its\npreliminaries.\n\nTheir claim to this rank I cannot here even attempt to support. It will be\nsufficient to explain my reason for having assigned it to them, by the\navowal, that I regard them in a twofold point of view: 1st, as the residue\nand product of vegetable and animal life; 2d, as manifesting the\ntendencies of the Life of Nature to vegetation or animalization. And this\nprocess I believe\u2014in one instance by the peat morasses of the northern,\nand in the other instance by the coral banks of the southern hemisphere\u2014to\nbe still connected with the present order of vegetable and animal Life,\nwhich constitute the fourth and last step in these wide and comprehensive\ndivisions.\n\nIn the lowest forms of the vegetable and animal world we perceive totality\ndawning into _individuation_, while in man, as the highest of the class,\nthe individuality is not only perfected in its corporeal sense, but begins\na new series beyond the appropriate limits of physiology. The tendency to\nindividuation, more or less obscure, more or less obvious, constitutes the\ncommon character of all classes, as far as they maintain for themselves a\ndistinction from the universal life of the planet; while the degrees, both\nof intensity and extension, to which this tendency is realized, form the\nspecies, and their ranks in the great scale of ascent and expansion.\n\nIn the treatment of a subject so vast and complex, within the limits\nprescribed for an essay like the present, where it is impossible not to\nsay either too much or too little (and too much because too little), an\nauthor is entitled to make large claims on the candour of his judges. Many\nthings he must express inaccurately, not from ignorance or oversight, but\nbecause the more precise expression would have involved the necessity of a\nfurther explanation, and this another, even to the first elements of the\nscience. This is an inconvenience which presses on the analytic method, on\nhowever large a scale it may be conducted, compared with the synthetic;\nand it must bear with a tenfold weight in the present instance, where we\nare not permitted to avail ourselves of its usual advantages as a\ncounterbalance to its inherent defects. I shall have done all that I dared\npropose to myself, or that can be justly demanded of me by others, if I\nhave succeeded in conveying a sufficiently clear, though indistinct and\ninadequate notion, so as of its many results to render intelligible that\none which I am to apply to my particular subject, not as a truth already\ndemonstrated, but as an hypothesis, which pretends to no higher merit than\nthat of explaining the particular class of phenomena to which it is\napplied, and asks no other reward than a presumption in favour of the\ngeneral system of which it affirms itself to be a dependent though\nintegral part. By Life I everywhere mean the true Idea of Life, or that\nmost general form under which Life manifests itself to us, which includes\nall its other forms. This I have stated to be the _tendency to\nindividuation_, and the degrees or intensities of Life to consist in the\nprogressive realization of this tendency. The power which is acknowledged\nto exist, wherever the realization is found, must subsist wherever the\ntendency is manifested. The power which comes forth and stirs abroad in\nthe bird, must be latent in the egg. I have shown, moreover, that this\ntendency to individuate cannot be conceived without the opposite tendency\nto connect, even as the centrifugal power supposes the centripetal, or as\nthe two opposite poles constitute each other, and are the constituent acts\nof one and the same power in the magnet. We might say that the life of the\nmagnet subsists in their union, but that it lives (acts or manifests\nitself) in their strife. Again, if the tendency be at once to individuate\nand to connect, to detach, but so as either to retain or to reproduce\nattachment, the individuation itself must be a tendency to the ultimate\nproduction of the highest and most comprehensive individuality. This must\nbe the one great end of Nature, her ultimate object, or by whatever other\nword we may designate that something which bears to a final cause the same\nrelation that Nature herself bears to the Supreme Intelligence.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nAccording to the plan I have prescribed for this inquisition, we are now\nto seek for the highest law, or most general form, under which this\ntendency acts, and then to pursue the same process with this, as we have\nalready done with the tendency itself, namely, having stated the law in\nits highest abstraction, to present it in the different forms in which it\nappears and reappears in higher and higher dignities. I restate the\nquestion. The tendency having been ascertained, what is its most general\nlaw? I answer\u2014_polarity_, or the essential dualism of Nature, arising out\nof its productive unity, and still tending to reaffirm it, either as\nequilibrium, indifference, or identity. In its _productive power_, of\nwhich the product is the only measure, consists its incompatibility with\nmathematical calculus. For the full applicability of an abstract science\nceases, the moment reality begins.(12) Life, then, we consider as the\ncopula, or the unity of thesis and antithesis, position and\ncounterposition,\u2014Life itself being the positive of both; as, on the other\nhand, the two counterpoints are the necessary conditions of the\n_manifestations_ of Life. These, by the same necessity, unite in a\nsynthesis; which again, by the law of dualism, essential to all actual\nexistence, expands, or _produces_ itself, from the point into the _line_,\nin order again to converge, as the initiation of the same productive\nprocess in some intenser form of reality. Thus, in the identity of the two\ncounter-powers, Life _sub_sists; in their strife it _con_sists: and in\ntheir reconciliation it at once dies and is born again into a new form,\neither falling back into the life of the whole, or starting anew in the\nprocess of individuation.\n\nWhence shall we take our beginning? From Space, _istud litigium\nphilosophorum_, which leaves the mind equally dissatisfied, whether we\ndeny or assert its real existence. To make it wholly ideal, would be at\nthe same time to idealize all phenomena, and to undermine the very\nconception of an external world. To make it real, would be to assert the\nexistence of something, with the properties of nothing. It would far\ntranscend the height to which a physiologist must confine his flights,\nshould we attempt to reconcile this apparent contradiction. It is the duty\nand the privilege of the theologian to demonstrate, that _space_ is the\nideal organ by which the soul of man perceives the _omnipresence_ of the\nSupreme Reality, as distinct from the works, which in him move, and live,\nand have their being; while the equal mystery of _Time_ bears the same\nrelation to his _Eternity_, or what is fully equivalent, his Unity.\n\nPhysiologically contemplated, Nature begins, proceeds, and ends in a\ncontradiction; for the moment of absolute solution would be that in which\nNature would cease to be Nature, _i.e._ a scheme of ever-varying\nrelations; and physiology, in the ambitious attempt to solve phenomena\ninto absolute realities, would itself become a mere web of verbal\nabstractions.\n\nBut it is in strict connexion with our subject, that we should make the\nuniversal FORMS as well as the not less universal LAW of Life, clear and\nintelligible in the example of _Time_ and _Space_, these being both the\nfirst specification of the principle, and ever after its indispensable\nsymbols. First, a single act of self-inquiry will show the impossibility\nof distinctly conceiving the one without some involution of the other;\neither time expressed in space, in the form of the mathematical line, or\nspace within time, as in the circle. But to form the first conception of a\n_real_ thing, we state both as one in the idea, _duration_. The formula\nis: (A=B+B=A)=(A=A) or the oneness of space and time, is the predicate of\nall _real_ being.\n\nBut as little can we conceive the oneness, except as the mid-point\nproducing itself on each side; that is, manifesting itself on two opposite\npoles. Thus, from identity we derive duality, and from both together we\nobtain polarity, synthesis, indifference, predominance. The line is Time +\nSpace, under the predominance of Time: Surface is Space + Time, under the\npredominance of Space, while Line + Surface as the synthesis of units, is\nthe circle in the first dignity; to the sphere in the second; and to the\nglobe in the third. In short, neither can the antagonists appear but as\ntwo forces of one power, nor can the power be conceived by us but as the\nequatorial point of the two counteracting forces; of which the\n_hypomochlion_ of the lever is as good an illustration as anything can be\nthat is thought of _mechanically_ only, and exclusively of life. To make\nit adequate, we must substitute the idea of positive production for that\nof rest, or mere neutralization. To the fancy alone it is the null-point,\nor zero, but to the reason it is the _punctum saliens_, and the power\nitself in its eminence. Even in these, the most abstract and universal\nforms of all thought and perception\u2014even in the ideas of time and space,\nwe slip under them, as it were, a _substratum_; for we cannot think of\nthem but as far as they are co-inherent, and therefore as reciprocally the\nmeasures of each other. Nor, again, can we finish the process without\nhaving the idea of _motion_ as its immediate product. Thus we say, that\ntime has one dimension, and imagine it to ourselves as a line. But the\nline we have already proved to be the productive synthesis of time, with\nspace under the predominance of time. If we exclude space by an abstract\nassumption, the time remains as a spaceless point, and represents the\nconcentered power of unity and active negation, _i.e._ retraction,\ndetermination, and limit, _ab intra_. But if we assume the time as\nexcluded, the line vanishes, and we leave space dimensionless, an\nindistinguishable ALL, and therefore the representative of absolute\nweakness and formlessness, but, for that very reason, of infinite capacity\nand formability.\n\nWe have been thus full and express on this subject, because these simple\nideas of time, space, and motion, of length, breadth, and depth, are not\nonly the simplest and universal, but the necessary symbols of all\nphilosophic construction. They will be found the primary factors and\nelementary forms of every calculus and of every diagram in the algebra and\ngeometry of a scientific physiology. Accordingly, we shall recognise the\nsame forms under other names; but at each return more specific and\nintense; and the whole process repeated with ascending gradations of\nreality, _exempli grati\u00e2_: Time + space = motion; T_m_ + space = line +\nbreadth = depth; depth + motion = force; L_f_ + B_f_ = D_f_; LD_f_ + BD_f_\n= attraction + repulsion = gravitation; and so on, even till they pass\ninto outward phenomena, and form the intermediate link between productive\npowers and fixed products in light, heat, and electricity. If we pass to\nthe construction of matter, we find it as the product, or _tertium aliud_,\nof antagonist powers of repulsion and attraction. Remove these powers, and\nthe conception of matter vanishes into space\u2014conceive repulsion only, and\nyou have the same result. For infinite repulsion, uncounteracted and\nalone, is tantamount to infinite, dimensionless diffusion, and this again\nto infinite weakness; viz., to space. Conceive attraction alone, and as an\ninfinite contraction, its product amounts to the absolute point, viz., to\ntime. Conceive the synthesis of both, and you have matter as a fluxional\nantecedent, which, in the very act of formation, passes into body by its\ngravity, and yet in all bodies it still remains as their mass, which,\nbeing exclusively calculable under the law of gravitation, gives rise, as\nwe before observed, to the science of statics, most improperly called\ncelestial mechanics.\n\nIn strict consistence with the same philosophy which, instead of\nconsidering the powers of bodies to have been miraculously stuck into a\nprepared and pre-existing matter, as pins into a pin-cushion, conceives\nthe powers as the productive factors, and the body or phenomenon as the\nfact, product, or fixture; we revert again to potentiated length in the\npower of magnetism; to surface in the power of electricity; and to the\nsynthesis of both, or potentiated depth, in constructive, that is,\nchemical affinity. But while the two factors are as poles to each other,\neach factor has likewise its own poles, and thus in the simple cross\u2014\n\nWith M M, the magnetic line, running from top to bottom, with _f f_ its\nnorthern pole, or pole of attraction; and _m m_ its south, or pole of\nrepulsion, and E E, running from left to right, one of the lines that\nspring from each point of M M, with its east, or pole of contraction, and\n_d_ its west, or pole of diffluence and expansion\u2014we have presented to us\nthe universal quadruplicity, or four elemental forms of power; in the\nendless proportions and modifications of which, the innumerable offspring\nof all-bearing Nature consist. Wisely docile to the suggestions of Nature\nherself, the ancients significantly expressed these forces under the names\nof earth, water, air, and fire; not meaning any tangible or visible\nsubstance so generalized, but the powers predominant, and, as it were, the\nliving basis of each, which no chemical decomposition can ever present to\nthe senses, were it only that their interpenetration and co-inherence\nfirst constitutes them sensible, and is the condition and meaning of\na\u2014_thing_. Already our more truly philosophical naturalists (Ritter, for\ninstance) have begun to generalize the four great elements of chemical\nnomenclature, carbon, azote, oxygen, and hydrogen: the two former as the\npositive and negative pole of the magnetic axis, or as the power of fixity\nand mobility; and the two latter as the opposite poles, or plus and minus\nstates of cosmical electricity, as the powers of contraction and\ndilatation, or of comburence and combustibility. These powers are to each\nother as longitude to latitude, and the poles of each relatively as north\nto south, and as east to west. For surely the reader will find no distrust\nin a system only because Nature, ever consistent with herself, presents us\neverywhere with harmonious and accordant symbols of her consistent\ndoctrines. Nothing would be more easy than, by the ordinary principles of\nsound logic and common sense, to demonstrate the impossibility and expose\nthe absurdity of the corpuscularian or mechanic system, or than to prove\nthe intenable nature of any intermediate system. But we cannot force any\nman into an insight or intuitive possession of the true philosophy,\nbecause we cannot give him abstraction, intellectual intuition, or\nconstructive imagination; because we cannot organize for him an eye that\ncan see, an ear that can listen to, or a heart that can feel, the\nharmonies of Nature, or recognise in her endless forms, the thousand-fold\nrealization of those simple and majestic laws, which yet in their\nabsoluteness can be discovered only in the recesses of his own spirit,\u2014not\nby that man, therefore, whose imaginative powers have been _ossified_ by\nthe continual reaction and assimilating influences of mere _objects_ on\nhis mind, and who is a prisoner to his own eye and its reflex, the passive\nfancy!\u2014not by him in whom an unbroken familiarity with the organic world,\nas if it were mechanical, with the sensitive, but as if it were insensate,\nhas engendered the coarse and hard spirit of a sorcerer. The former is\nunable, the latter unwilling, to master the absolute pre-requisites. There\nis neither hope nor occasion for him \u201cto cudgel his brains about it, he\nhas no feeling of the business.\u201d If he do not see the necessity from\nwithout, if he have not learned the possibility from within, of\ninterpenetration, of total intussusception, of the existence of all in\neach as the condition of Nature\u2019s unity and substantiality, and of the\nlatency under the predominance of some one power, wherein subsists her\nlife and its endless variety, as he must be, by habitual slavery to the\neye, or its reflex, the passive fancy, under the influences of the\ncorpuscularian philosophy, he has so paralysed his imaginative powers as\nto be unable\u2014or by that hardness and heart-hardening spirit of contempt,\nwhich is sure to result from a perpetual commune with the lifeless, he has\nso far debased his inward being\u2014as to be unwilling to comprehend the\npre-requisite, he must be content, while standing thus at the threshold of\nphilosophy, to receive the results, though he cannot be admitted to the\ndeliberation\u2014in other words, to act upon _rules_ which he is incapable of\nunderstanding as LAWS, and to reap the harvest with the sharpened iron for\nwhich others have delved for him in the mine.\n\nIt is not improbable that there may exist, and even be discovered, higher\nforms and more akin to Life than those of magnetism, electricity, and\nconstructive (or chemical) affinity appear to be, even in their finest\nknown influences. It is not improbable that we may hereafter find\nourselves justified in revoking certain of the latter, and unappropriating\nthem to a yet unnamed triplicity; or that, being thus assisted, we may\nobtain a qualitative instead of a quantitative insight into vegetable\nanimation, as distinct from animal, and that of the insect world from\nboth. But in the present state of science, the magnetic, electric, and\nchemical powers are the last and highest of inorganic nature. These,\ntherefore, we assume as presenting themselves again to us, in their next\nmetamorphosis, as reproduction (_i.e._ growth and identity of the whole,\namid the change or flux of all the parts), irritability and sensibility;\nreproduction corresponding to magnetism, irritability to electricity, and\nsensibility to constructive chemical affinity.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nBut before we proceed further, it behoves us to answer the objections\ncontained in the following passage, or withdraw ourselves in time from the\nbitter contempt in which it would involve us. Acting under such a\nnecessity, we need not apologise for the length of the quotation.\n\n1. \u201cIf,\u201d says Mr. Lawrence, \u201cthe properties of living matter are to be\nexplained in this way, why should not we adopt the same plan with physical\nproperties, and account for gravitation, or chemical affinity, by the\nsupposition of appropriate subtile fluids? Why does the irritability of a\nmuscle need such an explanation, if explanation it can be called, more\nthan the elective attraction of a salt?\u201d\n\n2. \u201cTo make the matter more intelligible, this vital principle is compared\nto magnetism, to electricity, and to galvanism; or it is roundly stated to\nbe oxygen. \u2019Tis like a camel, or like a whale, or like what you please.\u201d\n\n3. \u201cYou have only to grant that the phenomena of the sciences just alluded\nto depend on extremely fine and invisible fluids, superadded to the\nmatters in which they are exhibited, and to allow further that Life, and\nmagnetic, galvanic, and electric phenomena correspond perfectly; the\nexistence of a subtile matter of Life will then be a very probable\ninference.\u201d\n\n4. \u201cOn this illustration you will naturally remark, that the existence of\nthe magnetic, electric, and galvanic fluids, which is offered as a proof\nof the existence of a vital fluid, is as much a matter of doubt as that of\nthe vital fluid itself.\u201d\n\n5. \u201cIt is singular, also, that the vital principle should be like both\nmagnetism and electricity, when these two are not like each other.\u201d\n\n6. \u201cIt would have been interesting to have had this illustration\nprosecuted a little further. We should have been pleased to learn whether\nthe human body is more like a loadstone, a voltaic pile, or an electrical\nmachine; whether the organs are to be regarded as Leyden jars, magnetic\nneedles, or batteries.\u201d\n\n7. \u201cThe truth is, there is no resemblance, no analogy, between Electricity\nand Life; the two orders of phenomena are completely distinct; they are\nincommensurable. Electricity illustrates life no more than life\nillustrates electricity.\u201d(13)\n\nTo avoid unnecessary description, I shall refer to the passages by the\nnumbers affixed to them, for that purpose, in the margin.\n\nIn reply to No. 1, I ask whether, in the nature of the mind, illustration\nand explanation must not of necessity proceed from the lower to the\nhigher? or whether a boy is to be taught his addition, subtraction,\nmultiplication, and division, by the highest branches of algebraic\nanalysis? Is there any better way of systematic teaching, than that of\nillustrating each new step, or having each new step illustrated to him by\nits identity in kind with the step the next below it? though it be the\nonly mode in which this objection can be answered, yet it seems affronting\nto remind the objector, of rules so simple as that the complex must even\nbe illustrated by the more simple, or the less scrutible by that which is\nmore subject to our examination.\n\nIn reply to No. 2, I first refer to the author\u2019s eulogy on Mr. Hunter, p.\n163, in which he is justly extolled for having \u201csurveyed the whole\n_system_ of organized beings, from plants to man:\u201d of course, therefore,\n_as_ a _system_; and therefore under some _one common law_. Now in the\nvery same sense, and no other, than that in which the writer himself by\nimplication compares himself as a man to the _dermestes typographicus_, or\nthe _fucus scorpioides_, do I compare the principle of Life to magnetism,\nelectricity, and constructive affinity,\u2014or rather to that power to which\nthe two former are the thesis and antithesis, the latter the synthesis.\nBut if to compare involve the sense of its etymon, and involve the sense\nof parity, I utterly deny that I do at all compare them; and, in truth, in\nno conceivable sense of the word is it applicable, any more than a\ngeometrician can be affirmed to compare a polygon to a point, because he\ngenerates the line out of the point. The writer attributes to a philosophy\nessentially vital the barrenness of the mechanic system, with which alone\nhis imagination has been familiarised, and which, as hath been justly\nobserved by a contemporary writer, is contradistinguished from the former\nprincipally in this respect; that demanding for every mode and act of\nexistence real or possible visibility, it knows only of distance and\nnearness, composition (or rather compaction) and decomposition, in short,\nthe relations of unproductive particles to each other; so that in every\ninstance the result is the exact sum of the component qualities, as in\narithmetical addition. This is the philosophy of Death, and only of a dead\nnature can it hold good. In Life, and in the view of a vital philosophy,\nthe two component counter-powers actually interpenetrate each other, and\ngenerate a higher third, including both the former, \u201cita tamen ut sit alia\net major.\u201d\n\nAs a complete answer to No. 3, I refer the reader to many passages in the\npreceding and following pages, in which, on far higher and more\ndemonstrative grounds than the mechanic system can furnish, I have exposed\nthe unmeaningness and absurdity of these finer fluids, as applied even to\nelectricity itself; unless, indeed, they are assumed as its product. But\nin addition I beg leave to remind the author, that it is incomparably more\nagreeable to all experience to originate the formative process in the\n_fluid_, whether fine or gross, than in corporeal _atoms_, in which we are\nnot only deserted by all experience, but contradicted by the primary\nconception of body itself.\n\nEqually inapplicable is No. 4: and of No. 5 I can only repeat, first, that\nI do not make Life _like_ magnetism, or _like_ electricity; that the\ndifference between magnetism and electricity, and the powers illustrated\nby them, is an essential part of my system, but that the animal Life of\nman is the identity of all three. To whatever other system this objection\nmay apply, it is utterly irrelevant to that which I have here propounded:\nthough from the narrow limits prescribed to me, it has been propounded\nwith an inadequacy painful to my own feelings.\n\nThe ridicule in No. 6 might be easily retorted; but as it could prove\nnothing, I will leave it where I found it, in a page where nothing is\nproved.\n\nA similar remark might be sufficient for the bold and blank assertion (No.\n7) with which the extract concludes; but that I feel some curiosity to\ndiscover what meaning the author attaches to the term analogy. Analogy\nimplies a difference in sort, and not merely in degree; and it is the\nsameness of the end, with the difference of the means, which constitutes\nanalogy. No one would say the lungs of a man were analogous to the lungs\nof a monkey, but any one might say that the gills of fish and the\nspiracula of insects are analogous to lungs. Now if there be any\nphilosophers who have asserted that electricity as electricity is the\n_same_ as Life, for that reason they cannot be _analogous_ to each other;\nand as no man in his senses, philosopher or not, is capable of imagining\nthat the lightning which destroys a sheep, was a means to the same end\nwith the principle of its organization; for this reason, too, the two\npowers cannot be represented as analogous. Indeed I know of no system in\nwhich the word, as thus applied, would admit of an endurable meaning, but\nthat which teaches us, that a mass of marrow in the skull is analogous to\nthe rational soul, which Plato and Bacon, equally with the \u201cpoor Indian,\u201d\nbelieve themselves to have received from the Supreme Reason.\n\nIt would be blindness not to see, or affectation to pretend not to see,\nthe work at which these sarcasms were levelled. The author of that work is\nabundantly able to defend his own opinions; yet I should be ambitious to\naddress _him_ at the close of the contest in the lines of the great Roman\npoet:\n\n\u201cEt nos tela, Pater, ferrumque haud debile dextr\u00e2\nSpargimus, et nostro sequitur, de vulnere sanguis.\u201d\n\nIn Mr. Abernethy\u2019s Lecture on the Theory of Life, it is impossible not to\nsee a presentiment of a great truth. He has, if I may so express myself,\ncaught it in the breeze: and we seem to hear the first glad opening and\nshout with which he springs forward to the pursuit. But it is equally\nevident that the prey has not been followed through its doublings and\nwindings, or driven out from its brakes and covers into full and open\nview. Many of the least tenable phrases may be fairly interpreted as\nillustrations, rather than precise exponents of the author\u2019s meaning; at\nleast, while they remain as a mere suggestion or annunciation of his\nideas, and till he has expanded them over a larger sphere, it would be\nunjust to infer the contrary. But it is not with men, however strongly\ntheir professional merits may entitle them to reverence, that my concern\nis at present. If the opinions here supported are the same with those of\nMr. Abernethy, I rejoice in his authority. If they are different, I shall\nwait with an anxious interest for an exposition of that difference.\n\nHaving reasserted that I no more confound magnetism with electricity, or\nthe chemical process, than the mathematician confounds length with\nbreadth, or either with depth; I think it sufficient to add that there are\ntwo views of the subject, the former of which I do not believe\nattributable to any philosopher, while both are alike disclaimed by me as\nforming any part of my views. The first is that which is supposed to\nconsider electricity identical with life, as it subsists in organized\nbodies. The other considers electricity as everywhere present, and\npenetrating all bodies under the image of a subtile fluid or substance,\nwhich, in Mr. Abernethy\u2019s inquiry, I regard as little more than a mere\ndiagram on his slate, for the purpose of fixing the attention on the\nintellectual conception, or as a possible _product_, (in which case\nelectricity must be a composite power,) or at worst, as words _qu\u00e6 humana\nincuria fudit_. This which, in inanimate Nature, is manifested now as\nmagnetism, now as electricity, and now as chemical agency, is supposed, on\nentering an organized body, to constitute its vital _principle_, something\nin the same manner as the steam becomes the _mechanic_ power of the\nsteam-engine, in _consequence_ of its compression by the steam-engine; or\nas the breeze that murmurs indistinguishably in the forest becomes the\nelement, the substratum, of melody in the \u00c6olian harp, and of consummate\nharmony in the organ. Now this hypothesis is as directly opposed to my\nview as supervention is to evolution, inasmuch as I hold the organized\nbody itself, in all its marvellous contexture, to be the PRODUCT and\nrepresentant of the power which is here supposed to have supervened to it.\nSo far from admitting a _transfer_, I do not admit it even in electricity\nitself, or in the phenomena universally called electrical; among other\npoints I ground my explanation of remote sympathy on the directly contrary\nsupposition.\n\nBut my opinions will be best explained by a rapid exemplification in the\nprocesses of Nature, from the first rudiments of individualized life in\nthe lowest classes of its two great poles, the vegetable and animal\ncreation, to its crown and consummation in the human body; thus\nillustrating at once the unceasing _polarity of life, as the form of its\nprocess, and its tendency to progressive individuation as the law of its\ndirection_.\n\nAmong the conceptions, of the mere ideal character of which the\nphilosopher is well aware, and which yet become necessary from the\nnecessity of assuming a beginning; the original fluidity of the planet is\nthe chief. Under some form or other it is expressed or implied in every\nsystem of cosmogony and even of geology, from Moses to Thales, and from\nThales to Werner. This assumption originates in the same law of mind that\ngave rise to the _prima materia_ of the Peripatetic school. In order to\n_comprehend_ and _explain_ the _forms_ of things, we must imagine a state\n_antecedent_ to form. A chaos of heterogeneous substances, such as our\nMilton has described, is not only an _impossible_ state (for this may be\nequally true of every other attempt), but it is _palpably_ impossible. It\npresupposes, moreover, the thing it is intended to solve; and makes _that_\nan _effect_ which had been called in as the explanatory _cause_. The\nrequisite and only serviceable fiction, therefore, is the representation\nof CHAOS as one vast homogeneous drop! In this sense it may be even\njustified, as an appropriate symbol of the great fundamental truth that\nall things spring from, and subsist in, the endless strife between\nindifference and difference. The whole history of Nature is comprised in\nthe specification of the transitional states from the one to the other.\nThe symbol only is fictitious: the thing signified is not only grounded in\ntruth\u2014it is the law and actuating principle of all other truths, whether\nphysical or intellectual.\n\nNow, by magnetism in its widest sense, I mean the first and simplest\n_differential_ act of Nature, as the power which works in _length_, and\nproduces the first distinction between the indistinguishable by the\ngeneration of a _line_. Relatively, therefore, to fluidity, that is, to\nmatter, the parts of which cannot be distinguished from each other by\nfigure, magnetism is the power of fixity; but, relatively to itself,\nmagnetism, like every other power in Nature, is designated by its opposite\npoles, and must be represented as the magnetic axis, the northern pole of\nwhich signifies rest, attraction, fixity, coherence, or hardness; the\nelement of EARTH in the nomenclature of _observation_ and the CARBONIC\nprinciple in that of _experiment_; while the southern pole, as its\nantithesis, represents mobility, repulsion, incoherence, and fusibility;\nthe element of air in the nomenclature of observation (that is, of Nature\nas it appears to us when unquestioned by art), and azote or nitrogen in\nthe nomenclature of experiment (that is, of Nature in the state so\nbeautifully allegorized in the Homeric fable of Proteus bound down, and\nforced to answer by Ulysses, after having been pursued through all his\nmetamorphoses into his ultimate form.(14)) That nothing real does or can\nexist corresponding to either pole _exclusively_, is involved in the very\ndefinition of a THING as the synthesis of opposing energies. That a thing\n_is_, is owing to the co-inherence therein of any two powers; but that it\nis _that_ particular thing arises from the proportions in which these\npowers are co-present, either as predominance or as reciprocal\nneutralization; but under the modification of twofold power to which\nmagnetism itself is, as the thesis to its antithesis.\n\nThe correspondent, in the world of the senses, to the magnetic axis,\nexists in the series of metals. The metalleity, as the universal base of\nthe planet, is a necessary deduction from the principles of the system.\nFrom the infusible, though evaporable, diamond to nitrogen itself, the\nmetallic nature of which has been long suspected by chemists, though still\nunder the mistaken notion of an oxyde, we trace a series of metals from\nthe maximum of coherence to positive fluidity, in all ordinary\ntemperatures, we mean. Though, in point of fact, cold itself is but a\nsuperinduction of the one pole, or, what amounts to the same thing, the\nsubtraction of the other, under the modifications afore described; and\ntherefore are the metals indecomposible, because they are themselves the\ndecompositions of the metallic axis, in all its degrees of longitude and\nlatitude. Thus the substance of the planet from which it _is_, is\nmetallic; while that which is ever _becoming_, is in like manner produced\nthrough the perpetual modification of the first by the opposite forces of\nthe second; that is, by the principle of contraction and difference at the\neastern extreme\u2014the element of fire, or the oxygen of the chemists; and by\nthe elementary power of dilatation, or universality at its western\nextreme\u2014the \u1f51\u03b4\u03c9\u03c1 \u1f10\u03bd \u1f51\u03b4\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 of the ancients, and the hydrogen of the\nlaboratory.\n\nIt has been before noticed that the progress of Nature is more truly\nrepresented by the ladder, than by the suspended chain, and that she\nexpands as by concentric circles. This is, indeed, involved in the very\nconception of individuation, whether it be applied to the different\nspecies or to the individuals. In what manner the evident interspace is\nreconciled with the equally evident continuity of the life of Nature, is a\nproblem that can be solved by those minds alone, which have intuitively\nlearnt that the whole _actual_ life of Nature originates in the existence,\nand consists in the perpetual reconciliation, and as perpetual resurgency\nof the primary contradiction, of which universal polarity is the result\nand the exponent. From the first moment of the differential impulse\u2014(the\nprim\u00e6val chemical epoch of the Wernerian school)\u2014when Nature, by the\ntranquil deposition of crystals, prepared, as it were, the fulcrum of her\nafter-efforts, from this, her first, and in part _irrevocable_,\nself-contraction, we find, in each ensuing production, more and more\ntendency to independent existence in the increasing multitude of strata,\nand in the relics of the lowest orders, first of vegetable and then of\nanimal life. In the schistous formations, which we must here assume as in\ngreat measure the residua of vegetable creations, that have sunk back into\nthe universal life, and in the later predominant calcareous masses, which\nare the _caput mortuum_ of animalized existence, we ascend from the laws\nof attraction and repulsion, as united in gravity, to magnetism,\nelectricity, and constructive power, till we arrive at the point\nrepresentative of a new and far higher intensity. For from this point\nflow, as in opposite directions, the two streams of vegetation and\nanimalization, the former characterised by the predominance of magnetism\nin its highest power, as reproduction, the other by electricity\nintensified\u2014as irritability, in like manner. The vegetable and animal\nworld are the thesis and antithesis, or the opposite poles of organic\nlife. We are not, therefore, to seek in either for analogies to the other,\nbut for counterpoints. On the same account, the nearer the common source,\nthe greater the likeness; the farther the remove, the greater the\nopposition. At the extreme limits of inorganic Nature, we may detect a dim\nand obscure prophecy of her ensuing process in the twigs and rude\nsemblances that occur in crystallization of some of the copper ores, and\nin the well-known _arbor Dian\u00e6_, and _arbor Veneris_. These latter Ritter\nhas already ably explained by considering the oblique branches and their\nacute angles as the result of magnetic repulsion, from the presentation of\nthe same poles, &c. In the CORALS and CONCHYLIA, the whole act and purpose\nof their existence seems to be that of connecting the animal with the\ninorganic world by the perpetual formation of calcareous earth. For the\ncorals are nothing but polypi, which are characterised by still passing\naway and dissolving into the earth, which they had previously excreted, as\nif they were the first feeble effort of detachment. The power seems to\nstep forward from out the inorganic world only to fall back again upon it,\nstill, however, under a new form, and under the predominance of the more\nactive pole of magnetism. The product must have the same connexion,\ntherefore, with azote, which the first rudiments of vegetation have with\ncarbon: the one and the other exist not for their own sakes, but in order\nto produce the conditions best fitted for the production of higher forms.\nIn the polypi, corallines, &c., individuality is in its first dawn; there\nis the same shape in them all, and a multitude of animals form, as it\nwere, a common animal. And as the individuals run into each other, so do\nthe different genera. They likewise pass into each other so\nindistinguishably, that the whole order forms a very network.\n\nAs the corals approach the conchylia, this interramification decreases.\nThe tubipora forms the transition to the serpula; for the characteristic\nof all zoophytes, namely, the star shape of their openings, here\ndisappears, and the tubipor\u00e6 are distinguished from the rest of the corals\nby this very circumstance, that the hollow calcareous pipes are placed\nside by side, without interbranching. In the serpula they have already\nbecome separate. How feeble this attempt is to individuate, is most\nclearly shown in their mode of generation. Notwithstanding the report of\nProfessor Pallas, it still remains doubtful whether there exists any\nactual copulation among the polypi. The mere existence of a polypus\nsuffices for its endless multiplication. They may be indefinitely\npropagated by cuttings, so languid is the power of individuation, so\nboundless that of reproduction. But the delicate jelly dissolves, as\nlightly as it was formed, into its own product, and it is probable that\nthe Polynesia, as a future continent, will be the gigantic monument, not\nso much of their life, as of the life of Nature in them. Here we may\nobserve the first instance of that general law, according to which Nature\nstill assimilates her extreme points. In these, her first and feeblest\nattempts to animalize organization, it is latent, because undeveloped, and\nmerely potential; while, in the human brain, the last and most consummate\nof her combined energies, it is again lost or disguised in the\nsubtlety(15) and multiplicity of its evolution.\n\nIn the class immediately above (Mollusca) we find the individuals\nseparate, a more determinate form, and in the higher species, the rudiment\nof nerves, as the first scarce distinguishable impress and exponent of\nsensibility; still, however, the vegetative reproduction is the\npredominant form; and even the nerves \u201cwhich float in the same cavity with\nthe other viscera,\u201d are probably subservient to it, and extend their power\nin the increased intensity of the reproductive force. Still prevails the\ntransitional state from the fluid to the solid; and the jelly, that\nrudiment in which all animals, even the noblest, have their commencement;\nconstitutes the whole sphere of these rudimental animals.\n\nIn the snail and muscle, the residuum of the coral reappears, but refined\nand ennobled into a part of the animal. The whole class is characterised\nby the separation of the fluid from the solid. On the one side, a\ngelatinous semi-fluid; on the other side, an entirely inorganic, though\noften a most exquisitely mechanised, calcareous excretion.\n\nAnimalization in general is, we know, contra-distinguished from vegetables\nin general by the predominance of azote in the chemical composition, and\nof irritability in the organic process. But in this and the foregoing\nclasses, as being still near the common equator, or the punctum\nindifferenti\u00e6, the carbonic principle still asserts its claims, and the\nforce of reproduction struggles with that of irritability. In the\nunreconciled strife of these two forces consists the character of the\n_Vermes_, which appear to be the preparatory step for the next class.\nHence the difficulties which have embarrassed the naturalists, who adopt\nthe Linn\u00e6an classification, in their endeavours to discover determinate\ncharacters of distinction between the vermes and the insecta.\n\nBut no sooner have we passed the borders, than endless variety of form and\nthe bold display of instincts announce, that Nature has succeeded. She has\ncreated the intermediate link between the vegetable world, as the product\nof the reproductive or magnetic power, and the animal as the exponent of\nsensibility. Those that live and are nourished, on the bodies of other\nanimals, are comparatively few, with little diversity of shape, and almost\nall of the same natural family. These we may pass by as exceptions. But\nthe insect world, taken at large, appears as an intenser life, that has\nstruggled itself loose and become emancipated from vegetation, _Flor\u00e6\nliberti, et libertini!_ If for the sake of a moment\u2019s relaxation we might\nindulge a Darwinian flight, though at the risk of provoking a smile, (not,\nI hope, a frown) from sober judgment, we might imagine the life of insects\nan apotheosis of the petals, stamina, and nectaries, round which they\nflutter, or of the stems and pedicles, to which they adhere. Beyond and\nabove this step, Nature seems to act with a sort of free agency, and to\nhave formed the classes from choice and bounty. Had she proceeded no\nfurther, yet the whole vegetable, together with the whole insect creation,\nwould have formed within themselves an entire and independent system of\nLife. All plants have insects, most commonly each genus of vegetables its\nappropriate genera of insects; and so reciprocally interdependent and\nnecessary to each other are they, that we can almost as little think of\nvegetation without insects, as of insects without vegetation. Though\nprobably the mere likeness of _shape_, in the _papilio_, and the\npapilionaceous plants, suggested the idea of the former, as the latter in\na state of detachment, to our late poetical and theoretical brother; yet a\nsomething, that approaches to a graver plausibility, is given to this\nfancy of a flying blossom; when we reflect how many plants depend upon\ninsects for their fructification. Be it remembered, too, that with few and\nvery obscure exceptions, the irritable power and an analogon of voluntary\nmotion first dawn on us in the vegetable world, in the stamina, and\nanthers, at the period of impregnation. Then, as if Nature had been\nencouraged by the success of the first experiment, both the one and the\nother appear as predominance and general character. THE INSECT WORLD IS\nTHE EXPONENT OF IRRITABILITY, AS THE VEGETABLE IS OF REPRODUCTION.\n\nWith the ascent in power, the intensity of individuation keeps even pace;\nand from this we may explain all the characteristic distinctions between\nthis class and that of the vermes. The almost homogeneous jelly of the\nanimalcula infusoria became, by a vital oxydation, granular in the polypi.\nThis granulation formed itself into distinct organs in the mollusc\u00e6; while\nfor the snails, which are the next step, the animalized lime, that seemed\nthe sole final cause of the life of the polypi, assumes all the characters\nof an ulterior purpose. Refined into a horn-like substance, it becomes to\nthe snails the substitute of an organ, and their outward skeleton. Yet how\nmuch more manifold and definite, the organization of an insect, than that\nof the preceding class, the patient researches of Swammerdam and Lyonnet\nhave evinced, to the delight and admiration of every reflecting mind.\n\nIn the insect, for the first time, we find the distinct commencement of a\nseparation between the exponents of sensibility and those of irritability;\n_i.e._ between the _nervous_ and the _muscular_ system. The latter,\nhowever, asserts its pre-eminence throughout. The prodigal provision of\norgans for the purposes of respiration, and the marvellous powers which\nnumerous tribes of insects possess, of accommodating the most corrupted\nairs, for a longer or shorter period, to the support of their\nexcitability, would of itself lead us to presume, that here the _vis\nirritabilis_ is the reigning dynasty. There is here no confluence of\nnerves into one reservoir, as evidence of the independent existence of\nsensibility _as_ sensibility;\u2014and therefore no counterpoise of a vascular\nsystem, as a distinct exponent of the irritable pole. The whole\nmuscularity of these animals, is the organ of irritability; and the nerves\nthemselves are probably feeders of the motory power. The petty rills of\nsensibility flow into the full expanse of irritability, and there lose\nthemselves. The nerves appertaining to the senses, on the other hand, are\nindistinct, and comparatively unimportant. The multitude of immovable eyes\nappear not so much conductors of light, as its ultimate recipient. We are\nalmost tempted to believe that they constitute, rather than subserve,\ntheir sensorium.\n\nThese eye-facets form the sense of light, rather than organs of seeing.\nTheir almost paradoxical number at least, and the singularity of their\nforms, render it probable that they impel the animal by some modification\nof its irritability, herein likewise containing a striking analogy to the\nknown influence of light on plants, than as excitements of sensibility.\nThe sense that is nearest akin to irritability, and which alone resides in\nthe muscular system, is that of touch, or feeling. This, therefore, is the\nfirst sense that emerges. Being confined to absolute contact, it occupies\nthe lowest rank; but for that very reason it is the ground of all the\nother senses, which act, according to the ratio of their ascent, at still\nincreasing distances, and become more and more ideal, from the tentacles\nof the polypus, to the human eye; which latter might be defined the\noutward organ of the identity, or at least of the indifference, of the\nreal and ideal. But as the calcareous residuum of the lowest class\napproaches to the nature of horn in the snail, so the cumbrous shell of\nthe snail has been transformed into polished and moveable plates of\ndefensive armour in the insect. Thus, too, the same power of progressive\nindividuation articulates the tentacula of the polypus and holothuria into\nantenn\u00e6; thereby manifesting the full emersion and eminency of\nirritability as a power which acts in, and gives its own character to,\nthat of reproduction. The least observant must have noticed the\nlightning-like rapidity with which the insect tribes devour and eliminate\ntheir food, as by an instinctive necessity, and in the least degree for\nthe purposes of the animal\u2019s own growth or enlargement. The same\npredominance of irritability, and at the same time a new start in\nindividuation, is shown in the reproductive power as generation. There is\nnow a regular projection, _ab intra ad extra_, for which neither sprouts\nnor cuttings can any longer be the substitutes. We have not space for\nfurther detail; but there is one point too strikingly illustrative and\neven confirmative of the proposed system, to be omitted altogether. We\nmean the curious fact, that the same characteristic tendency, _ad extra_,\nwhich in the males and females of certain insect tribes is realized in the\nfunctions of generation, conception, and parturiency, manifests and\nexpands itself in the _sexless_ individuals (which are always in this case\nthe great majority of the species), as instincts of art, and in the\nconstruction of works completely detached and inorganic; while the\ngeometric regularity of these works, which bears an analogy to\ncrystallization, is demonstrably no more than the necessary result of\nuniform action in a compressed multitude.\n\nAgain, as the insect world, averaging the whole, comes nearest to plants,\n(whose very essence is reproduction,) in the multitude of their germs; so\ndoes it resemble plants in the sufficiency of a single impregnation for\nthe evolution of myriads of detached lives. Even so, the metamorphoses of\ninsects, from the egg to the maggot and caterpillar, and from these,\nthrough the nympha and aurelia into the perfect insect, are but a more\nindividuated and intenser form of a similar transformation of the plant\nfrom the seed-leaflets, or cotyledons, through the stalk, the leaves, and\nthe calyx, into the perfect flower, the various colours of which seem made\nfor the reflection of light, as the antecedent grade to the burnished\nscales, and scale-like eyes of the insect. Nevertheless, with all this\nseeming prodigality of organic power, the whole tendency is _ad extra_,\nand the life of insects, as electricity in the quadrate, acts chiefly on\nthe superficies of their bodies, to which we may add the negative proof\narising from the absence of sensibility. It is well known, that the two\nhalves of a divided insect have continued to perform, or attempt, each\ntheir separate functions, the trunkless head feeding with its accustomed\nvoracity, while the headless trunk has exhibited its appropriate\nexcitability to the sexual influence.\n\nThe intropulsive force, that sends the ossification inward as to the\ncentre, is reserved for a yet higher step, and this we find embodied in\nthe class of _fishes_. Even here, however, the process still seems\nimperfect, and (as it were) initiatory. The skeleton has left the surface,\nindeed, but the bones approach to the nature of gristle. To feel the truth\nof this, we need only compare the most perfect bone of a fish with the\nthigh-bones of the mammalia, and the distinctness with which the latter\nmanifest the co-presence of the _magnetic_ power in its solid parietes, of\nthe _electrical_ in its branching arteries, and of the third greatest\npower, viz., the _qualitative_ and interior, in its marrow. The senses of\nfish are more distinct than those of insects. Thus, the intensity of its\nsense of smell has been placed beyond doubt, and rises in the extent of\nits sphere far beyond the irritable sense, or the feeling, in insects. I\nsay the _feeling_, not the touch; for the touch seems, as it were, a\nsupervention to the feeling, a perfection _given_ to it by the reaction of\nthe higher powers. As the feeling of the insect, in subtlety and virtual\ndistance, rises above the solitary sense of taste(16) in the mollusca, so\ndoes the smell of the fish rise above the feeling of the insect. In the\nfish, likewise, the eyes are single and moveable, while it is remarkable\nthat the only insect that possesses this latter privilege, is an\ninhabitant of the waters. Finally, here first, unequivocally, and on a\n_large_ scale, (for I pretend not to control the freedom, in which the\nnecessity of Nature is rooted, by the precise limits of a system,)\u2014here\nfirst, Nature exhibits, in the power of sensibility, the consummation of\nthose vital forms (the _nisus formativi_) the adequate and the sole\nmeasure of which is to be sought for in their several organic products.\nBut as if a weakness of exhaustion had attended this advance in the same\nmoment it was made, Nature seems necessitated to fall back, and re-exert\nherself on the lower ground which she had before occupied, that of the\nvital magnetism, or the power of reproduction. The intensity of this\nlatter power in the fishes, is shown both in their voracity and in the\nnumber of their eggs, which we are obliged to calculate by _weight_, not\nby _tale_. There is an equal intensity both of the _immanent_ and the\n_projective_ reproduction, in which, if we take in the comparative number\nof individuals in each species, and likewise the different intervals\nbetween the acts, the fish (it is probable) would be found to stand in a\nsimilar relation to the insect, as the insect, in the latter point, stands\nto the system of vegetation. Meantime, the fish sinks a step below the\ninsect, in the mode and circumstances of impregnation. To this we will\nventure to add, the predominance of _length_, as the _form_ of growth in\nso large a proportion of the known orders of fishes, and not less of their\nrectilineal path of motion. In all other respects, the correspondence\ncombined with the progress in individuation, is striking in the whole\ndetail. Thus the eye, in addition to its moveability, has besides acquired\na saline moisture in its higher development, as accordant with the life of\nits element. Add to these the glittering covering in both, the splendour\nof the scales in the one answering to the brilliant plates in the\nother,\u2014the luminous reservoirs of the fire-flies,\u2014the phosphorescence and\nelectricity of many fishes,\u2014the same analogs of moral qualities, in their\nrapacity, boldness, modes of seizing their prey by surprise,\u2014their gills,\nas presenting the intermediate state between the spiracula of the grade\nnext below, and the lungs of the step next above, both extremes of which\nseem combined in the structure of birds and of their quill-feathers; but\nabove all, the convexity of the crystalline lens, so much greater than in\nbirds, quadrupeds, and man, and seeming to collect, in one powerful organ,\nthe hundred-fold microscopic facettes of the insect\u2019s _light_ organs; and\nit will not be easy to resist the conviction, that the same power is at\nwork in both, and reappears under higher auspices. The intention of Nature\nis repeated; but, as was to have been expected, with two main differences.\n\nFirst, that in the lower grade the reproductions themselves seem merged in\nthose of irritability, from the very circumstance that the latter\nconstitutes no pole, either to the former, or to sensibility. The force of\nirritability acts, therefore, in the insect world, in full predominance;\nwhile the emergence of sensibility in the fish calls forth the opposite\npole of reproduction, as a _distinct_ power, and causes therefore the\nirritability to flow, in part, into the power of reproduction. The second\nresult of this ascent is the direction of the organizing power, _ad\nintra_, with the consequent greater simplicity of the exterior form, and\nthe substitution of condensed and flexible force, with comparative unity\nof implements, for that variety of tools, almost as numerous as the\nseveral objects to which they are to be applied, which arises from, and\ncharacterises, the superficial life of the insect creation. This grade of\nascension, however, like the former, is accompanied by an apparent\nretrograde movement. For from this very accession of vital intensity we\nmust account for the absence in the fishes of all the formative, or rather\n(if our language will permit it) _fabricative_ instincts. How could it be\notherwise? These instincts are the surplus and projection of the\norganizing power in the direction _ad extra_, and could not, therefore,\nhave been expected in the class of animals that represent the first\nintuitive effort of organization, and are themselves the product of its\nfirst movement in the direction _ad intra_. But Nature never loses what\nshe has once learnt, though in the acquirement of each new power she\nintermits, or performs less energetically, the act immediately preceding.\nShe often drops a faculty, but never fails to pick it up again. She may\nseem forgetful and absent, but it is only to recollect herself with\n_additional_, as well as _recruited_ vigour, in some after and higher\nstate; as if the sleep of powers, as well as of bodies, were the season\nand condition of their growth. Accordingly, we find these instincts again,\nand with them a wonderful synthesis of fish and insect, as a higher third,\nin the feathered inhabitants of the air. Nay, she seems to have gone yet\nfurther back, and having given B + C = D in the birds, so to have sported\nwith one solitary instance of B + D = A in that curious animal the dragon,\nthe anatomy of which has been recently given to the public by Tiedemann;\nfrom whose work it appears, that this creature presents itself to us with\nthe wings of the insect, and with the nervous system, the brain, and the\ncranium of the bird, in their several rudiments.\n\nThe synthesis of fish and insect in the birds, might be illustrated\nequally in detail with the former; but it will be sufficient for our\npurpose, that as in both the former cases, the insect and the fish, so\nhere in that of the birds, the powers are under the predominance of\nirritability; the sensibility being dormant in the first, awakening in the\nsecond, and awake, but still subordinate, in the third. Of this my limits\nconfine me to a single presumptive proof, viz., the superiority in\nstrength and courage of the female in the birds of prey. For herein,\nindeed, does the difference of the sexes universally consist, wherever\nboth the forces are developed, that the female is characterised by quicker\nirritability, and the male by deeper sensibility. How large a stride has\nbeen now made by Nature in the progress of individuation, what\nornithologist does not know? From a multitude of instances we select the\nmost impressive, the power of sound, with the first rudiments of\nmodulation! That all languages designate the melody of birds as singing\n(though according to Blumenbach man only sings, while birds do but\nwhistle), demonstrates that it has been felt as, what indeed it is, a\ntentative and prophetic prelude of something yet to come. With this\nconjoin the power and the tendency to acquire articulation, and to imitate\nspeech; conjoin the building instinct and the migratory, the monogamy of\nseveral species, and the pairing of almost all; and we shall have\ncollected new instances of the usage (I dare not say law) according to\nwhich Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps backward the\nfurthest, when she means to leap forwards with the greatest concentration\nof energy.\n\nFor lo! in the next step of ascent the power of sensibility has assumed\nher due place and rank: her minority is at an end, and the complete and\nuniversal presence of a nervous system unites absolutely, by instanteity\nof time what, with the due allowances for the transitional process, had\nbefore been either lost in sameness, or perplexed by multiplicity, or\ncompacted by a finer mechanism. But with this, all the analogies with\nwhich Nature had delighted us in the preceding step seem lost, and, with\nthe single exception of that more than valuable, that estimable\nphilanthropist, the dog, and, perhaps, of the horse and elephant, the\nanalogies to ourselves, which we can discover in the quadrupeds or\nquadrumani, are of our vices, our follies, and our imperfections. The\nfacts in confirmation of both the propositions are so numerous and so\nobvious, the advance of Nature, under the predominance of the third\nsynthetic power, both in the intensity of life and in the intenseness and\nextension of individuality, is so undeniable, that we may leap forward at\nonce to the highest realization and reconciliation of both her tendencies,\nthat of the most perfect detachment with the greatest possible union, to\nthat last work, in which Nature did not assist as handmaid under the eye\nof her sovereign Master, who made Man in his own image, by superadding\nself-consciousness with self-government, and breathed into him a living\nsoul.\n\nThe class of _Vermes_ deposit a calcareous stuff, as if it had torn loose\nfrom the earth a piece of the gross mass which it must still drag about\nwith it. In the insect class this residuum has refined itself. In the\nfishes and amphibia it is driven back or inward, the organic power begins\nto be intuitive, and sensibility appears. In the birds the bones have\nbecome hollow; while, with apparent proportional recess, but, in truth, by\nthe excitement of the opposite pole, their exterior presents an actual\nvegetation. The bones of the mammalia are filled up, and their coverings\nhave become more simple. Man possesses the most perfect osseous structure,\nthe least and most insignificant covering. The whole force of organic\npower has attained an inward and centripetal direction. He has the whole\nworld in counterpoint to him, but he contains an entire world within\nhimself. Now, for the first time at the apex of the living pyramid, it is\nMan and Nature, but Man himself is a syllepsis, a compendium of Nature\u2014the\nMicrocosm! Naked and helpless cometh man into the world. Such has been the\ncomplaint from eldest time; but we complain of our chief privilege, our\nornament, and the connate mark of our sovereignty. _Porphyrigeniti sumus_!\nIn Man the centripetal and individualizing tendency of all Nature is\nitself concentred and individualized\u2014he is a revelation of Nature!\nHenceforward, he is referred to himself, delivered up to his own charge;\nand he who stands the most on himself, and stands the firmest, is the\ntruest, because the most individual, Man. In social and political life\nthis acme is inter-dependence; in moral life it is independence; in\nintellectual life it is genius. Nor does the form of polarity, which has\naccompanied the law of individuation up its whole ascent, desert it here.\nAs the height, so the depth. The intensities must be at once opposite and\nequal. As the liberty, so must be the reverence for law. As the\nindependence, so must be the service and the submission to the Supreme\nWill! As the ideal genius and the originality, in the same proportion must\nbe the resignation to the real world, the sympathy and the inter-communion\nwith Nature. In the conciliating mid-point, or equator, does the Man live,\nand only by its equal presence in both its poles can that life be\nmanifested!\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nIf it had been possible, within the prescribed limits of this essay, to\nhave deduced the philosophy of Life synthetically, the evidence would have\nbeen carried over from section to section, and the _quod erat\ndemonstrandum_ at the conclusion of one section would reappear as the\nprinciple of the succeeding\u2014the goal of the one would be the starting-post\nof the other. Positions arranged in my own mind, as intermediate and\norganic links of administration, must be presented to the reader in the\nfirst instance, at least, as a mere hypothesis.  Instead of demanding his\nassent as a right, I must solicit a suspension of his judgment as a\ncourtesy; and, after all, however firmly the hypothesis may support the\nphenomena piled upon it, we can deduce no more than a practical rule,\ngrounded on a strong presumption. The license of arithmetic, however,\nfurnishes instances that a rule may be usefully applied in practice, and\nfor the particular purpose may be sufficiently authenticated by the\nresult, before it has itself been duly demonstrated. It is enough, if only\nit hath been rendered fully intelligible.\n\nIn a system where every position proceeds from a scientific\npreconstruction, a power acting exclusively in length, would be magnetism\nby virtue of our own definition of the term. In like manner, a surface\npower would be electricity, as far as that system was concerned, whether\nit accorded or not with the facts ordinarily so called. But it is\nincumbent on us, who must treat the subject _analytically_, to show by\nexperiment that magnetism does in fact act longitudinally, and electricity\nsuperficially; and that, consequently, the former is distinguished from,\nand yet contained in, the latter, as a straight line is distinguished\nfrom, yet contained in, a superficies.\n\nFirst, that magnetism, in its conductors, seeks and follows length only,\nand by the length is itself conducted, has been proved by Brugmans, in his\nphilosophical Essay on the Matter of Magnetism, where he relates that a\nmagnet capable of supporting a body four times heavier than itself, and\nwhich acted as a magnetic needle at the distance of twenty inches, was so\nweakened by the interposition of three cast-iron plates of considerable\nthickness, as scarcely to move the magnetic needle from its place at a\ndistance of only three inches. A similar experiment had been made by\nDescartes. I concluded, therefore, said Brugmans, that if the iron plates\nwere interposed between the magnet and the needle lengthways, instead of\nbreadthways or right across, the action of the magnet on the magnetic\nneedle would, in consequence of this great increase of resistance, become\nstill weaker, or perhaps evanescent. But not less to my surprise than my\nadmiration, I found that the power of the magnet was so far from being\n_diminished_ by this change in the relative position of the iron-plates;\nthat, on the contrary, it now extended to a far greater distance than when\nno iron at all was interposed. Some time after the same philosopher, out\nof several iron bars, the sides of which were an inch broad each, composed\na single bar of the length of more than ten feet, and observed the\nmagnetism make its way through the whole mass. But, in order to try\nwhether the action could be propagated to any length indefinitely, after\nseveral experiments with bars of intermediate lengths, in all of which he\nhad succeeded, he tried a four-cornered iron rod, more than twenty feet\nlong, and it was at this length that the magnetic power first began to be\ndiminished. So far Brugmans.\n\nBut the shortest way for any one to convince himself of this relation of\nthe magnetic power would be, in one and the same experiment, to interpose\nthe same piece of iron between the magnet and the compass needle first\n_breadthways_; and in this case it will be found that the needle, which\nhad been previously deflected by the magnet from its natural position at\none of its poles, will instantly resume the same, either wholly or very\nnearly so\u2014then to interpose the same piece of iron _lengthways_; in which\ncase the position of the compass needle will be scarcely or not at all\naffected.\n\nThe assertion of Bernoulli and others, that the absolute force of the\nartificial magnet increases in the ratio of its superficies, stands\ncorrected in the far more accurate experiments of Coulomb (published in\nhis Treatise on Magnetism), which proves that the increase takes place (in\na far greater degree) in the ratio of its length. The same naturalist even\nfound means to determine that the directing powers of the needle, which he\nhad measured by help of his _balance de tortion_, stand to the length of\nthe needle in such a ratio as that, provided only the length of the needle\nis from forty to fifty times its diameter, the momenta of these directing\npowers will increase in the very same direct proportion as the length is\nincreased. Nor is this all that may be deduced from the experiment last\nmentioned. If only the magnet be strong enough, it will show likewise that\nmagnetism _seeks_ the length. The proof is contained in the remarkable\nfact, that the iron interposed between the magnet and the magnetic needle\n_breadthways_ constantly acquires its two opposite poles at both ends\n_lengthways_. Though the preceding experiments are abundantly sufficient\nto prove the position, yet the following deserves mention for the\nbeautiful clearness of its evidence. If the magnetic power is determined\nexclusively by length, it is to be expected that it will manifest no\nforce, where the piece of iron is of such a shape that no one dimension\npredominates. Bring a _cube_ of iron near the magnetic needle and it will\nnot exert the slightest degree of power beyond what belongs to it as mere\niron. By the perfect equality of the dimensions, the magnetism of the\nearth appears, as it were, perplexed and doubtful. Now, then attach a\nsecond cube of iron to the first, and the instantaneous act of the iron on\nthe magnetic needle will make it manifest that with the length thus given,\nthe magnetic influence is given at the same moment.\n\nThat electricity, on the other hand, does not act in length merely, is\nclear, from the fact that every electric body is electric over its whole\nsurface. But that electricity acts both in length and breadth, and _only_\nin length and breadth, and not in depth; in short, that the (so-called)\nelectrical fluid in an electrified body spreads over the whole surface of\nthat body without penetrating it, or tending _ad intra_, may be proved by\ndirect experiment. Take a cylinder of wood, and bore an indefinite number\nof holes in it, each of them four lines in depth and four in diameter.\nElectrify this cylinder, and present to its superficies a small square of\ngold-leaf, held to it by an insulating needle of gum lac, and bring this\nsquare to an electrometer of great sensibility. The electrometer will\ninstantly show an electricity in the gold-leaf, similar to that of the\ncylinder which had been brought into contact with it. The square of\ngold-leaf having thus been discharged of its electricity, put it carefully\ninto one of the holes of the cylinder, _so_, namely, that it shall touch\nonly the bottom of the hole, and present it again to the electrometer. It\nwill be then found that the electrometer will exhibit no signs of\nelectricity whatsoever. From this it follows, that the electricity which\nhad been communicated to the cylinder had confined itself to the\n_surface_.\n\nIf the time and the limit prescribed would admit, we could multiply\nexperiments, all tending to prove the same law; but we must be content\nwith the barely sufficient. But that the _chemical process_ acts in\n_depth_, and first, therefore, _realizes_ and integrates the fluxional\npower of magnetism and electricity, is involved in the _term_ composition;\nand this will become still more convincing when we have learnt to regard\n_decomposition_ as a mere co-relative, _i.e._ as decomposition relatively\nto the body decomposed, but composition _actually_ and in respect of the\nsubstances, _into_ which it was decomposed. The alteration in the specific\ngravity of metals in their chemical amalgams, interesting as the fact is\nin all points, is _decisive_ in the present; for gravity is the sole\n_inward_ of inorganic bodies\u2014it _constitutes_ their depth.\n\nI can now, for the first time, give to my opinions that degree of\nintelligibility, which is requisite for their introduction as hypotheses;\nthe experiments above related, understood as in the common mode of\nthinking, prove that the magnetic influence flows in length, the electric\nfluid by suffusion, and that chemical agency (whatever the main agent may\nbe) is qualitative and _in intimis_. Now my hypothesis demands the\nconverse of all this. I affirm that a power, acting exclusively in length,\nis (wherever it be found) _magnetism_; that a power which acts _both_ in\nlength and in breadth, and _only_ in length and breadth, is (wherever it\nbe found) _electricity_; and finally, that a power which, together with\nlength and breadth, includes depth likewise, is (wherever it be found)\n_constructive agency_. That is but _one_ phenomenon of magnetism, to which\nwe have appropriated and confined the term magnetism; because of all the\nnatural bodies at present known, iron, and one or two of its nearest\nrelatives in the family of hard yet coherent metals, are the only ones, in\nwhich all the conditions are collected, under which alone the magnetic\nagency can appear in and during the act itself. When, therefore, I affirm\nthe power of reproduction in organized bodies to be magnetism, I must be\nunderstood to mean that this power, as it exists in the magnet, and which\nwe there (to use a strong phrase) catch in the very act, is to the same\nkind of power, working as reproductive, what the root is to the cube of\nthat root. We no more confound the force in the compass needle with that\nof reproduction, than a man can be said to confound his liver with a\nlichen, because he affirms that both of them grow.\n\nThe same precautions are to be repeated in the identification of\nelectricity with irritability; and the power of depth, for which we have\nyet no appropriated term, with sensibility. How great the distance is in\nall, and that the lowest degrees are adopted as the exponent terms, not\nfor their own sakes, but merely because they may be used with less hazard\nof diverting the attention from the _kind_ by peculiar properties arising\nout of the degree, is evident from the third instance, unless the theorist\ncan be supposed insane enough to apply sensation in good earnest to the\neffervescence of an acid or an alkali, or to sympathise with the\ndistresses of a vat of new beer when it is working. In whatever way the\nsubject could be treated, it must have remained unintelligible to men who,\nif they think of space at all, abstract their notion of it from the\ncontents of an exhausted receiver. With this, and with an ether, such men\nmay work wonders; as what, indeed, cannot be done with a plenum and a\nvacuum, when a theorist has privileged himself to assume the one, or the\nother, _ad libitum_?\u2014in all innocence of heart, and undisturbed by the\nreflection that the two things cannot both be true. That both time and\nspace are mere abstractions I am well aware; but I know with equal\ncertainty that what is _expressed_ by them as the _identity_ of both is\nthe highest reality, and the root of all power, the power to suffer, as\nwell as the power to act. However mere an _ens logicum_ space may be, the\n_dimensions_ of space are real, and the works of Galileo, in more than one\nelegant passage, prove with what awe and amazement they fill the mind that\nworthily contemplates them. Dismissing, therefore, all facts of degrees,\nas introduced merely for the purposes of illustration, I would make as\nlittle reference as possible to the magnet, the charged phial, or the\nprocesses of the laboratory, and designate the three powers in the process\nof our animal life, each by two co-relative terms, the one expressing the\n_form_, and the other the _object_ and _product_ of the power. My\nhypothesis will, therefore, be thus expressed, that the constituent forces\nof life in the human living body are\u2014first, the power of length, or\nREPRODUCTION; second, the power of surface (that is, length and breadth),\nor IRRITABILITY; third, the power of depth, or SENSIBILITY. With this\nobservation I may conclude these remarks, only reminding the reader that\nLife itself is neither of these separately, but the copula of all\nthree\u2014that Life, _as_ Life, supposes a positive or universal principle in\nNature, with a negative principle in every particular animal, the latter,\nor limitative power, constantly acting to individualize, and, as it were,\n_figure_ the former. _Thus_, then, Life itself is not a _thing_\u2014a\nself-subsistent _hypostasis_\u2014but an _act_ and _process_; which, pitiable\nas the prejudice will appear to the _forts esprits_, is a great deal more\nthan either my reason would authorise or my conscience allow me to\nassert\u2014concerning the Soul, as the principle both of Reason and\nConscience.\n\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENTS.\n\n\n_October, 1848._ Works on Medicine and Science\nPublished by John Churchill.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nDr. Golding Bird, F.R.S. The Diagnosis, Pathological Indications And\nTreatment of Urinary Deposits. With Engravings on Wood. Second Edition.\nPost 8vo. cloth, 8_s._ 6_d._ By The Same Author. Elements of Natural\nPhilosophy; being an Experimental Introduction to the Study of the\nPhysical Sciences. Illustrated with several Hundred Wood-cuts. Third\nEdition. Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 12_s._ 6_d._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nMr. Beasley. The Pocket Formulary and Synopsis of The British And Foreign\nPharmacop\u0153ias; comprising Standard and Improved Formul\u00e6 for the\nPreparations and Compounds employed in Medical Practice. Fourth Edition,\ncorrected and enlarged. 18mo. cloth, 6_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nDr. Henry Bennett. A Practical Treatise on Inflammation, Ulceration, And\nInduration of the Neck of The Uterus; with Remarks on Leucorrh\u0153a and\nProlapsus Uteri, as Symptoms of this form of Disease. 8vo. cloth, 6_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nDr. Budd, F.R.S. On Diseases of the Liver; illustrated with Coloured\nPlates and Engravings on Wood. 8vo. cloth, 14_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nSir James Clark, Bart., M.D. On The Sanative Influence of Climate. With an\nAccount of the best Places of Resort for Invalids in England, the South of\nEurope, &c. Fourth Edition, revised. Post 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nDr. Carpenter, F.R.S.\nA Manual of Physiology; specially designed for the Use of Students. With\nnumerous Illustrations on Steel and Wood. Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 12_s._ 6_d._\nDr. Carpenter, F.R.S. Principles of General and Comparative Physiology;\nintended as an Introduction to the Study of Human Physiology, and as a\nGuide to the Philosophical Pursuit of Natural History. Illustrated with\nnumerous Figures on Copper and Wood. The Second Edition. 8vo. cloth,\n18_s._ By The Same Author. Principles of Human Physiology. numerous\nIllustrations on Steel and Wood. Third Edition. One thick 8vo. vol. 21_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nSir Astley Cooper, Bart., F.R.S. A Treatise on Dislocations and Fractures\nof the Joints. Edited by Bransby b. Cooper, F.R.S. 8vo. cloth, 20_s._ Sir\nAstley Cooper left very considerable additions in MS. for the express\npurpose of being introduced into this Edition. By The Same Author.\nObservations on the Structure and Diseases of the Testis. Illustrated with\nTwenty-four highly-finished coloured Plates. Second Edition. Royal 4to.\ncloth. _Reduced from_ 3_l._ 3_s. to_ 1_l._ 10_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nDr. Conolly. The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums and\nHospitals for the Insane. With Plans, post 8vo. cloth, 6_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nMr. Cooley. Comprehensive Supplement to the Pharmacop\u0153ia The Cyclop\u00e6dia of\nPractical Receipts, and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures,\nand Trades, Including Medicine, Pharmacy, and Domestic Economy; designed\nas a Compendious Book of Reference for the Manufacturer, Tradesman,\nAmateur, and Heads of Families. Second Edition, in one thick volume of 800\npages. 8vo. cloth, 14_s._\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nMr. Fergusson, F.R.S.E. A System of Practical Surgery; with numerous\nIllustrations on Wood. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 12_s._ 6_d._ Mr.\nChurchill\u2019s Publications. Mr. Fownes, PH. D., F.R.S. A Manual of\nChemistry; with numerous Illustrations on Wood. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo.\ncloth, 12_s._ 6_d._ \u201cAn admirable exposition of the present state of\nchemical science, simply and clearly written.\u201d\u2014_British and Foreign\nMedical Review._ By The Same Author. Introduction to Qualitative Analysis.\nPost 8vo. cloth, 2_s._\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n    1 Mr. Abernethy.\n\n    2 Experiment, as an organ of reason, not less distinguished from the\n      blind or dreaming industry of the alchemists, than it was\n      successfully opposed to the barren subtleties of the schoolmen.\n\n    3 Whose own mind, however, was not comprehended in the vortex; where\n      Kepler erred it was in the other extreme.\n\n    4 But still less would I avail myself of its acknowledged\n      inappropriateness to the purposes of physiology, in order to cast a\n      self-complacent sneer on the soul itself, and on all who believe in\n      its existence. First, because in my opinion it would be impertinent;\n      secondly, because it would be imprudent and injurious to the\n      character of my profession; and, lastly, because it would argue an\n      irreverence to the feelings of mankind, which I deem scarcely\n      compatible with a good heart, and a degree of arrogance and\n      presumption which I have never found, except in company with a\n      corrupt taste and a shallow capacity.\n\n    5 Vide Lawrence\u2019s Lecture.\n\n    6 Joh. Bapt. a Vico, Neapol. Reg. eloq. Professor, de antiquissima\n      Itallorum sapientia ex lingua Latina originibus aruend\u00e2: libri tres.\n      Neap., 1710.\n\n    7 The object I have proposed to myself, and wherein its distinction\n      exists, may be thus illustrated. A complex machine is presented to\n      the common view, the moving power of which is hidden. Of those who\n      are studying and examining it, one man fixes his attention on some\n      one application of that power, on certain effects produced by that\n      particular application, and on a certain part of the structure\n      evidently appropriated to the production of these effects, neither\n      the one or other of which he had discovered in a neighbouring\n      machine, which he at the same time asserts to be quite distinct from\n      the former, and to be moved by a power altogether different, though\n      many of the works and operations are, he admits, common to both\n      machines. In this supposed peculiarity he places the essential\n      character of the former machine, and defines it by the presence of\n      that which is, or which he supposes to be, absent in the latter.\n      Supposing that a stranger to both were about to visit the two\n      machines, this peculiarity would be so far useful as that it might\n      enable him to distinguish the one from the other, and thus to look\n      in the proper place for whatever else he had heard remarkable\n      concerning either; not that he or his informant would understand the\n      machine any better or otherwise, than the common character of a\n      whole class in the nomenclature of botany would enable a person to\n      understand all, or any one of the plants contained in that class.\n      But if, on the other hand, the machine in question were such as no\n      man was a stranger to, if even the supposed peculiarity, either by\n      its effects, or by the construction of that portion of the works\n      which produced them, were equally well known to all men, in this\n      case we can conceive no use at all of such a definition; for at the\n      best it could only be admitted as a definition for the purposes of\n      nomenclature, which never adds to knowledge, although it may often\n      facilitate its communication. But in this instance it would be\n      nomenclature misplaced, and without an object. Such appears to me to\n      be the case with all those definitions which place the essence of\n      Life in nutrition, contractility, &c. As the second instance, I will\n      take the inventor and maker of the machine himself, who knows its\n      moving power, or perhaps himself constitutes it, who is, as it were,\n      the soul of the work, and in whose mind all its parts, with all\n      their bearings and relations, had pre-existed long before the\n      machine itself had been put together. In him therefore there would\n      reside, what it would be presumption to attempt to acquire, or to\n      pretend to communicate, the most perfect insight not only of the\n      machine itself, and of all its various operations, but of its\n      ultimate principle and its essential causes. The mysterious ground,\n      the efficient causes of vitality, and whether different lives differ\n      absolutely or only in degree, He alone can know who not only said,\n      \u201cLet the earth bring forth the living creature, the beast of the\n      earth after his kind, and it was so;\u201d but who said, \u201cLet us make man\n      in our image, who himself breathed into his nostrils the breath of\n      Life, and man became a living soul.\u201d\n\n      The third case which I would apply to my own attempt would be that\n      of the inquirer, who, presuming to know nothing of the power that\n      moves the whole machine, takes those parts of it which are presented\n      to his view, seeks to reduce its various movements to as few and\n      simple laws of motion as possible, and out of their separate and\n      conjoint action proceeds to explain and appropriate the structure\n      and relative positions of the works. In obedience to the\n      canon,\u2014\u201cPrincipia non esse multiplicanda pr\u00e6ter summam necessitatem\n      cui suffragamur non ideo quia causalem in mundo unitatem vel ratione\n      vel experienti\u00e2 perspiciamus, sed illam ipsam indagamus impulsu\n      intellect\u00fbs, qui tantundem sibi in explicatione ph\u00e6nomenorum\n      profecisse videtur quantum ab codem principio ad plurima rationata\n      descendere ipsi concessum est.\u201d\n\n    8 The arborescent forms on a frosty morning, to be seen on the window\n      and pavement, must have _some_ relation to the more perfect forms\n      developed in the vegetable world.\n\n    9 Thus we may say that whatever is organized from without, is a\n      product of mechanism; whatever is mechanised from within, is a\n      production of organization.\n\n   10 \u201cThe matter that surrounds us is divided into two great classes,\n      living and dead; the latter is governed by physical laws, such as\n      attraction, gravitation, chemical affinity; and it exhibits physical\n      properties, such as cohesion, elasticity, divisibility, &c. Living\n      matter also exhibits these properties, and is subject, in great\n      measure, to physical laws. But living bodies are endowed moreover\n      with a set of properties altogether different from these, and\n      contrasting with them very remarkably.\u201d (Vide Lawrence\u2019s Lectures,\n      p. 121.)\n\n   11 Much against my will I repeat this scholastic term, _multeity_, but\n      I have sought in vain for an unequivocal word of a less repulsive\n      character, that would convey the notion in a positive and not\n      comparative sense in kind, as opposed to the _unum et simplex_, not\n      in degree, as contracted with the _few_. We can conceive no reason\n      that can be adduced in justification of the word _caloric_, as\n      invented to distinguish the external cause of the sensation heat,\n      which would not equally authorise the introduction of a technical\n      term in this instance.\n\n   12 For abstractions are the conditions and only subject of all abstract\n      sciences. Thus the theorist (vide Dalton\u2019s Theory), who reduces the\n      chemical process to the positions of atoms, would doubtless thereby\n      render chemistry calculable, but that he commences by destroying the\n      chemical process itself, and substitutes for it a _mote dance_ of\n      abstractions; for even the powers which he appears to leave real,\n      those of attraction and repulsion, he immediately unrealizes by\n      representing them as diverse and separable properties. We can\n      abstract the quantities and the quantitative motion from masses,\n      passing over or leaving for other sciences the question of what\n      constitutes the masses, and thus apply not to the masses themselves,\n      but to the abstractions therefrom,\u2014the laws of geometry and\n      universal arithmetic. And where the quantities are the infallible\n      signs of real powers, and our chief concern with the masses is as\n      SIGNS, sciences may be founded thereon of the highest use and\n      dignity. Such, for instance, is the sublime science of astronomy,\n      having for its objects the vast masses which \u201cGod placed in the\n      firmament of the heaven to be for _signs_ and for seasons, for days\n      and years.\u201d For the whole doctrine of physics may be reduced to\n      three great divisions: First, _quantitative motion_, which is\n      proportioned to the quantity of matter exclusively. This is the\n      science of weight or statics. Secondly, _relative motion_, as\n      communicated to bodies externally by impact. This is the science of\n      mechanics. Thirdly, _qualitative motion_, or that which is accordant\n      to properties of matter. And this is chemistry. Now it is evident\n      that the first two sciences presuppose that which forms the\n      exclusive object of the third, namely, quality; for all quantity in\n      nature is either itself derived, or at least derives its powers from\n      some _quality_, as that of weight, specific cohesion, hardness, &c.;\n      and therefore the attempt to reduce to the distances or impacts of\n      atoms, under the assumptions of two powers, which are themselves\n      declared to be no more than mere general terms for those quantities\n      of motion and impact (the atom itself being a fiction formed by\n      abstraction, and in truth a third occult quality for the purpose of\n      explaining hardness and density), amounts to an attempt to destroy\n      chemistry itself, and at the same time to exclude the sole reality\n      and only positive contents of the very science into which that of\n      chemistry is to be degraded. Now what qualities are to chemistry,\n      _productiveness_ is to the science of Life; and this being excluded,\n      physiology or zoonomy would sink into chemistry, chemistry by the\n      same process into mechanics, while mechanics themselves would lose\n      the substantial principle, which, bending the lower extreme towards\n      its apex, produces the organic circle of the sciences, and elevates\n      them all into different arcs or stations of the one absolute science\n      of Life.\n\n      This explanation, which in appearance only is a digression, was\n      indispensably requisite to prevent the idea of polarity, which has\n      been given as the universal law of Life, from being misunderstood as\n      a mere refinement on those mechanical systems of physiology, which\n      it has been my main object to explode.\n\n   13 I apprehend that by men of a certain school it would be deemed no\n      demerit, even though they should never have condescended to look\n      into any system of Aristotelian logic. It is enough for these\n      gentlemen that they are experimentalists! Let it not, however, be\n      supposed that they make more experiments than their neighbours, who\n      consider induction as a means and not an end; or have stronger\n      motives for making them, unless it can be believed that Tycho Br\u00e4he\n      must have been urged to repeat his sweeps of the heavens with\n      greater accuracy and industry than Herschel, for no better reason\n      than that the former flourished before the theory of gravitation was\n      perfected. No, but they have the honour of being mere\n      experimentalists! If, however, we may not refer to logic, we may to\n      common sense and common experience. It is not improbable, however,\n      that they have both read and studied a book of hypothetical\n      psychology on the assumptions of the crudest materialism, stolen too\n      without acknowledgment from our David Hartley\u2019s essay on Man, which\n      is well known under the whimsical name of Condillac\u2019s Logic. But, as\n      Mr. Brand has lately observed, \u201cthe French are a queer people,\u201d and\n      we should not be at all surprised to hear of a book of fresh\n      importation from Paris, on determinate proportions in chemistry,\n      announced by the author in his title-page as a new and improved\n      system either of arithmetic or geometry.\n\n   14 Such is the interpretation given by Lord Bacon. To which of the two\n      gigantic intellects, the poet\u2019s or philosophic commentator\u2019s, the\n      allegory belongs, I shall not presume to decide. Its extraordinary\n      beauty and appropriateness remains the same in either case.\n\n   15 The Anatomical Demonstrations of the Brain, by Dr. Spurzheim, which\n      I have seen, presented to me the most satisfactory proof of this.\n\n   16 The remark on the feeling of the antenn\u00e6, compared with the touch of\n      man, or even of the half-reasoning elephant, is yet more applicable\n      to the taste, which in these gelatinous animals might, perhaps not\n      inappropriately, be entitled the gastric sense.","title":"Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life.","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":25393}