8 INORGANIC BODIES AND 



But to return to our proposition, which is that all living 

 beings are composed of four chemical elements, and these ele- 

 ments are held together by the principle of life. We cannot go 

 behind the veil to see the ultimate condition of this principle; 

 it must remain, like the principle of gravity, of electricity, and 

 many other things, a partially unexplained phenomenon; 

 suffice it for our purpose that we consider it perhaps as fully 

 understood as is ordinary chemical affinity. A drop of water is 

 composed of two elements, Oxygen and Hydrogen, represented 

 by O H, which are held together by ordinary or natural chemical 

 affinity. Common hartshorn or ammonia is composed of two 

 elements, namely, Nitrogen and Hydrogen, in these proportions, 

 N H 3 . Alcohol is composed of three elements, namely, Carbon, 

 Hydrogen, and Oxygen, represented by C 4 H 6 O 2 , in the pro- 

 portions indicated by the figures, and these also are held together 

 by natural chemical affinity. This is easily understood. It is a 

 very simple proposition. 



Now, in place of this so-called natural chemical affinity, sub- 

 stitute in your minds that other kind of affinity which I have 

 called the vital affinity, and apply it to these selfsame chemical 

 elements, Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, C H O N, 

 and you have an organized being, a plant or an animal. We 

 may have on one side of a line, life, C H O N, and on the other 

 side the same elements, C H O N, but in different proportions, 

 representing the absence of life, which is death, and between 

 them, circumstances * which determine the conditions of these 

 elements, whether they shall exist in one combination or an- 

 other. 

 Organic Hfe = C H O N, circumstances, Inorganic bodies=C HON. 



Without reflection this might seem like the exchange of one 

 chemical compound for another, and not the substitution of life 

 for death, or the substitution of the vital affinity in place of 

 natural chemical affinity ; but nevertheless it is true that so 



* Thus, for instance, flesh or blood is composed of C 48 H 39 N 6 O 15 , and when 

 these decay and putrefy, Carbonic Acid (C O 2 ), Water (H 0), and Ammonia 

 (N IP), are the result. 



