INCREASED VITAL ACTION. 85 



particles having different properties and powers, we should 

 still be quite unable to explain how it is that they did 

 not interfere with one another's interests ; why, for instance, 

 the most vigorous did not grow at the expense of their 

 weaker brethren, starving them by appropriating their 

 pabulum, destroying them utterly, and occupying the space 

 which they had not the strength to retain. 



Increased A ction. 



Increase in formative and constructive power seems to 

 be associated with the most limited change in germinal 

 matter, while rapid change increased vital action seems 

 to be invariably connected with decadence in power. How 

 can such phenomena be in any way due to the influence 

 of the ordinary forces associated with lifeless matter ? No 

 form or mode of force yet discovered has been known 

 to act in any way at all analogous to this. The results 

 must, therefore, be attributed to some peculiar power 

 capable of controlling and directing both matter and 

 force. 



It has been suggested that the different substances and 

 different structures produced by germinal matter at different 

 periods of development may depend upon the different 

 surrounding conditions present when the changes occur. 

 This, however, is no explanation at all, for the surrounding 

 conditions to which a mass of living matter in a growing 

 organism is exposed, as well as the circumstances con- 

 cerned in the production of these, are complex. They are 

 not simple external conditions, but are in part the result of 

 external circumstances, and in part of a previous state of 



