86 PROTOPLASM. 



things in the establishment of which pre-existing vital 

 powers, associated with germinal matter, played no unim- 

 portant part. It has been shown that the production of 

 formed matter is due to the death of living matter under 

 certain conditions, which is itself a highly complex phe- 

 nomenon, and cannot be explained without supposing 



1. Certain internal forces capable of causing the elements 

 of the matter to arrange themselves in a certain definite 

 manner totally different from that in which the ordinary forces 

 of matter would cause these elements to be arranged ; and 



2. Certain influences operating from without (i.e., surround- 

 ing external conditions) tending to prevent the supposed 

 internal forces from exerting their sway. The composition, 

 structure and properties of the matter produced, must, it 

 seems to me, be referred to the influence of very different 

 antagonistic forces acting upon matter in opposite direc- 

 tions. All this, which takes place in all living particles, 

 seems very different from anything going on in non-living 

 matter. 



Hypothesis of Vital Force. 



It seems to me that the facts cannot be accounted for 

 except on the hypothesis of the existence of some force or 

 power which influences, in a manner we do not yet under- 

 stand, the ultimate elements of matter, and causes them to 

 take up particular relations to one another so that when 

 they combine, compounds of a special kind, and possessing 

 special characters, shall be formed. For, surely it cannot be 

 maintained that the atoms arrange themselves, and devise 

 what positions each is to take up, and it would be yet 



