92 PROTOPLASM. 



a special part of his nervous mechanism, a still higher and 

 more wonderful power, influencing a very special and easily 

 destructible living matter. By virtue of this power man 

 alone, of all created beings, is impelled to seek for the 

 causes of the phenomena he observes, and is enabled 

 to devise new arrangements of material substances for his 

 own definite purposes, and in a manner in which these sub- 

 stances were never arranged before, and in which it is not 

 conceivable they could be arranged without man's design 

 and agency. The power supposed .totally distinct from any 

 forces or properties of which we are cognizant, and not in 

 any way correlated with any known forms or modes of force 

 of which we have any experience, exerts its sway upon any 

 definite portion of matter, during varying but usually only 

 very brief periods of time, often momentarily, and is then 

 transferred to, or passes on, and influences new particles. 

 From these the powers are transmitted to others, and so 

 on. The amount of matter influenced at any one moment 

 being greater in some situations than in others, and varying 

 according to a number of circumstances. In relation with 

 the delicate living matter, seated near the surface of the grey 

 matter of the convolutions of man's brain, which is alone 

 concerned in mental action, I conceive that vital power 

 attains its most exalted form. It seems to be temporarily 

 chained, as it were, to this matter, which it acts upon, and 

 through which alone it can make itself evident ; but seeing 

 that all forms of vital power are transferable, surely there 

 is nothing contrary to reason in supposing that at least this, 

 the highest form, may be freed from the material, and yet 

 exist without cessation, extinction, or annihilation. 



