76 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



certain range of climate ; every plant to certain zones 

 of latitude and elevation. Of the marine flora and 

 fauna, each species is found exclusively between such 

 and such depths. Some blind creatures flourish only 

 in dark caves j the limpet only where it is alternately 

 covered and uncovered by the tide ; the red-snow alga 

 rarely elsewhere than in the arctic regions or among 

 alpine peaks.' But having once recognized the im- 

 portance of this action and reaction continually taking 

 place between the organism and its environment, we 

 become the more alive to the shortcomings of those 

 definitions which do not include this fundamental 

 notion. Though unsatisfactory for other reasons also, 

 the definition of De Blainville will be seen to be 

 eminently defective in this respect. He says, ' Life is 

 the twofold internal movement of composition and 

 decomposition, at once general and continuous.' Almost 

 the same objection may also be alleged against the de- 

 finition of Richerand, that c Life is a collection of phe- 

 nomena which succeed each other during a limited time 

 in an organized body,' even if it had not been useless 

 as a definition of Life, because the same words would 

 be applicable to the process of decay taking place 

 after death in a previously living body. 



Life, says Schelling 1 , is the < principle of mdwiduation^ 

 or the power which unites a given all into a 'whole! 



1 As given in an unacknowledged translation by Coleridge entitled 

 ' Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of 

 Life,' 1848, p. 42. 



