ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 25 



The Mineral Kingdom can never be confounded with 

 the other two. Fossils are masses of mere dead unor- 

 ganized matter, subject to the laws of chemistry alone ; 

 growing indeed, or increasing by the mechanical addi- 

 tion of extraneous substances, or by the laws of chem- 

 ical attraction, but not fed by nourishment taken into an 

 organized structure. Their curious crystallization bears 

 some resemblance to organization, but performs none 

 of its functions, nor is any tiling like a vital principle to 

 be found in this department of Nature. 



If it be asked what is this vital principle, so essential 

 to animals and vegetables, but of which fossils are desti- 

 tute, we must own our complete ignorance. We know 

 it, as we know its Omnipotent Author, by its effects. 



Perhaps in the fossil kingdom heat may be equivalent 

 to a vital principle ; but heat is not the vital principle 

 of organized bodies, though probably a consequence of 

 that principle. 



Living bodies of animals and plants produce heat ; 

 and this phcenomenon has not, I think, been entirely 

 explained on any chemical principles, though in fossils 

 the production of heat is in most cases tolerably well 

 accounted for. In animals it seems to have tie closest 

 possible connexion with the vital energy. But the ef- 

 fects of this vital energy are still more stupendous in the 

 operations constantly going on in every organized body, 

 from our own elaborate frame to the humblest moss or 

 fungus. Those different fluids, so fine and transparent, 

 separated from each other by membranes as fine, which 



compose the eye, all retain their proper situations 

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