TABLE OF CONTENTS 



II. Of Life, what it consists of, and the Conditions of 



ITS Existence in a Body 201 



That life in itself is a purely physical phenomenon, which 

 gradually gives rise to many other phenomena, and which is due 

 exclusively to the relations existing between the adapted con- 

 taining parts of a body, the contained fluids moving in them, and 

 the exciting cause of the movements and changes which take 

 place in the body. 



III. Of the Exciting Cause of Organic Movements - 211 



That the organic movements, as also the movements which 

 constitute the actions of animals, are not communicated, but 

 etimulated by the activity of an exciting cause, which is not part 

 of the bodies it animates and does not perish like them ; that 

 this cause resides in the invisible, subtle, expansive fluids, con- 

 stantly in agitation, which penetrate into, or are incessantly 

 being developed in the bodies which they animate. 



IV. Of Orgasm and Irritability 219 



That the exciting cause of organic movements sets up in the 

 supple parts of living bodies, especially of animals, an orgasm 

 which is essential for the preservation of life ; and which, in the 

 case of animals, confers on the parts which possess it the faculty of 

 being irritable. 



That Irritability is a faculty belonging exclusively to the supple 

 parts of animals, that it confers on them the power of producing 

 local manifestations which are repeated as often as the instigating 

 cause is brought to bear ; lastly, that this faculty is essentially 

 distinct from that of feeling. 



V. Of Cellular Tissue, regarded as the Matrix in 



which all Organisation has been cast - - 230 



That cellular tissue is the universal matrix of aU organisation, 

 and that the movement of fluids in this tissue is the means employed 

 by nature for the creation and gradual development of the organs, 

 at the expense of the tissue in question. 



VI. Of Direct or Spontaneous Generation - - - 236 



That, since all living bodies are productions of nature, she 

 must herself have organised the simplest of such bodies, endowed 

 them directly with life, and with the faculties pecuHar to living 

 bodies. 



That by means of these direct generations formed at the 

 beginning both of the animal and vegetable scales, nature has 

 ultimately conferred existence on all other living bodies in turn. 



VII. Of the Immediate Results of Life in a Body - - 249 



That it is not true that living bodies have the faculty of resisting 

 the laws and forces to which all non-living bodies are subject, nor 



