200 DR. R. WILSON ON THE COAL MINERS 
XV.—The Coal Miners of Durham amd Northumberland: their 
Habits and Diseases.* By Rosert Wison, M.D. 
We search in vain amongst the works on Biology for a satis- 
factory definition of Life. Our recent writers on the subject 
consider life as a non-entity; that per se it has no existence. 
And absurd as it may appear to suppose that that does not exist 
which all are conscious of possessing, this idea is perhaps as 
near the truth as it is possible for us to get. It is sufficient for 
all practical purposes to consider life as a manifestation of a 
mode of existence—in short, a state or condition, and that state 
or condition as 
“ The fiat of that mighty God, 
Whose word flew forth at once to its effect; 
Who called for things that were not, and they came.” 
Yet however incorrect the theories as to the nature of Life may 
be, and however vain the attempts to define it, for convenience 
it is well to have a phrase to express the phenomena manifested 
in vital organisms; that of Biclard is perhaps as good as any, 
viz., that ‘‘ Life is organization in action.”” To convey this idea 
I shall use the shorter, but not less arbitrary phrase, “ vital 
action.” Death may be said to be the condition opposite to 
life. For similar reasons death cannot be defined, but as in the 
case of life, a definition is not of much practical importance, 
as all conceive correctly with regard to it. All animals have a 
conscious or intuitive knowledge that under certain circumstances 
only can the phenomena of life go on. That which we have 
called vital action must cease, and that permanent cessation of 
vital action called death must supervene. But the medical man 
has to deal with a state which may be said to be one of transition 
from life to death, viz., disease. And however unimportant it 
may be what theory we adopt as to the nature of life and death, 
it is of great consequence that we form a correct conception as 
to the real nature of disease; and unfortunately it is very 
difficult indeed to say whether most error exists on this subject 
amongst the educated or the uneducated. The cause of this is 
* This paper was read also at the Newcastle meeting of the British Association 
(Sub-section D), 
