388 PROFESSOR ALISON’S DEFENCE 
tion on the alteration of all the qualities of matter which are here implied, and 
shew that the Power which has introduced living beings upon earth has had at 
its command, and has actually modified, al/ the laws of nature. The water, car- 
bonic acid, and ammonia, which form the chief and essential constituents of the 
ingesta of vegetables, are there thrown into combinations, differing from any 
which they form, or which can be formed from the elements composing them, in 
any other circumstances. This is fairly admitted by Dr Dauseny, who says,— 
“ We are still far from imitating Nature in those processes by which she continues 
to bring about the wonderful products of organic life, and must admit that, judging 
from what is yet known, there would seem to be @ power residing in living 
matter, distinct, at least in its effects, from ordinary chemical and physical forces.* 
Now, before going farther, let us observe how essential to everything living, 
and how peculiar in its effects (from which alone it is known to us), is this power 
residing in living matter, and distinct from ordinary chemical forces, but which 
Dr Dauseny must regard as producing chemical effects, because he himself 
ascribes to it the formation of “the wonderful products of organic life.” 
Let us remember, that the very first requisite to the commencement of this great 
vital circulation, the decomposition of the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, fixing the 
carbon which is to serve as the basis of all organised structures, and setting free 
the oxygen, producing therefore a change which is unquestionably both peculiar 
and chemical, ‘‘is done by a power,” as stated by Liesia, “ surpassing that of the 
strongest galvanic battery, to which the strongest chemical action cannot be com- 
pared.” Next, let us observe, that the compounds formed in living bodies under 
the influence of this acknowledged power, of which the first indications are so 
striking, possess peculiarities (which I formerly noticed) quite sufficient to distin- 
guish them from all compounds formed by chemical affinities, under any other 
circumstances in nature. They have a uniform complexity of constitution, even 
in the minutest particles, not seen in inorganic solids; they assume perfectly de- 
finite forms, varying, not according to their chemical constitution, but according 
to their living progenitors, or the particles of living matter with which they come 
in contact. These forms, as long as they belong to living structures, never be- 
come crystalline; although the same elements, after escaping from the imme- 
diate contact and influence of living structures, even within the excretory 
ducts by which they are to be thrown out of the body, fall into compounds 
which take the crystalline arrangement. Above all, these organic compounds, 
thus influenced by place, are equally liable to an influence of time. They are all 
of transient duration, and particularly in the case of animals, we know that at the 
same time, at the same points, and in presence of the same agents, in which the 
* On the Atomic Theory, p. 370. 

