DR. BEALE, ON CONTRACTILITY. 187 
heat.* Another writer goes the length of asserting that 
different quantities of force are absorbed in the formation of 
different cells. One equivalent of a high form of force cor- 
responds to many equivalents of an inferior kind of force. Thus 
a single nerve-cell, in its formation, consumes an equivalent 
of force which would suffice for the production of a large 
quantity of cabbage! -It only remains for this philosopher to 
demonstrate the vast amount of force set free at the moment of 
the death of the nerve-cell as compared with that which ema- 
nates from the cells of the dying cabbage, and his demonstra- 
tion will be complete ;—thus the identity of vital force with 
heat and primary motion will be established, and the exact 
amount of force liberated by the blood-cell, the epithelial- 
cell, and the nerve-cell, as they return to undergo the retro- 
grade metamorphosis, will be quantitatively estimated. 
_ In these views it will be observed that the action of tissue 
is not sufficiently distinguished from its production. Its 
formation and construction are not distinguished from the 
effects of its destruction. Doubtless, in the disintegration 
and chemical decomposition of the matter of a nerve-cell, 
force is set free, as in other forms of chemical decomposi- 
tion; but this is not vital action at all. It is simply the 
decomposition of matter which is already formed, and has 
perhaps long ceased to dive. What we want to know is, 
the condition of the force which is in relation with the 
matter of which the living or germinal matter consists, The 
action of a muscle, and the formation of a muscle, are two 
very different processes. The consideration of the one may 
belong to physics, but the other has nothing whatever to do 
with physics. The life of the muscle is not identical with the 
action of the muscle. The living part of muscle can move, 
but it does not contract like the muscle. It can produce 
more muscle, but the contracted tissue possesses no such 
power. 
The view which I have been led to take upon this question is 
very easily expressed in a few words. I think that every 
tissue or organism consists of matter that lives and matter 
that is formed. ‘The first is the seat of peculiar change sui 
generis, which never occurs in things inanimate. The second 
manifests phenomena which are, properly considered, phy- 
sical and chemical. The movements, the decomposing and 
the formative, the analytical and synthetical power, of the 
living matter, are due to the operation of a power or force or 
energy which is not to be measured by the work achieved, nor 
* On the application of the principle of “ Conservation of Force to Phy- 
siology,” by Dr. Carpenter.—‘ Quarterly Journal of Science,’ vol. 3, p. 82. 
