050 Mr Carpenter on the Differences of the Laws 



bodies composing the solar system the spirit of the laws of gra- 

 vitation and of motion, § 8), we require nothing but the con- 

 tinued action of these laws to account for the continued exist- 

 ence of the race (just as the continued action of the laws of 

 gravitation and of motion retains the planets in their orbits). 

 To suppose that the adaptation of these laws to each other, 

 and to those of the external world, could be otherwise than per- 

 fect, would be to cast a stigma upon Infinite Wisdom. What 

 they are, it is the object of the physiologist to ascertain by in- 

 duction ; and he certainly will not derive any assistance by set- 

 ting out with the notion of a secondary presiding existence, 

 whether '^u%»!, anima, divincB pariicida mirce, vital principle, or 

 organic agent. 



31. The doctrine of a single presiding existence controlling 

 and directing the actions of each organism, is contrary to known 

 facts. If such a principle exist in connection with the living 

 body, we cannot but suppose that its departure would be coin- 

 cident with what has been termed somatic death, that is, the 

 genei'al disunion of the vital functions and the cessation of the 

 functions of the nervous system. But we well know that the 

 vital propei'ties of each one of the tissues concerned in organic 

 life may be retained for a considerable period, and that vital 

 actions may be performed by individual organs as long as the 

 conditions which those actions require in the living body are 

 supplied to them. The time at which the vital properties 

 finally disappear varies according to circumstances ; it is dif- 

 ferent in every tissue, and the extinction is not sudden but gra- 

 dual. If, then, we hold the doctrine of a vital principle, we 

 must allow that it may be split into as many individual exist- 

 ences as there are organs in the body ; and this is, in fact, ap- 

 proaching to the view of the vital properties which it has been 

 our object to establish. 



32. Further, the doctrine of a vital principle is wholly un- 

 supported by the analogies of Nature. No reflecting mind has 

 any doubt that this earth and its inhabitants form a system 

 (which we might almost call an organised one, if the idea of a 

 particular structure were not involved in the term), of which 

 every part is perfectly adapted to the rest, and of which all the 

 actions and changes, however in appearance contrary, have one 



