THEIR LIFE AND AFFINITY- 227 



Inorganisms, — 1st, all substances which, though infinitely divisible, being 

 but mechanically so, are incapable of being developed into various parts 

 and of maintaining at the same time their individual existence ; and 

 therefore all elementary bodies, such for instance as oxygen, hydrogen, 

 carbon, the metals, sulphur, &c. 2nd, All substances whose resolution or 

 development into their elements annihilates their individual existence ; 

 as, for instance, water, which, as soon as it is decomposed by the influ- 

 ence of galvanism into oxygen and hydrogen gas, ceases to be water, — 

 widely differing in this respect from the plant, which, when it develops 

 itself into leaves, branches, flowers, and fruit, remains still the same 

 plant, or rather becomes then for the first time completely a plant. To 

 these we must add the acids, salts, &c., nay, the constituent parts of or- 

 ganic bodies themselves, which being resolved into their elements are, 

 as organic bodies, utterly destroyed. 3rd, All bodies which owe not their 

 existence and multiplicity to spontaneous development, but are composed 

 by nature or by art out of materials already prepared; for instance, float- 

 ing islands, buildings formed by animals, all automata, machines, &c. 



But as we find in real organisms single subordinate parts or organs, 

 which in a certain degree reproduce the idea of the whole ; nay, as we 

 see that in less perfect organisms that bond of unity which holds the 

 developed parts together is yet so feeble that if it is separated the part 

 appears to be really a whole, (for instance, the shoot of a plant separated 

 from its parent often becomes a new plant, and the parts of a polypus 

 become new polypi,) so do we not unfrequently observe the idea of 

 the living thing to which they belong reproduced to a certain extent 

 by natural bodies which, so far as they are parts of a greater organism, 

 have not the appearance of being organisms themselves. Of this fact 

 we have an instance in the formation of a water-drop, which, as mani- 

 festing a certain force of gravity or tendency to internal unity, is es- 

 sentially analogous to the spherical formation of the heavenly bodies ; 

 and in crystallization, the growth of metals, &c. we see a repetition of 

 the process by which the earth was formed out of fluids. If we turn 

 our attention to these intimations of individual life in unorganized 

 bodies, the idea of the living principle pervading all nature presents 

 itself anew and more distinctly to our minds, and we are forced to ad- 

 mit the relations of the unorganized to organized bodies, which could 

 exist only in this connexion and under their other relations to universal 

 nature. From all this we are finally led to infer the universal connex- 

 ion, the combination, the never-ceasing action and reaction of all the 

 powers of nature, sometimes in sympathy, sometimes in antipathy, as 

 necessary to the production of an immeasurably vast and magnificent 

 whole, — an action and reaction wliich would be impossible, were not all 

 originally pervaded by ont; living principle, were not all in this respect 

 rimilar and allied to each other. 



