226 On the Vital Principle. 



words i " that the power which created all things, 

 " which gave life to animals, and motion to the 

 *' heavenly bodies, continues to aft upon, and to 

 •' maintain all, by the unceafing influence of a 

 *' living principle pervading the univerfe, the 

 " nature of which our faculties are incapable of 

 " duly comprehending*." But this theory feems 

 liable to the fame objection with the notion of a 

 plaftic power ; that neither of them affords a 

 fatisfaftory explanation of the phenomena of fenfe 

 and motion. For the plaftic power, or living 

 principle, muft be either material or immaterial : 

 if it be material, then it muft be allowed that 

 matter, as matter, is fufceptible of life; now as 

 the exiftence of the plaftic power is merely affu- 

 med, we have a right, in this cafe, to fuppofe 

 that the body acquires vitality by a certain 

 degree of organization, as a preferable hypo- 

 thefis. But if the plaftic power be declared im- 

 material, its aftion on matter is as difficult to be 

 conceived, as the adbion of ah immaterial mind 

 on the body, and confequently nothing is gained 

 but a term by the fuppofition. If the living 

 power be fuppofed to be an immediate act of the 

 Deity, *an opinion which has been held by many 

 philofophersf, this is liable to ftill ftronger ob- 



* Conclufion of Obf. on the Nervous Syftem. 



'f Sennert. Epitom. Phyf. p. 82. Allied. Encyclop. 

 p. 530. 



jedions; 



