186 Dr. Spurgin's Outlines of a Philosophical 



ble time ; but whether he could show with equal satisfaction that 

 that principle was identical with life, or entitled to that appel- 

 lation, without at the same time furnishing us with a definition 

 of his term, must remain questionable, so long as science 

 forbids indefinite terms to form a part of her vocabulary, or 

 disowns indefinable notions as portions of her system. 



To say that the blood enjoys vitality, or has a vital princi- 

 ple within it, in the same manner as the solids, — without de- 

 fining what is meant by a vital principle, — is to leave the sub- 

 ject of the blood's vitality involved in as much mystery as if 

 any other term, no matter how unintelligible, had been sub- 

 stituted in the place of vital principle, or vitality ! Indeed, we 

 cannot avoid I'epeating a remark which we made in our intro- 

 ductory lecture ; that " whenever a subject is dcjined and deter- 

 mined by occult qualities, it remains as obscure and %inintelli- 

 gible as if no dejinition or description had ever been given" 



Not to incur the charge, therefore, of employing unknown 

 principles as the basis of all our reasoning, we have attempted 

 a definition of the term Vitality, which we hope one day to 

 witness as the occasion of some discussion in the scientific 

 world ; and this with a coolness of intellect and dispassionate 

 unprejudiced state of mind which is best befitting so important 

 a subject, — a definition which we well know to be quite novel in 

 science, and which, therefore, we would not put forward as a 

 theory, but rather as a question for examination. 



We have endeavoured to express ourselves in as concise a 

 manner as possible on the blood's vitality, and to define in what 

 sense it may be regarded as a vital fluid. But as in considering 

 its vitality we find that property inseparable from its fluidity, 

 and thence connected with that condition which fits it for tra- 

 versing every part of the frame, we must follow the course of 

 this fluid, or accompany it to those its destinations where its 

 life becomes more and more apparent, or where its vitality 

 becomes more and more manifest. Contemplating then the 

 blood as circulating through every part of the body ; as per- 

 meating the vessels from their largest calibre to their minutest 

 capilli ; and as flowing, in short, through a whole body com- 

 posed almost entirely of such minute capilli, — we shall imme- 

 diately discern the ground and reason of the blood's fluidity; 

 this its property being, as we have before said, an essential in 

 its nature secondary only in importance to its first essential, 

 vitality. Much has been said on the cause of its fluidity, and 

 many experiments have been instituted with the view to dis- 

 cover it: warmth or heat alone will not preserve it fluid; for 

 it coagulates when effused into any cavity or part of the warm 



and 



