50 NATURE AND LIFE. 



fact, that which gives their character to these primordial 

 elements of life is dynamic actuality. Let us consider a 

 dead cell and a living cell. What makes the difference be- 

 tween them ? Nothing at all, either from the geometrical 

 point of view, or from the physical or chemical one ; noth- 

 ing which may be detected by measurement, or balances, 

 or reagents. The difference between them is, that the for- 

 mer is devoid of the activity which exists in the latter. 

 That activity is a continuous inmost transmutation, by 

 which the matter of the cell is incessantly renewed, with- 

 out any modification of its morphological appearances or 

 of its other properties. Life consists in this tide which 

 flows deep through every element in the organization, in 

 that virtue of instability which effects unceasing change 

 in the matter of appearances, while the form and the force 

 do not vary. It exists in those organic properties, pure 

 forces, which are constant, while the organs, the visible 

 forms, are passing. Therefore, in opposition to the belief 

 of materialism, and in accordance with Leibnitz's views, 

 matter, in such case, is merely the shifting envelope ; the 

 unchangeable base is force. In addition to nutrition, which 

 has just been defined, other manifestations of life are, 

 through organization, development, contractility, feeling, 

 thought, will. These other aspects yield us the same dem- 

 onstration. The utter impossibility of producing any 

 thing organized with mere inorganic forces, the impotence 

 of spontaneous generation in the first place, testifies that 

 organization possesses a higher principle than that of the 

 phenomena of the mineral kingdom : but organization is 

 not the only thing that it is forbidden to attribute to the 

 working of physico-chemical means ; the same holds true 

 of contractility, sensibility, and a fortiori of thought and 

 will. The greater the development of experimental science, 

 the more decided is the difference between these two or- 

 ders of phenomena, which theory held might be con- 



