yiii 



The advocates on either side of this question respectively, 

 assert, on the one hand, that life is produced by the co-opera- 

 tion of the corporeal functions ; on the other, that life is not 

 an effect of the material structure, but a principle superadded to 

 it. Without designing to enter deeply into this dispute, it 

 may be inquired, if life is a product of the functions, or of the 

 mechanism, what makes the mechanism, or the functions ? As 

 (he mechanism falls to decay, and as the functions cease, when 

 life is extinct, it may be fairly presumed that life is instrumen- 

 tal to the formation and establishment of both. If it be said 

 that the structures are formed, and the functions commenced, 

 from a nucleus of peculiar construction, produced from a pa- 

 rental stock ; I reply, that this is attributing more to con- 

 struction or mechanism than is agreeable with analogy. We 

 have no instance of a mechanism which can produce, or reno- 

 vate itself, from its elements. Is the action of the heart, or 

 (he action of any other muscle, or is the secretion of urine by 

 the kidneys, bile by the liver, mucus by the intestines, pus from 

 raw surfaces, &c. to be explained by any resemblance which 

 die construction of these organs bear to the known examples 

 of mechanical arrangements which produce motion ? At least, 

 it is incumbent on those who would assert the affirmative, to 

 shew by what powers in mechanics these animal movements^ 

 and these processes, arc accomplished. 



It must be confessed that there are in animals peculiar pro- 

 perties, which are concerned in their functions : if it be said 

 that these are properties of the matter of which animals are 

 composed, intending thereby a contradistinction to a superadd- 

 ed vital principle, the difference of opinion upon this question 

 then becomes little more than verbal, to all the purposes of an 

 investigation of the laws of these properties. To state the, 

 argument more concisely, it may be asserted by one party that 

 the properties of life have no existence, except in connection 

 with matter ; and by the other party, that the properties of life 

 had an existence distinct from matter, and are, in the form of a 

 vital principle, superadded to matter. 



